diff --git "a/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrydh" "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrydh" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/data_all_eng_slimpj/shuffled/split2/finalzzrydh" @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +{"text":" \n# Alcohol\n\n# THE LIBRARY OF ADDICTIVE DRUGS\n\n# Alcohol\n\nITS HISTORY, PHARMACOLOGY, AND TREATMENT\n\n# MARK EDMUND ROSE, M.A.,\n\n# and\n\n# CHERYL J. CHERPITEL, DR.P.H.\n\nHazelden Publishing\n\nCenter City, Minnesota 55012\n\n800-328-9000 \nhazelden.org\/bookstore\n\n\u00a9 2011 by Hazelden Foundation\n\nAll rights reserved. Published 2011.\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means\u2014electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise\u2014without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nRose, Mark Edmund.\n\nAlcohol: its history, pharmacology, and treatment \/ Mark Edmund Rose and Cheryl J. Cherpitel.\n\np. cm.\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN 978-1-61649-147-5 (softcover) \u2014 ISBN 978-1-61649-403-2 (e-book)\n\n1. Drinking of alcoholic beverages\u2014United States\u2014History. 2. Alcoholism\u2014Social aspects\u2014United States. 3. Alcoholism\u2014Psychological aspects\u2014United States. 4. Alcoholism\u2014Treatment\u2014United States\u2014History. I. Cherpitel, Cheryl J. II. Title.\n\nHV5015.R67 2011\n\n616.86'1\u2014dc23\n\n2011037772\n\nEditor's note\n\nThis publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.\n\nAlcoholics Anonymous, AA, the Big Book, the Grapevine, AA Grapevine, and GV are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.\n\nHazelden offers a variety of information on chemical dependency and related areas. The views and interpretations expressed herein are those of the authors and are neither endorsed nor approved by AA or any Twelve Step organization.\n\n14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5 6\n\nCover design by Theresa Jaeger Gedig\n\nInterior design by Madeline Berglund\n\nTypesetting by BookMobile Design and Publishing Services\n\n# CONTENTS\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nIntroduction\n\nCHAPTER 1: History of Alcohol Use, Alcoholism, and Treatment in the United States\n\nCHAPTER 2: The Demographics of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism\n\nCHAPTER 3: Societal Impact of Alcohol Use and Dependence\n\nCHAPTER 4: The Science of Alcohol and Alcoholism\n\nCHAPTER 5: Alcohol Withdrawal and Its Management\n\nCHAPTER 6: Twelve Step and Other Self-Help Therapies\n\nCHAPTER 7: Professional Treatment of Alcoholism\n\nCHAPTER 8: Meditation and Recovery from Alcoholism\n\nCHAPTER 9: Trends in the Treatment of Alcoholism\n\nEpilogue\n\nReferences\n\nAbout the Authors\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nA funny thing happened along the way as I [Mark Rose] was preparing to enter treatment for drug and alcohol dependence. It was June 1983, and my grade point average at UC Santa Barbara had just slid below 2.0. I returned home for the summer and had several meetings with concerned professionals, which had been arranged by my parents. I agreed to go into treatment after finishing a summer class at UC San Diego, where an \"A\" would get me out of academic probation. Concluding that psychopharmacology was my best shot, I enrolled in a course taught by an unknown, entry-level instructor named George Koob, Ph.D. (now one of the top addiction scientists in the world). I became fascinated with learning about how therapeutic and recreational drugs acted on the brain to produce their effects, and I frequently visited with Dr. Koob. I took the final exam, entered treatment the next day, and got my \"A.\"\n\nI would sincerely like to thank Dr. Koob for igniting a passion; my former boss Mark Willenbring, M.D.; undergraduate mentor Harry Hoberman, Ph.D.; supervisor Warren Maas, L.P., J.D.; and friend Aviel Goodman, M.D., for their hugely influential role in helping me define and shape my professional interests and direction.\n\nI would also like to express my gratitude to my parents for their unwavering love and support, my uncle Walt and grandmother Lilli (we called her Nana) for their incredible caring and emotional generosity while they were around, all my close friends along the way, and my sister Karen Rose Werner and friends Jonathan Rice, Seamus Mahoney, and Mark Mahowald, M.D., for their input while this book was being written. And finally, I would like to thank Aviel Goodman, M.D., for his time and invaluable peer review and critique of the chapter on the science of alcohol and alcoholisms.\n\nThe following authors and\/or publishers have graciously granted permission to use material from their work:\n\nCoyhis, D. L., and W. L. White. 2006. Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery. Colorado Springs: White Bison, Inc.\n\nDDA (Dual Diagnosis Anonymous). 1996. \"12 Steps + 5: Original Concept Paper.\" Dual Diagnosis Anonymous of Oregon Inc. website. Accessed Apr. 8, 2011. www.ddaoregon.com\/about.htm.\n\nDole, Vincent P. 1991. \"Addiction as a Public Health Problem,\" Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 15, no. 5. (October 1991): 749\u2013752. Published by John Wiley and Sons. \u00a9 1991, John Wiley and Sons.\n\nGarland, E. L., S. A. Gaylord, C. A. Boettiger, and M. O. Howard. 2010. \"Mindfulness Training Modifies Cognitive, Affective, and Physiological Mechanisms Implicated in Alcohol Dependence: Results of a Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial.\" Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 42:177\u2013192.\n\nGorski, T. T., and M. Miller. 1982. Counseling for Relapse Prevention. Independence, MO: Independence Press. This material is copyrighted and proprietary information of Terence T. Gorski.\n\nHarwood, H. 2000. Updating Estimates of the Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse in the United States: Estimates, Update Methods, and Data. Report prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Based on estimates, analyses, and data reported in Harwood, H., D. Fountain, and G. Livermore. 1998. The Economic Costs of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in the United States 1992. Report prepared for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. NIH Publication No. 98-4327. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health.\n\nHenderson, Elizabeth Connell. 2000. Understanding Addiction. Copyright 2000 by University Press of Mississippi.\n\nMiller, W. R., and R. J. Harris. 2000. \"Simple Scale of Gorski's Warning Signs for Relapse.\" Journal of Studies on Alcohol 61:759\u2013765. Items reproduced with permission from Alcohol Research Documentation, Inc., publisher of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, now the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (www.jsad.com). This material is copyrighted and proprietary information of Terence T. Gorski.\n\nWhite, William L. 2007. \"In Search of the Neurobiology of Addiction Recovery: A Brief Commentary on Science and Stigma.\" www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org\/pdf\/White\/White_neurobiology _2007.pdf. (Also available at www.williamwhitepapers.com.)\n\nWHO (World Health Organization). 2008. \"Core Health Indicators: Per Capita Recorded Alcohol Consumption (Litres of Pure Alcohol) among Adults (>=15 Years).\" Accessed Sept. 15, 2011. http:\/\/apps.who.int\/whosis\/database\/core\/core_select_process.cfm?strISO3 _select=ALL&strIndicator_select=AlcoholConsumption&intYear _select=latest&language=english.\n\nThe excerpts from the pamphlet Three Talks to Medical Societies are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (\"AAWS\"). Permission to reprint these excerpts does not mean that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only\u2014use of these excerpts in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A., but which address other problems, or in any other non A.A. context, does not imply otherwise.\n\n# INTRODUCTION\n\nAlcohol is unique among recreational drugs. On one hand, many people enjoy drinking alcohol and are able to do so without harming themselves or others. On the other hand, 15% of all persons who drink alcohol will develop an addiction to alcohol (also called alcoholism or alcohol dependence) (Anthony et al. 1994; Chen and Anthony 2004; Hughes et al. 2006).\n\nThe U.S. government estimates that 104 million adults in the U.S. are regular drinkers and that 18.2 million people currently have a diagnosable alcohol use disorder, which includes alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010; Hasin et al. 2007). Almost every American is affected by alcoholism. More than half of all adults have a family history of problem drinking or alcoholism, and families, communities, and society as a whole are enormously impacted (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010; Hasin et al. 2007).\n\nAlcohol abuse and alcoholism cost the U.S. economy approximately $235 billion each year (Thavorncharoensap et al. 2009), accounted for by alcohol-related accidents and injury, property destruction, and violent crime; illness, disease, and premature death; and worker impairment that results in elevated costs to the health care, criminal justice, and social service systems, and in lost worker productivity and industrial output. The emotional cost to the alcoholic, the family, the loved ones, and the innocent victims of alcohol-related physical and sexual assault, motor vehicle accidents, and ruined relationships cannot be calculated.\n\nFortunately, the last ten years have seen enormous advances in the understanding of alcoholism and its treatment. With tremendous scientific leaps in investigating and understanding the biological basis of alcoholism, the effectiveness of existing treatments, and the future direction of treatment development all may further improve treatment outcomes. Research has identified the drinking patterns among nonalcoholics that place them at highest risk for accidents, injuries, and medical problems. This information is already being used in prevention and risk-reduction efforts.\n\nMuch of the research addressed in this book has been funded by the U.S. government through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which is the branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that addresses alcohol problems and alcoholism.\n\nThis book provides detailed, current information on the most important aspects of alcohol use, alcoholism, and its treatment. Preparation of this book involved an exhaustive review of the most recent research in areas of alcoholism important to professionals, students, alcoholics in recovery, concerned family members and loved ones of the alcoholic, and to anyone with an interest in the subject matter. Although some of the concepts are complex, we have made every effort to keep the material accessible and easy to understand for readers unfamiliar with addiction, while keeping it interesting and relevant for students and professionals in the field. Following is a chapter-by-chapter overview of the major topics covered in this book.\n\nThe historical background of alcohol use, alcohol problems, and treatment in the United States is examined in chapter 1. The chapter provides a context for understanding the origin of current treatment approaches and of the cyclical nature of attitudes toward alcoholics and alcohol problems. Many elements of the current understanding of alcoholism and addiction actually originated in the late 1800s, when the core features of alcoholism such as the genetic contribution, craving, tolerance, progression, and loss of control were identified. A history of the disease concept of alcoholism and an overview of the rise and fall of the temperance movements and self-help organizations in the 1800s are also provided. The founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 and the introduction of the Minnesota Model of alcoholism treatment in the late 1940s are discussed, as is their evolution to the present day.\n\nAlcohol use is widespread among nearly all segments of American society, and no demographic group is immune to alcohol problems and alcoholism. Chapter 2 describes the latest statistics on alcohol use, alcohol problems and alcoholism, patterns of drinking that distinguish certain groups from others (e.g., college students), and those demographic groups that are especially susceptible to alcohol problems. Also discussed are thefactors that place certain individuals at a much higher risk of developing alcoholism. Those factors include\n\n * childhood stress and emotional trauma;\n * genetic factors;\n * the influence of family, culture, and the peer group;\n * psychological and personality factors; and\n * the interaction between genetic susceptibility and environmental stress.\n\nThe use of alcohol is linked to many harmful consequences not only for the drinker but also the family and friends of the drinker, and the community and society inhabited by the drinker. Some of the social harms associated with alcohol include crime, accidents and injuries, illness, disease and death, and disrupted school and work performance and productivity. The public health impact of alcohol use and alcoholism is discussed in chapter 3. The chapter includes the impact of alcohol use in special populations such as women, college students, and adolescents, and the contribution of drinking to crime, domestic abuse, and injuries, including traffic-related accidents and fatalities. The total economic cost of alcohol abuse is also discussed.\n\nChapter 4 explains the biological basis of alcoholism. While social drinking and occasional heavy drinking are not viewed as having a disease basis, a subset of drinkers will eventually develop alcohol dependence. Certain core symptoms of alcohol dependence reflect potential changes in the structure and function of key brain regions. Those symptoms are\n\n * the inability to control one's drinking,\n * the persistence in drinking despite harmful consequences,\n * craving of alcohol,\n * preoccupation over the next drink, and\n * the need to drink more alcohol to achieve the desired effect.\n\nThese changes in brain function serve to perpetuate compulsive drinking and may make relapse likely since they may persist after drinking has stopped, forming the basis for defining alcohol dependence as a chronic disease. Alcoholism shares many similarities with other chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. However, regarding alcoholism as a disease does not remove responsibility from the alcoholic for continuous self-care, any more than it does from the diabetic or hypertensive patient.\n\nStarting in chapter 4, \"Notes\" in italic font may appear. Because some of the material related to the science of alcoholism and the pharmacology of drug therapies for alcoholism can be especially complex due to its language, the authors offer an additional explanatory note. In order to preserve the integrity while keeping the material accessible to the lay reader, a summary paragraph in italics is placed at the end of the more complex and technical sections.\n\nAlcohol withdrawal develops shortly after a person with alcohol dependence abruptly stops drinking. The severity of withdrawal can vary from minor symptoms to hallucinations, seizures, permanent disability, or death. Alcohol withdrawal is discussed in chapter 5, including the signs and symptoms, the factors that influence the severity, and the medications that are used to manage alcohol withdrawal. Also described is post-acute withdrawal from alcohol, which reflects the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal that extend beyond the period of acute alcohol withdrawal. Post-acute withdrawal may last for months in some persons. It may consist of disturbances in mood, memory, stress tolerance, sleep, and energy level. Changes in brain function from chronic alcohol abuse can contribute to the symptoms of post-acute withdrawal, which may be reduced through active involvement in a recovery program such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).\n\nAlcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the most widely available and successful recovery program for persons who want to quit drinking. In the past decade, a large volume of research has validated AA as a potentially essential and effective component of long-term recovery. Until fairly recently, the scientific evidence of AA success was much weaker, resulting in mixed feelings among some clinicians in referring clients, and in greater effort among researchers in investigating alternatives to AA.\n\nNow, with the strength of scientific evidence, the focus of researchers has shifted, in part, to exploring ways to increase the attendance and retention of new members in AA. Special attention is given to those members referred from treatment settings. Chapter 6 discusses AA in depth and the different aspects of AA such as the demographic makeup of its members, the structure and organization, the Twelve Step program, and the spiritual framework. Also discussed are the specific elements that operate within AA that contribute to sobriety and the other benefits from involvement.\n\nThe concept of spirituality itself is confusing for many people, and this concept is explained to the reader from several different perspectives. Also discussed are the various self-help organizations that provide an alternative to AA for persons preferring a more tailored or secular approach, as well as the latest research on the effectiveness of these programs in promoting abstinence.\n\nProfessional treatment of alcohol dependence consists of psychological and medication approaches, and these are discussed in chapter 7. Medication therapy of alcohol dependence involves the use of drugs that are free of abuse potential, with the goal of reducing the craving for alcohol, irritability, and anxiety that plague many persons trying to stay sober. Medications are also used in persons who frequently relapse in order to block the pleasurable effects of alcohol and therefore the motivation to continue drinking if a relapse begins.\n\nEffective medication therapy is the direct result of advances in the understanding of the brain biology of alcohol dependence. Research has identified abnormal functioning in several brain chemical systems that are associated with alcohol cravings and emotional distress in early recovery. Medications are used to target these systems to normalize their function, which in turn can reduce these symptoms and diminish the likelihood of relapse in early recovery. There is universal agreement that medications should never be used as the only source of therapy, and that medications will never replace self-help programs such as AA as the cornerstone of long-term sobriety. However, medications can play a vital role in blocking the obsession and craving to drink and in reducing the risk of relapse during early recovery when relapse risk is highest.\n\nPsychological approaches to treating alcohol dependence address the problematic thinking, emotions, and behavior of alcoholics trying to achieve and maintain sobriety. These approaches consist of cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavioral therapies intended for the alcoholic or for the family or partner of the alcoholic, motivational enhancement interventions, and an approach that combines elements of several psychological treatment approaches to address relapse prevention.\n\nOther aspects of professional treatment are also discussed. The average American has probably seen many television commercials for alcoholism treatment where a high \"cure\" rate is promised, which can raise questions about the actual success rates of alcohol treatment programs. Chapter 7 presents a discussion of the history of treatment outcome reporting, and how improvements in research methods have led to the more accurate evaluation of treatment outcome. The elements of successful recovery from alcoholism are also described, as well as the special treatment needs of older adults.\n\nMeditation and prayer are important spiritual components of recovery for many alcoholics and are included in Step Eleven of AA. Although comprehensive coverage of prayer is beyond the scope of this book, chapter 8 gives a detailed discussion of meditation and the use of meditation throughout history to achieve greater closeness with the Divine. The meditation approaches most often used and their spiritual roots are also presented. Recent research provides us with an interesting account of positive changes in brain function and structure with regular meditation, and how these changes parallel the transformations in thought, emotion, behavior, and perception reported by practitioners. Many alcoholics entering sobriety have histories of emotional trauma, and a discussion is given of research demonstrating the benefits of meditation in persons recovering from post-traumatic stress.\n\nChapter 9 discusses current trends in a number of areas related to alcoholism treatment and recovery. Some include\n\n * treatment development;\n * the growth of informal community-based recovery communities and recovery advocacy organizations;\n * the continued specialization of Twelve Step programs; and\n * the growing influence of electronic communication as it relates to information sharing, treatment, and recovery support of alcoholism.\n\nAlso described is an emerging paradigm change in the approach to professional alcoholism treatment, where shortcomings in the current approach of treating alcoholism as an acute illness are leading to a movement calling for a long-term disease\/recovery management approach.\n\nIn short, this book provides the reader with the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art knowledge and understanding of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. A virtual explosion in the publication of high-quality, groundbreaking scientific research on alcohol use disorders and related problems has occurred in the last decade. This recent body of research is dramatically changing our understanding of the disease concept of alcoholism. The scientific process is guiding the development of future treatment and revealing how therapies currently available can be used more effectively.\n\nWe have reviewed hundreds of these research studies and present the scientific knowledge most likely to be helpful and interesting to the professional, clinician, and student working with alcoholic clients, the director or administrator of substance abuse treatment programs, as well as the person with a drinking problem, the concerned loved one of someone with an alcohol problem, and the recovering alcoholic.\n\n# CHAPTER 1\n\n# History of Alcohol Use, Alcoholism, and Treatment in the United States\n\nAlcohol has been one of the most widely used intoxicants throughout human history. Originally, alcohol was a powder and not a liquid. The word alcohol originates from the Arabic term al-kuhul, meaning kohl, a powder for the eyes, which later came to mean \"finely divided spirit.\" From 3000 to 2000 BC, numerous cultures throughout the world (except in North and South America) described the use of alcohol for medicinal, social, religious, or recreational purposes. The following is a brief timeline of the discovery and use of alcohol throughout recorded history (Courtwright 2001; Walton and Glover 1999; Sherratt 1995; Escohotado 1999; McCarthy 1963).\n\n# The History of Alcohol Use\n\n# Historical Per Capita Alcohol Use in the United States\n\nThe following table illustrates the estimated per capita (age 15 and older) consumption of alcohol from 1850 to 2007, based on gallons of pure alcohol per person per year (excerpted from NIAAA 2009).\n\nTable 1.1\n\nHistorical Per Capita Alcohol Consumption in the U.S.\n\n# Alcohol Use in Colonial America\n\nSettlers from northwest Europe brought alcohol to the New World when they first arrived in 1492, and with it the attitudes they harbored toward alcohol and its use. Alcohol was regarded as the \"Good Creature of God\"\u2014a gift from the Almighty that was integrated into most aspects of colonial life. Men, women, and children drank alcohol on a daily basis, and not solely for the intoxicating effects (White 1999).\n\nThe disease and death that was spread by contaminated water earned alcohol its designation as aqua vitae\u2014the water of life (Vallee 1998). Children as young as infant-age were given warmed alcohol with bread or other food, and young boys entered taverns to be taught by their fathers the arts of storytelling and drinking (Rorabaugh 1979; Steinsapir 1983). Although alcohol was valued in colonial America, drunkenness was condemned as a sinful misuse of this gift from God. These attitudes toward alcohol use were reflected by the numerous antidrunkenness laws, and also by the absence of laws that limited the age of access to alcohol (Mosher 1980; White 1999).\n\nCider, beer, and wine were the preferred alcoholic beverages. The Puritans believed alcohol was God's gift to man, and a test of his soul. This viewpoint is reflected in the Puritan aphorism \"The wine is from God, but the drunkard is from the Devil.\" A group called Tithingmen, tax collectors overseeing ten-family units, monitored excessive drunkenness and reported it to the local Protestant minister. He in turn could punish first-time offenders. Repeated and chronic public inebriates were sent to the governor's representative for punishment (Dunlap 2006).\n\nDuring the colonial era, the tavern was the center of the community. For the sake of convenience, the first colleges in America had breweries on campus for faculty and students. Even though the use of alcohol was pervasive, drunkenness remained highly stigmatized, and isolated cases of chronic drunkenness were viewed as a moral or criminal matter and not a medical or public health problem (White 2004).\n\nAlcohol and Native Americans\n\nAt the time of initial European contact, Native American tribes had a highly sophisticated knowledge of botanical psychopharmacology and used this understanding to ingest a broad spectrum of psychoactive drugs within a medicinal or religious context. There is very little pre-colonial evidence of recreational drug use or abuse among Native American tribes until distilled alcohol was introduced by European settlers (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1969; Mancall 1995; Westermeyer 1996; White 1999).\n\nIn a book entitled Alcohol Problems in Native America (2006), Coyhis and White offer the following perspective on the development of alcohol problems among Native Americans:\n\nThere has yet to be definitive evidence that Native Peoples physically respond to alcohol differently than other races or possess a unique biological vulnerability to alcoholism... No gene has been identified that makes Native Americans more susceptible to alcoholism than other races. Differences of alcohol metabolism and genetic vulnerability to alcoholism are traits of individuals and families, not traits of racial and ethnic groups. There are as many differences in vulnerability to alcohol problems (and the choice to drink or not drink, the frequency and intensity of drinking, choices of alcoholic beverages, the locations of drinking, the purposes for drinking, and the effects of drinking) within and across Native tribes as between Native people as a whole and other racial\/cultural groups.\n\nThe authors state that many factors contributed to the alcohol problems experienced by Native Americans since its introduction by Europeans in 1492, including the use of alcohol to facilitate the colonization and subjugation of Native Americans by Europeans and Americans alike. The authors conclude that the underlying cause of alcohol problems among Native Americans stems from the suppression, oppression, and colonization of Native Americans by a radically different cultural group that also deliberately used alcohol as a weapon of colonization (Simonelli 2006).\n\nAfrican Americans\n\nMost Africans who were forced into slavery in the Americas came from West Africa where beer and wine had been incorporated into social and religious customs since antiquity among the non-Islamic (Islam prohibits alcohol use) African cultures. Moderate drinking was encouraged and drunkenness was stigmatized through drinking rituals, and alcohol problems, which seldom existed previously, rose in tandem with the colonization and deculturation of African tribes (Pan 1975; White and Sanders 2002).\n\nAccess to alcohol by African slaves was restricted due to concerns among slave owners over financial loss if a slave became injured or killed while intoxicated, and over fear that uncontrolled alcohol use could fuel a slave rebellion. The exception to this was the encouragement of slaves by their slave masters to drink heavily on Saturday nights, on holidays, and during harvest.\n\nIn his diary (1855), Frederick Douglass viewed this controlled promotion of alcohol intoxication on selective occasions, and through rituals that included drinking contests, as a way to keep the slave in \"a state of perpetual stupidity\" and \"disgust the slave with his own freedom.\" Douglass further noted how the slave master's controlled promotion of drunkenness reduced the risk of slave rebellions since slaves were unlikely to plan an escape or insurrection while intoxicated. In contrast, a sober, thinking slave was the most dangerous threat to the established order (White, Sanders, and Sanders 2006).\n\nBefore emancipation, freed blacks often chose not to use alcohol, seeing sobriety as a prerequisite to personal safety and citizenship. When black people did drink, they did so moderately. The extent of their moderation led the medical community to believe that they were racially immune to the influence of alcohol (Herd 1985). Although drinking and intoxication among black people increased following emancipation, the most serious alcohol-related problem for black people in America was encountering intoxicated white people (Blassingame 1972; White and Sanders 2002).\n\n# Rising Alcohol Use in the Early 1800s\n\nIt has been said that America went on an extended drunken binge in the decades following the Revolutionary War (Rorabaugh 1979). Between 1780 and 1830, the annual per capita alcohol consumption in America rose from 2.5 gallons to more than 7 gallons. Drinking preferences shifted from fermented beverages such as cider and beer to rum and whiskey (Rorabaugh 1979). During this period, the colonial tavern that was a community hub gave way to the urban saloon, which was regarded as a symbol of drunkenness and vice. Likewise, moderate drinking within a family context shifted to excessive drinking by unattached and unruly males.\n\nThese dramatic and alarming changes in drinking patterns, and the visible emergence of alcohol problems, prompted the beginning of a century-long temperance movement whose goal was the complete abolition of alcohol for the sake of preserving the well-being of children, families, communities, and the country (Cherrington 1920; Lender and Martin 1982; Rorabaugh 1979). Another byproduct of this rise in drinking and alcohol problems was the discovery of addiction (Levine 1978; White 2004).\n\n# Temperance Movements and Mutual-Help Societies\n\nAs per capita alcohol use skyrocketed in America between 1780 and 1830, concern grew into alarm over the misuse of alcohol by children, especially among orphaned children. The emerging temperance movement responded with a series of actions that included (Mosher 1980)\n\n * lobbying for a minimum drinking age and temperance education laws,\n * publishing temperance literature aimed at young drinkers,\n * including young people in temperance society activities, and\n * suppressing drinking on college campuses.\n\nTemperance societies of the nineteenth century included cadet branches for young inebriates. Many of these young alcoholics who recovered would join in the antidrinking outreach crusades to young drinkers (Foltz 1891). Young problem drinkers were also admitted to the first addiction treatment institutions in America, and alcoholics between the ages of 15 and 20 made up about 10% of admissions to inebriate homes and inebriate asylums. By the 1890s, patients as young as twelve were being admitted to hospitals for detoxification (White 1998).\n\nReligiously oriented urban rescue missions and rural inebriate colonies also provided institutional intervention for chronic alcoholism. This rescue work with chronic or late-stage alcoholics was later institutionalized within the programs of the Salvation Army (White 2004).\n\nAbstinence-based mutual-aid societies organized by and for those with alcohol problems originated in two cultural contexts: first within Native American tribes in the eighteenth century and then within Euro-American communities in the mid-nineteenth century (White 2003). The earliest recovery mutual-aid societies grew out of Native American religious and cultural revitalization movements during the 1730s. These societies continued to remain active and influential well into the nineteenth century. Among the more prominent leaders were Wangomend, the Delaware Prophet (Papoonan, Neolin), the Kickapoo Prophet (Kenekuk), the Shawnee Prophet (Tenskwatawa), and Handsome Lake (Ganioda'yo)(White 2004).\n\nSimilarly, by the 1830s, and some one hundred years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, Anglo American alcoholics began seeking abstinence and recovery within local temperance societies. However, it took the Washingtonian Movement of 1840 to motivate large numbers of Anglo American alcoholics into joining sobriety-based mutual-aid societies. The Washingtonians rapidly grew to an organization of more than 400,000 members, but then collapsed.\n\nMany of its former members dispersed into more underground organizations via the creation of sobriety-based Fraternal Temperance societies. Eventually, the Fraternal Temperance societies disintegrated over political conflict or deviation from their initial mission to help the still-suffering alcoholic, and were replaced by the Ribbon Reform clubs and other local sobriety-based fellowships such as the Drunkard's Club in New York City. Within the network of inebriate homes, asylums, and addiction cure institutes emerged additional alcoholic mutual-aid societies (White 2004).\n\n# Professional and Medical Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Alcohol Problems\n\nInebriate homes were introduced during the 1830s out of the belief, among some temperance societies, that alcoholics needed more than to sign pledges and attend meetings to achieve and sustain abstinence. The new viewpoint believed recovery from alcoholism was a process of moral reformation and immersion in sober fellowship. The inebriate homes utilized short, voluntary stays followed by affiliation with local recovery support groups (White 2004).\n\nThe medically directed inebriate asylum was another institution created during the mid-nineteenth century. It arose from the need for specialized medical facilities for chronic alcoholics. Many of the clients in these institutions were legally coerced by multiyear legal commitments. These facilities combined physical and psychological treatment with drug therapies, hydrotherapy, and hypnotherapy. In 1864, the first of these facilities\u2014the New York State Inebriate Asylum\u2014opened under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Edward Turner (White 2004), a prominent advocate of a disease concept of inebriety (White 2000a).\n\nThe inebriate homes and asylums began to face competition from private, for-profit addiction cure institutes, the most famous being the Keeley Institute. There was also competition from the patent medicine industry, which bottled and sold home remedies and cures for alcohol, tobacco, and drug habits. Some of these products originated from the addiction cure institutes. The widespread use of these addiction cures continued until an expos\u00e9 in 1905 revealed that most of these products contained high doses of morphine, cocaine, alcohol, or cannabis (White 2004).\n\nAn increasingly vast network of inebriate homes and asylums, private addiction treatment institutes, and patent medicines that cured addiction became established between 1850 and 1900. In 1870, directors of several inebriate homes and asylums met in New York City to create the first professional association for addiction treatment providers called the American Association for the Cure of Inebriety.\n\nIn 1876, the Association published the first journal specializing in addictions called the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety (White 2004). This journal published hundreds of articles that shared the theme of alcohol addiction as a disease. Joined by a growing number of medical textbooks on inebriety, the journal advocated for a disease concept of addiction (White 2000a).\n\nThe 1870 Bylaws of the American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety include the following:\n\n 1. Intemperance is a disease.\n 2. It is curable in the same sense that other diseases are.\n 3. Its primary cause is a constitutional susceptibility to the alcoholic impression.\n 4. This constitutional tendency may be either inherited or acquired (White 2000a).\n\nEventually, the urban hospital assumed an increasing level of responsibility for the care of the chronic inebriate. In 1879, Bellevue Hospital in New York City opened an inebriate ward. The number of alcoholic patients admitted for care increased from 4,190 in 1895 to more than 11,000 in 1910. Almost all of these institutions treated addictions to all drugs including alcohol (White 2004).\n\nFollowing is a discussion of some of the more noteworthy \"medical\" approaches to the treatment of alcoholism.\n\nThe Keeley Cure\n\nThe Keeley Institute was an organization for the treatment of opiate and alcohol addiction by Leslie Keeley, a Civil War surgeon who announced his cure in 1879 with his famed slogan, \"Drunkenness is a disease and I can cure it.\" His secret injections of gold chloride became known as the Gold Cure. Keeley's cure was touted as being made from \"double chloride of gold,\" but in truth actually contained atropine, strychnine, arsenic, cinchona, and glycerin.\n\nPatients admitted to his institutes were tapered from alcohol or opiates, received periodic injections, ingested a small amount of Keeley's formula every two hours, and followed a regimen of healthful diet, fresh air, exercise, and adequate sleep. Patients were required to pay $160 up front and stay for thirty-one days. It is unknown how many of the 400,000 Keeley graduates remained abstinent from opiates or alcohol (Blair Historic Preservation Alliance 2008; \"Medicine: Keeley Cure\" 1939). It is also unknown how many died of his cure.\n\nThrough his practice, Dr. Keeley eventually amassed a fortune of more than $1 million. However, by 1900 the approach was largely discredited. The Keeley Cure, however, did have some initial success. At one time more than 200 treatment centers existed. Keeley Institute patients who recovered from their addiction were honored as graduates and urged to promote the treatment that had helped them. Patients were also encouraged to involve themselves in what would now be referred to as group therapy, a factor that likely contributed to the success of those who remained abstinent.\n\nDespite the view that Keeley's Gold Cure was merely a successful example of nineteenth-century quackery, Dr. Keeley made an important contribution to the field of addiction treatment. He was one of the first to widely treat addiction as a medical problem (Blair Historic Preservation Alliance 2008). The Keeley Institute was also significant because, although it predated modern treatment programs by seventy years, several elements common to contemporary treatment were used, such as use of the group process for support; an emphasis on a holistic approach addressing diet, exercise, and sleep; and the one-month residential stay.\n\nMorphine in Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century\n\nLegitimate medical use of opiates emerged in the late nineteenth century as a substitute treatment for alcoholism. Although morphine was well known for its addiction potential, it was viewed as a dramatic improvement over the effects of alcoholic drinking (Black 1889). Many physicians converted alcoholics to morphine users, and in some parts of the country this practice did not die out among older physicians until the late 1930s or early 1940s.\n\nIn 1928, Dr. Lawrence Kolb, Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, pointed out the advantages of opiate substitution therapy. \"More than any other unstable group,\" Dr. Kolb wrote, \"drunkards are likely to be benefited in their social relations by becoming addicts. When they give up alcohol and start using opium [i.e., morphine or other opiates], they are able to secure the effect for which they are striving without becoming drunk or violent\" (Kolb 1962).\n\nLSD Research in the 1950s-1960s\n\nFollowing its discovery in 1943, the hallucinogenic drug LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) was introduced to medical and behavioral research in the late 1940s (Dyck 2005). Treatment of alcoholism was considered one of the most promising areas of investigation involving LSD. The initial rationale for its use was to replicate some of the experiences of a delirium tremens (DT) to facilitate the alcoholic hitting bottom. However, when it was observed that LSD had the potential to induce a profound transformative experience similar to a religious conversion, its use and purpose was revised (Mangini 1998).\n\nEarly enthusiasm over the initial positive results gave way to skepticism when researchers attempted to isolate the drug effect from the set and setting, often by blindfolding or restraining and isolating subjects given the drug. The environment in which the subject experienced the drug effect was eventually recognized as an important factor in the outcome (Dyck 2005).\n\nIn 1962, the first controlled trial involving LSD and alcoholism was published. It compared subjects who received group therapy, individual therapy from a psychiatrist, or LSD at the end of a hospital stay. The study followed patients for six to eighteen months, and reported that 38 of the 58 patients treated with LSD remained abstinent during the follow-up period. This was a remarkable finding when compared with those who received only group therapy (7 of 38 remained abstinent) and individual therapy (4 of 35 remained abstinent) (Dyck 2005; Jensen 1962). However, all research involving LSD was halted in the mid-1960s when the drug became illegal.\n\n# Origin and History of the Disease Concept of Alcoholism\n\nThree key issues helped usher in the birth of a disease concept of alcoholism in America. The first was the emergence of alcohol problems resulting in a breakdown of community norms that had long contained drunkenness in colonial America; the second was the changing patterns of consumption from fermented beverages to distilled spirits; and the third was the nearly threefold increase in alcohol consumption between 1790 and 1830 (White 2000a).\n\nDr. Benjamin Rush was the first to articulate a disease concept of chronic drunkenness and call for the creation of special institutions for the care of the inebriate (White 2007a). In 1784, Rush described the progressive nature and medical consequences of chronic drunkenness. He suggested the condition was a medical instead of a moral problem and argued that physicians had the responsibility of caring for persons with this disorder (White 2004). The changing perception of chronic drunkenness was also strongly influenced by the Reverend Lyman Beecher, who in 1825 characterized intemperance as an accelerating disease. He described in detail the early stages of alcoholism and argued that complete long-term abstinence was the only viable approach to prevention and cure (White 2004).\n\nThese two highly influential figures, Rush and Beecher, along with other prominent physicians and social reformers, helped to redefine drunkenness as a medical problem during the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. These leaders encouraged physicians to treat inebriety within specialized institutions for the alcoholic. At this time, the core elements of an addiction disease concept were identified and described as\n\n * a hereditary predisposition;\n * drug toxicity;\n * morbid appetite (craving);\n * pharmacological tolerance and progression;\n * loss of control of substance intake; and\n * the pathophysiology of chronic alcohol, opiate, or cocaine consumption (White 2001b; White 2004).\n\nAlthough the term alcoholism was coined in 1849 by Swedish physician Magnus Huss, the preferred term of this era was inebriety, whose meaning was analogous to the term addiction. Medical textbooks included chapters on alcohol inebriety, opium inebriety, cocaine inebriety, and inebriety from coffee and tea. The widespread use of the term alcoholism did not actually occur until the early twentieth century (White 2007b; White 2004).\n\nDuring the 1870s and 1880s, the disease concept of inebriety or alcoholism formed the foundation of the movement to treat the disease medically and scientifically. The movement advocated for specialized institutions where inebriates could be treated.\n\nHowever, support for a disease concept of alcoholism among professionals caring for the inebriate was not unanimous. In 1874, Dr. Robert Harris mounted perhaps the most fully articulated opposition to the disease concept, stating that drunkenness should be viewed as a habit, sin, or crime that cannot be cured in a hospital but can be reformed. The chronic drunk was also viewed as a victim of the promotion or marketing of alcoholic beverages (White 2000a).\n\nIn summary, nonmedical concepts of alcohol and other drug addiction competed for prominence with the disease concept. They espoused that\n\n * addiction originated in the person and was a reflection of vice and sin;\n * addiction resided in the product (alcohol, opium, or cocaine); and\n * addiction was caused by aggressive alcohol and other drug promotion by distilleries and breweries, saloons, and physicians and pharmacists.\n\nEach of these views produced radically different solutions to address the source of the addiction problem. The disease concept as a purely medical concept soon fell out of favor at the end of the nineteenth century along with the collapse of the treatment infrastructure (White 2000a).\n\n# The Collapse of Specialized Treatment for Alcohol Problems in the Early Twentieth Century\n\nThe collapse of America's first addiction treatment infrastructure was due to multiple factors, including\n\n * the exposure of ethical abuses related to business and clinical practices,\n * ideological differences within the field,\n * the lack of scientific validation of treatment effectiveness,\n * the departure through aging and death of leaders in the field,\n * economic downturns that impacted philanthropic and government support, and\n * cultural pessimism over whether permanent recovery from alcohol and drug problems could ever be achieved (White 2004).\n\nAs a result, the nineteenth-century mutual-aid societies had collapsed in tandem with the inebriate homes and asylums (White 2004).\n\nEventually, the care of alcoholics and addicts shifted to penal institutions and large public hospitals, and to psychiatry. The prevailing belief in psychiatry during this time was that excessive alcohol or other drug use was not a primary disease but the superficial symptom of a deeper psychological problem. It could be treated if the hidden subconscious forces that drove excessive alcohol or other drug use were confronted during psychotherapy (White 2000a).\n\nThe reluctant assumption of responsibility by psychiatry for the care of alcoholics and drug addicts led to a new push to find more humane and effective treatments. These included the founding of the Emmanuel Clinic model. Its early efforts included using recovered alcoholics as lay therapists, treating affluent alcoholics and addicts in private hospitals and clinics, and starting a model for outpatient treatment in Connecticut and Georgia.\n\nThere was also a dark side to the involvement of psychiatry in the treatment of addiction. It stemmed from alcoholics and addicts being subjected to the same treatments and policies currently in vogue with mentally ill patients. These included forced sterilization and legal commitment in the early twentieth century, prefrontal lobotomies, and chemical and electroconvulsive therapies (White 2000a). When admitted or sentenced to the aging state mental hospitals or the rural inebriate penal colonies, alcoholics and addicts were also subjected to the worst abuses of these institutions.\n\nThe obvious disregard for the well-being of alcoholics and addicts was evidenced by some of the medical procedures they were subjected to, such as serum therapy (a procedure involving blistering the skin, withdrawing the serum from the blisters, and then re-injecting it as an alleged aid in withdrawal) and the use of bromide therapy to aid detoxification, which had a high mortality rate.\n\nMuch of the modern antimedication bias that lingers among some members in the addiction treatment field and older members of AA today stems from the past abusive and barbaric practices during this period under the guise of medicine (White 2004).\n\nAmong the very few enlightened resources available to alcoholics and addicts during the early twentieth century was the beginning of a new generation of private hospitals that started with the Charles B. Towns Hospital in New York City and an outpatient clinic in Boston that arose from the Emmanuel Church. This clinic employed a unique program of lay therapy that was the precursor to modern addiction counseling. The Emmanuel Clinic also organized its own self-help program, the Jacoby Club, for patients who had completed its program (White 2004).\n\nThe Jacoby Club was founded in 1910 as a club for alcoholic men, and sought to combine religion, psychology, and medicine in the treatment of alcoholism. This absence of mutual-aid resources changed in 1935 when the meeting of two alcoholics, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, reaching out for mutual support, marked the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) (White 2003).\n\n# The History of Alcoholics Anonymous\n\nAlcoholics Anonymous (AA) was established in 1935 in response to pervasive alcohol problems during a time when resources were scarce (Trice and Staudenmeier 1989). AA offered unconditional support and practical advice to help its members stop drinking. The message of forgiveness and understanding given by people who themselves had been actively dependent on alcohol helped alleviate shame and guilt associated with alcoholism (Kurtz 1981).\n\nSelf-help organizations tend to internalize the broader cultural and societal themes into which they are born, and AA's birth in 1935 and many of its core concepts (e.g., powerlessness, unmanageability, hope, and service) were rooted in the economic and spiritual crash of the Great Depression of the 1930s. AA historian Ernest Kurtz (1991) has suggested that the unique program of recovery of AA could only have sprung from the circumstances of the Depression era. AA also arrived in the wake of the repeal of Prohibition and a century-long, culturally divisive debate between wet and dry political opponents.\n\nConception of AA\n\nIn 1926, Rowland Hazard, a Yale graduate and prominent Rhode Island businessman, was treated for alcoholism by the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Bluhm 2006). Following a relapse in 1927, Hazard requested further treatment from Jung. Jung communicated to Hazard that he could no longer treat him because Hazard had already received the best care psychiatry and medicine had to offer. Jung also told Hazard that any hope for future recovery would have to be found elsewhere. He said that some alcoholics had found relief from their insatiable appetite for alcohol through a powerful spiritual or religious experience, and he suggested that Hazard seek out such an experience.\n\nThis recommendation led to Hazard's subsequent involvement with the Christian evangelical Oxford Group. Achieving sobriety within the Oxford Group, Rowland Hazard began carrying his message of hope and sobriety to other alcoholics. In November 1934, Hazard carried this message to Ebby Thacher. On the verge of being sentenced to Windsor Prison, Thacher was instead released to Hazard's custody.\n\nIn late November 1934, the newly sobered Thacher carried that same message of hope to his longtime friend Bill Wilson. Thacher's visits did not produce an immediate effect, but instead began an internal dialogue that triggered a crisis in Wilson's drinking and served as a catalyst for the subsequent events that eventually led to the founding of AA (Pass It On 1984, 115; White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nThe chain of interaction among Jung, Hazard, Thacher, and Wilson mark the earliest moments in the founding of AA. Jung acknowledged the limitations of professional assistance in treating alcoholism, and believed in the legitimacy to the transformative power of spiritual experience. The Hazard-Thacher-Wilson connections established the kinship of common suffering (one alcoholic sharing with another alcoholic) as the basic unit of interaction in the yet-to-be-born organization of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957; White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nFollowing Ebby Thacher's visits, Bill Wilson's drinking reached another critical point on December 11, 1934, when he was rehospitalized for detoxification at the Charles B. Towns Hospital in New York City. At age thirty-nine, Wilson had had his last drink. Although a confirmed agnostic, a few days later during a belladonna-facilitated detoxification,2 Wilson underwent a profound spiritual experience in the aftermath of a deepening depression. Later, questioning whether he was losing his sanity, Wilson consulted his physician, Dr. William Silkworth. Silkworth, known in AA folklore as \"the little doctor who loved drunks,\" framed the event as a potential conversion experience (White and Kurtz 2008) much like the one Carl Jung spoke of.\n\nFollowing Thacher's lead, Wilson joined the Oxford Group, a Christian movement popular among wealthy mainstream Protestants. Headed by an ex-YMCA missionary named Frank Buchman, the Oxford Group combined religion with pop psychology to emphasize that all people can achieve happiness through moral improvement. To help reach this goal, the organization's members met in private homes to study devotional literature and share their inner thoughts and experiences (Koerner 2010).\n\nIn the months following his discharge, Bill Wilson went on a crusade to sober up the alcoholics at the Towns Hospital and Calvary mission by describing his spiritual experience, but he was met with indifference (White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nIn May 1935 during an extended business trip to Akron, Ohio, Wilson began attending Oxford Group meetings at the home of a local industrialist. It was through the group that he obtained the name of surgeon and closet alcoholic Robert Smith, who was also an Oxford member. Demoralized at the end of a failed business trip, Wilson found himself in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel fearing that he might take a drink and destroy his hard-earned sobriety. He sensed that he needed to find another alcoholic with whom he could talk in order to maintain his sobriety. Rather than reach out to a professional, he made contact through a series of phone calls with Robert Smith (Alcoholics Anonymous 1956).\n\nTheir growing friendship, mutual support, and vision of helping other alcoholics marked the formal ignition of AA as a social movement. The date of Dr. Bob Smith's last drink in June of 1935 is celebrated as AA's founding date. Soon after that last drink, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith began the search for AA number three. The mutual discovery that Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith could achieve together what they were unable to do alone became the foundation of the soon-to-emerge AA program (Koerner 2010; White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nThe Growth of AA, 1936-1950\n\nIn its earliest days, AA existed within the confines of the Oxford Group. By late 1936, fledgling groups of recovering alcoholics were meeting within the larger framework of the Oxford Group in Akron, Ohio, and the New York City area, offering special meetings for members who wished to end their dependence on alcohol. However, Wilson and his followers left the Oxford Group in large part because Wilson dreamed of creating a truly mass movement instead of one that catered to the elites that Buchman targeted (Koerner 2010; White and Kurtz 2008). Although Wilson and Smith left the Oxford Group, this movement greatly influenced the structure, practices, and ideology of AA (Bufe 1998).\n\nBill Wilson stayed sober and immersed himself in growing the AA movement. But soon a crisis unfolded over the poverty in which he and his wife Lois were living. Charles B. Towns, owner of the Towns Hospital where Wilson had repeatedly been treated, offered Wilson paid employment at the hospital as a \"lay alcoholism therapist.\" The decision by Wilson to turn down the offer was actually forced by his fellow recovering alcoholics who were concerned over the potential harm to the fledgling organization with Wilson becoming employed and affiliated with the hospital (White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nDuring the mid to late 1930s, Wilson began drafting what would become the book Alcoholics Anonymous. When published, the book was referred to as the Big Book because the printers of the book were instructed to use the thickest paper available for the first edition so that it would seem worth the price to the generally financially strapped alcoholics to whom it was targeted (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nThe core of AA principles is found in chapter five of the Big Book, entitled \"How It Works.\" Wilson formulated the Twelve Steps in 1939, and it is speculated that he decided on twelve because of the twelve apostles. Formulating these Steps, Wilson was strongly influenced by the precepts of the Oxford Group and by psychologist William James and his classic work The Varieties of Religious Experience, which Wilson read shortly after his spiritual experience at Towns Hospital (Koerner 2010).\n\nThe initial publication of the Big Book was barely noticed. Attempts at publicity, such as the mass mailing of postcards to physicians, failed to generate sales. However, the media attention that was about to unfold began to increase public awareness of AA, and sales of the Big Book slowly increased (Kurtz and White 2003). AA experienced local and national membership surges in the 1940s that were largely generated by media coverage.\n\nMost prominent of these were the September 1939 article on AA in Liberty Magazine, a 1939 series in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and newspaper sports-page coverage of the spring 1940 announcement that the Cleveland Indians star catcher had joined AA. This early visibility was followed by a Saturday Evening Post article in March 1941, considered the most important single piece of media coverage that contributed to the growth of AA. Its membership grew from 2,000 members to 8,000 members in that year alone (White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nIn June 1944, publication of AA's unofficial but significant periodical, The AA Grapevine, initially began as a means of keeping in touch with AA members in the Armed Forces during World War II. During the postwar era, the magazine began to serve the purpose of offering a forum in which the variety of AA and recovery experiences could be presented and discussed. Over the first decade of its existence, the fellowship of AA grew from two members to 12,986 members and 556 AA groups.\n\nThe Twelve Traditions of AA were first disseminated during the first international convention of AA, held in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950. They represented the general guidelines that were meant to preserve the organizational integrity of AA. In 1950, AA membership exceeded 96,000 and local groups numbered more than 3,500 (White and Kurtz 2008).\n\nNot all of Bill Wilson's ideas to grow the organization were met with great acceptance. According to the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, in 1940 Bill Wilson brought two African American men to an AA meeting in New York City and was sharply criticized by some attendees for his attempt at racial integration (New York State OASAS 2011).\n\nEarly Outcomes\n\nIn the earlier days of AA, many alcoholics who desired sobriety required hospital-based detoxification due to the severity of their addiction. Those who could make the trip to Akron, Ohio, were put under the care of Dr. Bob Smith, but many could not travel to Akron. Hospitals were still reluctant to admit alcoholics because they did not pay their bills. Sponsorship in AA actually began by another man who promised to pay the detoxification hospital bill if a new AA recruit failed to do so. Eventually the AA sponsor would assume a much more comprehensive role in the sobriety of the new member (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nDuring the first few years of AA, several physicians in Philadelphia began keeping track of patients they knew who either attempted to get sober or had obtained sobriety in AA. In 1937, Dr. Silkworth and Bill Wilson concurred that AA was unlikely to work for around half of those who tried it; however, the data gathered in Philadelphia suggested a more positive result with roughly 50% achieving abstinence during their initial ninety days of involvement. Another 25% eventually achieved sobriety in AA after a period of relapse. The final 25% appeared to be beyond the help of AA. They also observed that those who made it were persons who had come to realize they needed AA, were highly motivated, and \"really tried\" to get it (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nAA Hits Its Stride, 1951-1970\n\nThe early 1950s were marked by two developments that strengthened the growing momentum of AA. The first was the large-scale social acceptance of AA in the United States. The second was the publication of the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, written by Bill Wilson. This book guided and shaped the understanding of the spiritual concepts of AA among many members in the 1950s and the decades to come.\n\nThe Eisenhower decade of the 1950s proved to be an ideal backdrop for the widespread acceptance of the spiritual rather than religious program of AA. Among the many events reflecting cultural acceptance of AA included AA winning the 1951 Lasker Award. (The Lasker Awards, administered by the Lasker Foundation, have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. The awards are sometimes referred to as America's Nobel Prizes.)\n\nThe congratulatory telegram sent to AA by President Dwight Eisenhower on its twentieth-year Coming of Age convention in 1955, and the regular recommendations given to the readers of advice columnists Ann Landers and Dear Abby, also contributed to a more widespread cultural acceptance of AA. In addition, the movies Smash- Up and The Lost Weekend, followed by Days of Wine and Roses, reflected a cultural awareness of alcoholism by their very creation. In 1967, the American Medical Association stated that AA involvement remained the most effective means of treating alcoholism (Menninger quoted in Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., n.d.).\n\nAs the 1960s progressed, AA cofounder Bill Wilson suffered an increasing decline in his health largely due to emphysema, which resulted from his smoking. At the time of his death in Miami Beach on January 24, 1971, there were more than 16,000 local AA groups and more than 310,000 members. Few organizations led for so long by a charismatic leader survive his or her demise. But Alcoholics Anonymous was an exception, due to the decentralized autonomous structure mandated by the Twelve Traditions (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nAA During the Era of Treatment Expansion, 1970-1990\n\nFrom the start, AA groups carried their experience, strength, and hope to alcoholics residing in local missions, general and psychiatric hospitals, prisons, halfway houses, sanatoriums, and various \"drying out\" facilities. During the middle decades of the twentieth century, individual AA members created sober sanctuaries (AA farms, AA retreats, Twelve Step houses) in communities where institutional support for recovery was deficient. AA members were also heavily represented in the leadership of newly forming alcoholism councils whose mission was to advocate the establishment of alcoholism information and referral centers, detoxification facilities, and rehabilitation programs. In the culmination of these efforts, the passage of the 1970 Comprehensive Alcoholism Prevention and Treatment Act launched the modern alcoholism treatment field by infusing federal funding into alcoholism treatment facilities. The number of treatment facilities in the U.S. rocketed from 200 in 1970 to 4,200 in 1980, and to more than 9,000 in 1990 (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nThe majority of these emerging treatment facilities used the AA Twelve Step model, especially among programs that replicated the Minnesota Model. Many AA members became employed as alcoholism counselors, nurses, physicians, and administrators in the growing treatment field. Concern was voiced during the mid-1970s by some professionals over the undue influence of AA on the alcoholism treatment field. However, AA was dramatically influenced by the treatment field during this period as well, most obviously by fueling the huge growth in AA membership. Between 1970 and 1980, AA membership grew from 311,450 to 907,575, with the number of local AA groups increasing from 16,459 to 42,105. By 1990, AA had further increased to 2,047,469 members in 93,914 groups. The Twelve Steps of AA were also adapted to an increasingly vast number of problems and conditions, and the concepts of addiction and recovery were applied to other processes in addition to substances. Recovery became something of a cultural phenomenon (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nAs a growing percentage of AA members entered AA while in treatment or were coerced to attend through the criminal justice system, concern within AA was raised over the prospect of the infusion of a secular, pop-psychology influence that would displace the language and elements of the classic Alcoholics Anonymous insight and approach. The fellowship responded by reasserting the importance of the Twelve Traditions, and releasing new literature and guidelines distinguishing and defining the differences between AA and treatment. There also emerged within AA a fundamentalist movement to recapture the spiritual practices of the earlier days of the organization (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nCriticism of AA\n\nPublic criticism of AA was first observed with a 1964 magazine article by psychologist Arthur Cain, in which he argued that AA had become antiscience, dogmatic, and cult-like (Kurtz 1979). This laid the groundwork for subsequent attacks over the following decades. Such criticisms were usually part of a broader attack on the disease concept (erroneously attributed to AA) and of alcoholism treatment. Some of the critics advocated alternate organizations to AA, most notably the secular recovery approaches of Women for Sobriety, Secular Organization for Sobriety, Rational Recovery, and Moderation Management. By the mid-1980s, an extremist faction of critics aggregated into something resembling a countermovement with their own circuit speakers, publishing genre, and websites with names such as AA Kills, AA Deprogramming, and Recovery Liberation.\n\nDespite the diversity of sources generating criticism of AA, five common themes pervaded their attacks. They were\n\n * AA was ineffective or lacked scientific proof of effectiveness,\n * AA helped only some types of alcoholics and may harm others,\n * the religious ideas and language of AA discouraged many alcoholics from seeking help,\n * AA was just a substitute dependence, and\n * AA impeded the scientific advancement of alcoholism treatment (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nJust in the past decade, many of these arguments have been debunked by the quality and quantity of scientific research on AA.\n\n# Birth of Modern Alcoholism Treatment, Mid-Twentieth Century\n\nSubstance abuse treatment programs evolved to meet the needs of patients who were not successful at establishing recovery solely through Twelve Step meetings (Brigham 2003). The birth and expansion of modern community-based treatment programs for alcohol and drug dependence was facilitated by five concepts that greatly influenced public opinion and legislative policy:\n\n 1. Alcoholism is a disease.\n 2. The alcoholic is a sick person.\n 3. The alcoholic can be helped.\n 4. The alcoholic is worth helping.\n 5. Alcoholism is our number four public health problem, and our public responsibility (Mann 1944; White 2004).\n\nDuring the 1940s and 1950s several institutions pioneered new approaches to alcohol-related problems. Their collective efforts, including those of Alcoholics Anonymous and its professional friends who restored optimism that long-term sobriety could be achieved, were termed the Modern Alcoholism Movement (White 2004). Some of them include the following:\n\n * The Research Council on Problems of Alcohol promised a new scientific approach to the prevention and management of alcohol problems.\n * The Yale Center of Studies on Alcohol conducted alcoholism research, educated professionals, established an outpatient clinic model, and promoted occupational programs for alcoholism.\n * The National Committee for Education on Alcoholism, founded by Mrs. Marty Mann in 1944, waged a relentless public education campaign about alcoholism and encouraged local communities to establish detoxification and treatment facilities. Mrs. Mann, referred to as the First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous, was perhaps the single most influential figure in this advocacy movement that laid the foundation for modern addiction treatment (White and Schulstad 2009).\n\nThe success of the Modern Alcoholism Movement in changing the public perception of alcoholism is shown by the percentage of U.S. citizens who viewed alcoholism as an illness, which increased from 6% in 1947 to 66% in 1967, and by the number of new professional organizations studying alcoholism (White 2004).\n\n# The Minnesota Model\n\nBy the time the thirteen-year reign of prohibition ended in 1933, most alcoholics were detoxified and institutionalized with the chronically mentally ill in the locked wards of state psychiatric hospitals. Conditions were often poor, and the custodial system of care typically resulted in revolving-door cycles of admission, detoxification, release, relapse, and readmission (Slaymaker and Sheehan 2008).\n\nThe model that most represents the archetype of modern alcoholism treatment emerged from the synergy of three programs in Minnesota: Pioneer House (1948), Hazelden (1949), and Willmar State Hospital (1950). This model, termed the Minnesota Model, drew heavily on the experience of AA members in its conceptualization of alcoholism (White 2000a). As articulated by its early proponents\u2014Dr. Nelson Bradley, Dr. Dan Anderson, Reverend John Keller, and Reverend Gordon Grimm\u2014the Minnesota Model defined alcoholism as a primary, progressive disease that could not be cured but could be arrested with lifelong abstinence. These proponents also emphasized the importance of treating the alcoholic and addict patients with dignity and respect, the importance of a mutually supportive treatment environment, utilization of a multidisciplinary treatment team and a full continuum of services, and integration of the Twelve Steps and social support of AA during and following treatment (White 2003).\n\nThe Minnesota Model blended AA concepts and philosophy with professional approaches, such as group and individual counseling. The addition of the alcoholism counselors, many of whom were recovering AA members, was a key ingredient in aligning a closely identified professional with the alcoholic to foster integration of Twelve Step principles and practices in everyday life. The psychiatric services, heavily influenced by psychoanalysis, that had been the prevailing mode of therapy were abandoned in favor of an emphasis on patient education, therapeutic group process, peer interaction, and the development of lifelong support systems through AA (Slaymaker and Sheehan 2008).\n\nHazelden\n\nHazelden was conceived in an era when alcoholics languished in the \"drunk tanks\" of city and county jails, and in the back wards of aging state psychiatric hospitals. Few resources were available for any alcoholic, rich or poor. The Hazelden treatment center opened in Center City, Minnesota, following extended discussions about the need for an alcoholism treatment facility for priests and business executives. Initial financial support came from the Catholic Diocese and contributions from local businesses. The first residents experienced a formal program with very simple directives: make your bed, conduct yourself as a gentleman, attend the daily lectures on the Twelve Steps of AA, and talk with one another (White 2003).\n\nHazelden was able to grow and evolve due in large part to the financial resources of Emmet, Patrick, and Lawrence Butler, whose combined largesse sustained Hazelden through its early years. Patrick himself had been a Hazelden patient in 1949. During the 1950s, Hazelden, as well as Pioneer House and Willmar State Hospital, exerted an enormous influence on the evolution of addiction treatment that continued through the second half of the twentieth century (White 2003).\n\nThe 1950s also marked the beginning of AA's profound and widespread influence on alcoholism treatment as the Minnesota Model was replicated nationally and worldwide over the next several decades. To avoid the potential for a mistaken impression of affiliation between AA and professional alcoholism treatment, AA discouraged the use of its name in the names of institution or professional titles used by treatment centers (Alcoholics Anonymous, n. d.; White and Kurtz 2008).\n\n# Expansion of Treatment and Then Backlash\n\nIn the U.S., modern treatment approaches received a considerable boost from substantial growth in AA membership. The impetus for treating alcohol dependence as a disease rather than a moral problem grew out of the AA philosophy that individuals were not responsible for becoming dependent upon alcohol, but were responsible to do something about it once it developed (Trice and Staudenmeier 1989).\n\nDuring the 1960s, alcoholism services grew through federal funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Office of Economic Opportunity. In 1970, the decades-long campaign of the Modern Alcoholism Movement culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Alcoholism Prevention and Treatment Act. This legislative milestone (often termed the Hughes Act for its champion, Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa) created the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) to lead a federal, state, and local partnership to build, staff, operate, and evaluate community-based alcoholism treatment programs across the U.S. The number of alcoholism programs in the U.S. jumped astonishingly from a few hundred in 1970 to more than 4,200 programs by 1980 (White 2004).\n\nIt appeared then that many of the goals of the Modern Alcoholism Movement were being achieved. The movement had extended its influence into major cultural institutions that included the media, law, medicine, religion, education, business, and labor. There was growing professional and public acceptance of alcoholism as a disease. The country had established national institutes that funded and advocated medical research on addiction and public health approaches to alcohol and other drug-related problems. The disease concept was also applied to a wide spectrum of other drugs and behaviors as recovery became something of a cultural phenomenon. There was also an explosion in the growth of treatment programs based on the disease concept (White 2000a), spurred in large part by the decision of many insurance companies to begin offering alcoholism treatment benefits (White 2004).\n\nHowever, during the very peak of the expansion in treatment services and facilities, a backlash began to develop. It came in two forms. The first was a financial response against the treatment industry. The prototypical twenty-eight-day inpatient treatment programs that had been the standard of care were hardest hit (White 2004). The dominance of managed care and of aggressively managed behavioral health care by the end of the 1980s led to the severely curtailed reimbursement for chemical dependency services. Insurance providers only paid then for what was deemed medically necessary. This resulted in third-party payment for three to six days of treatment instead of twenty-eight days (John Curtiss, pers. comm.), leading to a massive number of closures of chemical dependency treatment programs from the period of 1988 to 1993.\n\nThe surviving hospitals and clinics that continued to offer chemical dependency services often had to shift their emphasis from inpatient to outpatient services, or to the identification and treatment of co-occurring psychiatric and behavioral disorders in order to receive insurance reimbursement (John Curtiss, pers. comm.; White 2004). The net result has been a dramatic reduction in the availability and accessibility of chemical dependency services as the number of persons needing help continues to climb (John Curtiss, pers. comm.).\n\nThe second backlash was ideological, and came in the form of philosophical and scientific attacks on the disease concept and the treatment programs based on it. Some of the more prominent examples include Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease (Fingarette 1989), The Diseasing of America (Peele 1989), The Myth of Addiction (Davies 1992), and Addiction Is a Choice (Schaler 2000). The twentieth century ended without popular or professional consensus or a resolution strategy on the nature of alcohol and other drug problems (White 2000b; White 2001a).\n\nIn response to the intense attacks on the disease basis of addiction, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) began a decade-long research and public education campaign to re-educate the public about the nature of addiction. The first manifestation of this campaign was the 1997 article by Dr. Alan Leshner, then director of NIDA, published in one of the world's leading scientific journals entitled \"Addiction is a Brain Disease, and It Matters\" (Leshner 1997). Adding momentum to the \"addiction is a brain disease\" campaign was a 2005 special issue of Nature entitled \"Focus on the Neurobiology of Addiction\" (2005), in which a distinguished group of scientists assembled the latest evidence that addiction at its most fundamental essence is a neurobiological disorder.\n\nTwo years later in 2007, NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkov presented the historic lecture \"The Neurobiology of Free Will,\" at the American Psychiatric Association's annual conference. This lecture revealed a maturing in the understanding of addiction as a brain disease, and contained the most complex and comprehensive description to date of how continued alcohol and other drug use selectively and progressively alters multiple brain regions to result in substance use eclipsing all other familial and social needs of the individual (White 2007b).\n\nThe media\u2014with Bill Moyers's 1998 PBS special, Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home; the 2007 HBO special Addiction: Why Can't They Just Stop?; and Time Magazine's July 16, 2007, cover story \"How We Get Addicted\"\u2014 has also been instrumental in transmitting these scientific findings to the public (White 2007b).\n\nAlthough many recovery advocates have celebrated these scientific discoveries, some have made the point that emphasizing the chronic brain disease aspect is unlikely to reduce the stigma surrounding alcoholism and drug addiction unless it is accompanied by two companion communications: (1) With abstinence and proper care, addiction-induced brain impairments reverse themselves, and (2) millions of individuals have achieved long-term recovery and are leading healthy, meaningful, and productive lives. Including these additional messages is important because the public may construe the term chronic as meaning \"forever\" and \"hopeless\" (White 2007b).\n\n2. The belladonna detoxification (or Belladonna Cure) was a regimen given to newly admitted alcoholics to Towns Hospital who showed signs of DTs or severe alcohol withdrawal. Within the first twelve hours, the patient was sedated with a combination of chloral hydrate, morphine, paraldehyde, mercury, and strychnine, followed by repeated administration of belladonna (Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade) and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) over the next two days. Both plant-derived products produce delirium, hallucinations, light sensitivity, confusion, and dry mouth (Pittman 1988).\n\n# CHAPTER 2\n\n# The Demographics of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism\n\nMany different terms have been used by professionals, patients, and the media to describe drinking patterns and alcohol problems. Therefore, a useful place to begin our discussion of alcohol and alcoholism is to clarify the terms and definitions that the reader will frequently encounter in reading this book.\n\n# Definitions of Drinking Patterns\n\nMany people think that since whiskey is stronger, with a higher alcohol content than beer or wine, then drinking either of these wouldn't be as intoxicating as drinking hard liquor. So, instead they may drink three or four beers and believe they aren't as intoxicated as if they just had the same number of shots of whiskey.\n\nTo clarify this and for the purpose of consistency, alcohol researchers and public health officials have created the concept of a standard drink. A standard drink takes into account the different concentrations of alcohol in different beverages and is defined by the following (NIAAA 2008):\n\nStandard drink: one standard drink equals\n\n * 12 ounces of beer or wine cooler\n * 8\u20139 ounces of malt liquor\n * 5 ounces of table wine\n * 3\u20134 ounces of fortified wine\n * 2\u20133 ounces of cordial, liqueur, or aperitif\n * 1.5 ounces (one shot) of brandy\n * 1.5 ounces (one shot) of 80-proof distilled spirits\n\nModerate alcohol use is defined as up to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women and older persons. For most adults, drinking alcohol at this level causes few if any problems (NIAAA 2007a). Drinking becomes excessive, and is termed high-risk or hazardous drinking, when it causes or elevates the risk for alcohol-related problems or complicates the management of other health problems.\n\nHigh-risk or hazardous drinking for men is more than four standard drinks in a day (or more than fourteen per week), and for women is more than three drinks in a day (or more than seven per week). Epidemiologic research has found this level of alcohol use to significantly heighten the risk for alcohol-related problems (Dawson, Grant, and Li 2005).\n\nHeavy drinking is defined as five or more drinks in a day at least once a week for males, and four or more for females (NIAAA 2007a).\n\nBinge drinking is defined as drinking five or more drinks on the same occasion (SAMHSA 2008a).\n\nExplore or encourage your clients to explore the following NIAAA website for more information about \"How Much Is Too Much?\" drinking: .\n\n# Definitions of Alcohol Problems\n\nAlcohol Abuse\n\nThe American Psychiatric Association (APA 2000) defines alcohol abuse as \"a maladaptive pattern of alcohol use, leading to clinically significant impairment or distress as manifested by one or more behaviorally based criteria within a twelve-month period.\" These criteria all involve the continued use of alcohol despite consequences from drinking, which include failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home; situations where drinking is physically hazardous; legal problems; or social or interpersonal problems.\n\nAlcohol Dependence\n\nAlcohol dependence is the term now used to describe alcoholism. The criteria that defines alcohol dependence is also used to diagnose core symptoms of dependence syndromes to all other drugs of abuse.\n\nAlcohol and other drug dependence is defined by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) as a primary, chronic, neurobiological disease, with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing the development and manifestations. People with a substance addiction exhibit behaviors that include being unable to control their substance use, compulsive substance use, continued substance use despite harm, and urges and cravings for the substance (Ling, Wesson, and Smith 2005).\n\nThe American Psychiatric Association (APA 2000) defines alcohol dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) as a maladaptive pattern of alcohol use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, which is manifested by three or more behaviorally based criteria within a twelve-month period. These criteria include\n\n 1. tolerance, defined by either the need to dramatically increase alcohol use to achieve the desired effect, or a markedly diminished effect from the same level of continued alcohol use;\n 2. withdrawal, as manifested by either an alcohol withdrawal syndrome or drinking to avoid alcohol withdrawal;\n 3. alcohol often being used in larger amounts or over a longer period than intended;\n 4. a persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to cut down or control the use of alcohol;\n 5. considerable time spent in activities necessary to obtain alcohol, use alcohol, or recover from the effects of alcohol;\n 6. important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of alcohol use;\n 7. alcohol use continuing despite knowledge of having a persistent physical or psychological problem caused or worsened by alcohol (e.g., continued drinking despite awareness that alcohol use makes an ulcer worse).\n\nAlcohol Use Disorders\n\nThe term alcohol use disorders refers to either alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence.\n\nAlcoholism\n\nThe authors define alcoholism the same as alcohol dependence. Both terms will be used in this book interchangeably.\n\nSubstance Dependence\n\nThe authors use the term substance dependence to combine both alcohol and other drug dependence.\n\n# Other Definitions\n\nPsychosocial Therapy\n\nThis is a broad term that means any psychological-based therapy delivered to individuals or groups that addresses the thinking, behavioral, relationship, or family problems of the alcoholic.\n\nComorbid or Co-occurring\n\nThese terms refer to two or more conditions occurring at the same time. A person with both alcohol dependence and bipolar disorder (or another mental health disorder) is said to have comorbid alcohol dependence and bipolar disorder. Sometimes the term co-occurring disorders is referred to as dual disorders or dual diagnosis.\n\n# Current Alcohol Use in the U.S.\n\nAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO 2004), alcohol is consumed by roughly two billion people worldwide, of whom 76.3 million have an alcohol use disorder.\n\nAlcohol is the most widely used drug in the U.S., with roughly 104 million current users in the last year. Of persons aged 12 and older in the U.S., 51.39% have used alcohol in the past month, and 23.28% have binged (five or more drinks per occasion) on alcohol in the past month (SAMHSA 2008a). Table 2.1 shows the rates of past-year alcohol use disorders (alcohol abuse and dependence) that were found in the U.S. in 2006 (adapted fromOAS 2006).\n\nTable 2.1\n\n# Past-Year Rates of Alcohol Use Disorders in Demographic Subgroups\n\nAn interesting comparison between alcohol and other drugs involves looking at the percentage of persons who try each substance at least once and who develop an addiction to the same substance at some point in their lives (Anthony, Warner, and Kessler 1994; Chen and Anthony 2004; Hughes, Helzer, and Lindberg 2006):\n\nTable 2.2\n\n# Lifetime Rates of Addiction among Persons Who Use Specific Substances One or More Times\n\nSubstance| Percent (%) of people who become addicted \n---|--- \nNicotine| 32 \nHeroin| 23 \nCrack| 20 \nPowdered cocaine| 17 \nAlcohol| 15 \nStimulants other than cocaine| 11 \nCannabis| 9 \nSedatives| 9 \nPrescription opiates| 9 \nPsychedelics| 5 \nInhalants| 4\n\nNote the highest percentage of addiction among all the drugs: nicotine. Why do you think that is? Perhaps your own investigation into this matter might prove especially meaningful.\n\nChanges in alcohol use between 1991\u20131992 and 2001\u20132002 have been found. Persons meeting the criteria for alcohol abuse increased, but those meeting criteria for alcohol dependence decreased (Grant, Dawson, et al. 2004).\n\nPer Capita Use of Alcohol by Country, Ranking of U.S.\n\nThis table shows the per capita recorded alcohol consumption (in liters of pure alcohol) among adults who are 15 years of age or older. (One liter equals 33.32 ounces.) Data is for the year 2003.\n\nTable 2.3\n\nPer Capita Recorded Alcohol Consumption\n\nCountry | Liters of pure alcohol \n---|--- \nTurkey | 1.4 \nKenya | 1.5 \nIsrael | 2.5 \nCuba | 2.3 \nChina | 5.2 \nNorway | 5.5 \nSweden | 6.0 \nJapan | 7.6 \nCanada | 7.8 \nUSA | 8.6 \nItaly | 8.0 \nUnited Kingdom | 11.8 \nRussian Federation | 10.3 \nGermany | 12.0 \nIreland | 13.7\n\n(Excerpted from WHO 2008)\n\n# Drinking Patterns in the U.S.\n\nThe following table provides an overall summary of the drinking patterns among the U.S. drinking population (ages 18 and older). As mentioned, the established safe limit for the number of drinks on any day is no more than four for men or three for women and in a typical week no more than fourteen for men or seven for women (NIAAA 2007a):\n\nTable 2.4\n\n# Frequency of Drinking Patterns among Adults in the U.S.\n\nBetween 1993 and 2001, the average yearly number of binge-drinking episodes per person increased from 6.3 to 7.4, a 17% increase. Men accounted for 81% of binge-drinking episodes. Although rates of binge-drinking episodes were highest in persons aged 18 to 25 years, 69% of binge-drinking episodes occurred in persons aged 26 years or older. Overall, 47% of binge-drinking episodes occurred among otherwise moderate (i.e., nonheavy) drinkers, and 73% of all binge drinkers were moderate drinkers. Most significantly, binge drinkers were fourteen times more likely to drive while impaired by alcohol compared with nonbinge drinkers (Naimi et al. 2003).\n\nHeavy drinking contributes to illnesses in each of the top three causes of death: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranks alcohol as the third-leading cause of preventable death in the United States (Mokdad et al. 2004).\n\nAs demonstrated in table 2.4, three out of ten U.S. adults engage in at-risk drinking patterns and would benefit from counseling or a referral for a detailed assessment. The CDC also links excessive alcohol use, such as heavy drinking and binge drinking, to immediate health risks that endanger the drinker and those around him or her. These include traffic fatalities, unintentional firearm injuries, domestic violence and child abuse, unsafe sexual behaviors, sexual assault, miscarriage and stillbirth, and birth defects (RSA 2009; NIAAA 2008).\n\nDrinking Patterns in Persons under 18 Years (Underage Drinkers)\n\nCurrently, there are an estimated 10.8 million underage drinkers in the U.S. According to the 2005 Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey, three-fourths of twelfth graders, more than two-thirds of tenth graders, and about two in every five eighth graders drank alcohol in their lifetimes. Forty-five percent of twelfth graders, 34% of tenth graders, and 17% of eighth graders had used alcohol in the previous month, which is more than cigarettes and marijuana combined. Young drinkers tend to drink heavily when they do drink. The MTF data found that 1% of eighth graders, 22% of tenth graders, and 29% of twelfth graders binge-drank (five or more drinks) within the past two weeks (Johnston et al. 2008).\n\nAnother survey underscored how common binge drinking is for young drinkers. According to the results of the 2003 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 44.9% of high school students reported drinking alcohol during the past thirty days (28.8% binge drank and 16.1% drank alcohol but did not binge drink) (Miller et al. 2007). Although girls had higher rates of current nonbinge drinking, the actual rates of binge drinking were similar among boys and girls. The rates of binge drinking were found to increase with age and school grade.\n\nAlso found was that teens who drank heavily when they drank suffered more problems and engaged in more high-risk behavior than nondrinkers and nonbinge drinkers. Students who binge drank were more likely to report poor school performance, ride with an intoxicated driver, be currently sexually active, smoke tobacco, be a victim of dating violence, attempt suicide, and use illicit drugs. A strong association was found between the frequency of binge drinking and the prevalence of other high-risk behaviors (Miller et al. 2007).\n\nA national survey provided information on how adolescent drinkers obtain alcohol (SAMHSA 2008b). More than 40% of underage drinkers (persons aged 12 to 20 who drank in the past thirty days) reported obtaining alcohol from adults at no cost (SAMHSA 2008b). The same survey also found that more than 6% of underage drinkers were given alcohol by their parents in the past month, and that the younger the drinker, the more likely they obtained alcohol from a parent, guardian, or other family member.\n\nUnderage drinking is also common in the military. According to the most recent (2005) U.S. Department of Defense Survey, 62.3% of underage military members drank at least once a year. The same survey found that 21% of active duty military personnel aged 20 and younger reported heavy alcohol use\u2014defined as drinking five or more drinks per typical drinking occasion\u2014within the past thirty days (Bray and Hourani 2007).\n\nDrinking Patterns in College Students\n\nPersons in their late teens and early twenties are the most likely to drink heavily. In 2001\u20132002, about 70% of young adults, or about 19 million people, reported drinking in the previous year (Chen, Dufour, and Yi 2004). Among college students, 4 out of 5 drink alcohol, including almost 60% of students aged 18 to 20. Roughly 2 of every 5 college students of all ages reported binge drinking at least once in the past two weeks. However, colleges vary widely in the binge-drinking rates of their students, ranging from 1% to more than 70%. The consequences of excessive and underage drinking affect virtually all college campuses, college communities, and college students, whether they are younger or older than the minimum legal drinking age and whether or not they drink (NIAAA 2006).\n\nExcessive alcohol use among members of the Greek system on college campuses has long been a concern of the academic community. Numerous studies on the drinking patterns of fraternity and sorority members (Greeks) have shown that Greeks drink more frequently and more heavily, show more alcohol dependence symptoms, are more likely to initiate and continue abusive alcohol use patterns, and are more likely to experience alcohol-related problems than are nonaffiliated students (non-Greeks). Although it is well established that affiliation with the Greek system on college campuses is related to problematic levels of college alcohol use, one study found that alcohol use patterns among Greek members was no longer different from their non-Greek counterparts three years after college (Sher, Bartholow, and Nanda 2001).\n\n# Special Populations and Alcohol Use\n\nRacial and ethnic differences in alcohol use disorders have been observed in the U.S. Native Americans have the highest rates of alcohol dependence (Lamarine 1988; May and Moran 1995; Frank, Moore, and Ames 2000), and alcohol dependence is more frequent in non-African American races (Grant and Dawson 2006). Alcohol use in African Americans rises in their late twenties, a period when Hispanic and Caucasian use lessens (Fothergill and Ensminger 2006). African Americans suffer worse consequences than white Americans, such as loss of control, binge drinking, and health and interpersonal problems (Fothergill and Ensminger 2006), and African Americans are more likely than Caucasians to need treatment for alcohol and other drug abuse (Fothergill and Ensminger 2006).\n\nIn the U.S., the overall prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependence in 2001\u20132002 was more common among males and younger persons. Alcohol abuse was more prevalent among Caucasians than among African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. The prevalence of alcohol dependence was higher in Caucasians, Native Americans, and Hispanics than Asians. In the ten-year period between 1991\u20131992 and 2001\u20132002, alcohol abuse increased while alcohol dependence declined in the U.S. Increases in alcohol abuse were observed among males, females, and young African American and Hispanic minorities, while the rates of alcohol dependence rose among males, young African American females, and Asian males (Grant, Dawson, et al. 2004).\n\nStudying the rates of alcohol use disorders among persons from different racial and ethnic backgrounds can be challenging. For example, drinking rates are very different among Hispanics of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin. Similar differences exist among Asian Americans from various ethnic backgrounds and among members of the different Native American tribes (Caetano, Clark, and Tam 1998).\n\nNative Americans\n\nThe high prevalence of alcohol use and its related problems among American Indians may stem from a variety of factors, ranging from the influence of the past European colonizers to current social and cultural factors (Beauvais 1998).\n\nAfrican Americans\n\nAlthough more African Americans than Caucasians abstain from drinking, similar levels of frequent heavy drinking are found in both groups (Jones-Webb 1998).\n\nHispanics\n\nPatterns of alcohol use among Hispanics in the United States vary considerably. These differences between Hispanic groups in drinking patterns may be related to variations in the culture of origin, the result of the individual ethnic group's merging into mainstream culture, or a combination of both factors (Randolph et al. 1998).\n\nAsian\/Pacific Islander\n\nPeople of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) descent generally have lower rates of alcohol use and alcoholism than do other groups, although large variations in drinking behaviors are found between different API subgroups.\n\nDrinking and heavy-drinking rates are much higher among Japanese-Americans than among Chinese-Americans. Also, many Southeast Asian immigrants are at particularly high risk for heavy drinking, especially those who left their homelands during or after the Vietnam War. Among this group, heavy alcohol use may result from war and refugee-related psychological problems and trauma (Makimoto 1998).\n\nWomen\n\nSixty percent of women in the U.S. have at least one drink a year. Among women who drink, 13% have more than seven drinks per week (NIAAA 2008).\n\nMen have traditionally consumed more alcohol than women, but over the past thirty years, women (especially teens and college students) have steadily been narrowing this gap in consumption. During the 1950s only 6% of college women drank one or more times a week (Straus and Bacon 1953); in 2001, nearly 17% reported drinking ten or more times in the past month (Wechsler et al. 2002). In 1986, the frequency of binge drinking among men was 24% higher than women; in 1997 this dropped to 16% (O'Malley and Johnston 2002; LaBrie et al. 2009).\n\nA national survey found that roughly 18% of women have had an alcohol or other drug problem (abuse or dependence) during their lives, with the highest rates occurring between the ages of 21 and 34. However, older women may have hidden problems, with one report finding that 25.6 million American women over the age of 60 abuse substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and cigarettes, resulting in $30 billion in health care expenses (Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\nActive Military and Veterans\n\nThe prevalence of heavy drinking is higher among active military members (16.1%) than among civilians of comparable age and gender (12.9%). About one in four Marines (25.4%) and Army soldiers (24.5%) engages in heavy drinking. This high prevalence of heavy drinking has raised the concern over combat readiness. Also, members of the Army have shown an increase in heavy drinking from 2002 to 2005. These patterns of alcohol use are often acquired in the military and persist into civilian life, and are associated with the high rate of alcohol-related medical problems among Armed Forces veterans (RSA 2009).\n\nVeterans with combat experience may be at elevated risk of developing alcohol use disorders. The effects of combat exposure on subsequent alcohol use have been shown to persist for over a decade after extremely stressful exposure. Branchey, Davis, and Lieber (1984) found that close to 60% of a group of combat veterans drank heavily at the time of their study, versus 25% of a group of noncombat veterans from the Vietnam and Korean War eras.\n\nA study examined the relationship between specific combat experiences and alcohol use among Iraqi war veterans three to four months after they returned from deployment. Soldiers who had higher rates of exposure to the threat of death or injury were significantly more likely to exhibit an alcohol use disorder, while solders exposed to atrocities had the highest rates of alcohol use disorders and alcohol-related behavioral problems (Wilk et al. 2010). Among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2005, roughly 20% were diagnosed with an alcohol or substance use disorder (Seal et al. 2007).\n\nVeterans exposed to wartime violence are also at risk of developing a variety of behavioral and emotional problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many veterans with PTSD abuse alcohol or other substances in an attempt to lessen the distress of the PTSD symptoms. Among Vietnam-era veterans seeking treatment for PTSD a decade after the war, 60\u201380% had a concurrent diagnosis of substance abuse, alcohol abuse, or alcohol dependence (Keane et al. 1988).\n\nVeterans who took part in war crimes evaluated six to fifteen years after the Vietnam War reported more stress symptoms and greater use of heroin and marijuana than did other veterans. The ability or inability of the solders to dehumanize the victims afterwards contributed to the subsequent emotional response to the experience (Yager, Laufer, and Gallops 1984). A study of the longitudinal course of PTSD and alcohol\/substance abuse among Vietnam combat veterans found that the onset of symptoms typically occurred at the time of exposure to combat trauma, and rapidly increased in the first few years after combat. With the passage of more time, symptom severity transitioned into a chronic and unremitting course.\n\nHyperarousal symptoms such as always feeling on guard and feeling easily startled developed first, followed by avoidant symptoms and finally the intrusive symptoms such as flashbacks. The onset of alcohol and substance abuse typically coincided with the onset of PTSD symptoms, and increased alcohol and substance use paralleled the increase in symptom severity. Overall, patients reported that alcohol, marijuana, heroin, and benzodiazepines (Valium, Ativan, Xanax) lessened PTSD symptoms, while cocaine worsened the hyperarousal symptoms. Sadly, the results of the study did not find a relationship between treatment interventions and the ability to interrupt the natural course of the PTSD and substance abuse (Bremner et al. 1996).\n\nHowever, not all studies have found a strong association between combat experience and risk of alcohol use disorders. Among Vietnam-era veterans, military service in a war zone was found to have only a modest long-term effect on alcohol drinking patterns (Goldberg et al. 1990).\n\nThe Elderly\n\nAlthough alcohol use tends to decline through adulthood (SAMHSA 1999), a large proportion of older adults continue or begin to drink heavily. In community samples (Mirand and Welte 1996), the prevalence rates of problem drinking among older adults range from 0.9 to 9% with rates up to 24% found among older medical and psychiatric patients (Moore et al. 1999; Patterson and Jeste 1999; Blow et al. 2000; Friedmann et al. 1999; Ganry et al. 2000). Similar to younger adults, older adult males had higher prevalence rates than females (Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\nPrevalence rates of alcohol or drug dependence among the elderly may be underestimated because of difficulties with detection and proper assessment. Assessment often focuses on social, legal, and occupational consequences of drinking, which may not apply to older adults. In addition, the commonly used diagnostic criteria of substance dependence do not readily apply to older adults (Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\n# Comorbid (Co-occurring or Dual) Conditions\n\nAn estimated 1.1% of persons in the U.S. have a comorbid alcohol and other drug use disorder (Arias and Kranzler 2008), making the simultaneous use of alcohol and other drugs a major public health concern. The interaction of a concurrent alcohol and other drug abuse or dependence can lead to dangerous consequences, such as overdose or death (Martin 2008).\n\nAlcoholism and Psychiatric Disorders\n\nAlcohol dependence can precede, co-occur with, or result from many psychiatric conditions, including mood disorders (such as major depression), anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders (such as bulimia), and personality disorders (such as antisocial personality disorder). Psychological factors may contribute to problem drinking, including the need for relief from anxiety or depression, unresolved relationship conflict, and interpersonal loss.\n\nGenetic factors can increase the risk of both alcohol and other drug abuse or dependence. Some of these factors also increase the risk of various psychiatric disorders that are characterized by impulsive or disinhibited behavior (i.e., externalizing disorders) such as antisocial personality disorder, attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and conduct disorder (Dick and Agrawal 2008).\n\nEpidemiological studies have found that among persons with alcohol dependence, 15.15% and 17.75% also met criteria for a depressive disorder or anxiety disorder, respectively (Grant, Stinson, et al. 2006; Grant, Stinson, et al. 2004).\n\nPersonality disorders (PDs), such as antisocial disorders, are common among alcoholics. Among individuals with a current alcohol use disorder, 28.6% have a PD, and 16.4% of persons with a PD have a current alcohol use disorder. Overall, alcohol use disorders are most strongly associated with antisocial, histrionic, and dependent PDs. The association between obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, schizoid, and antisocial PDs and specific alcohol and other drug use disorders is higher among women than men (Grant, Stinson, et al. 2006; Grant, Stinson, et al. 2004). Alcoholics are twenty-one times more likely to have a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder than are nonalcoholics (Regier et al. 1990), and PDs (especially antisocial PD) are more common among alcoholics with early age of onset of problem drinking, heavier alcohol use, and a more severe course of alcohol dependence (Bottlender, Preuss, and Soyka 2006).\n\nAlcohol use disorders are very common among people with schizophrenia. Several biological and psychosocial factors may contribute to this comorbidity. Schizophrenic patients with alcohol use disorder are more likely to have social, legal, and medical problems compared with nonproblem drinking schizophrenic patients. Alcohol use disorders also complicate the course and treatment of schizophrenia (Drake and Mueser 2002).\n\nAlcoholism and bipolar disorder often co-occur, and the presence of alcoholism worsens the course and prognosis of bipolar disorder and makes it more difficult to treat. Although it is unclear why these conditions co-occur, researchers have proposed that one disorder may contribute to the development of the other. Genetic risk factors common to both disorders may also play a role (Sonne and Brady 2002).\n\nPeople suffering from social anxiety and social phobia disorder have an excessive and irrational fear that they will do something embarrassing in social situations or display obvious symptoms of anxiety such as blushing or sweating that will lead to humiliation. People with social anxiety also have a higher incidence of alcohol use disorders compared with the general population, possibly due to their attempts to manage the interpersonal anxiety (Book and Randall 2002).\n\nAlcohol use disorders also frequently co-occur with behavioral disorders such as compulsive gambling and eating disorders (Grant, Kushner, and Kim 2002; Grilo, Sinha, and O'Malley 2002).\n\nComorbid Conditions with Adolescent Alcohol Use Disorders\n\nSeveral factors contribute to adolescent alcohol and other drug use, including psychological, psychiatric, environmental, and peer and family influences. Psychological risk factors include personality characteristics such as novelty seeking or aggressiveness, low self-esteem, and exposure to stressful and traumatic life events. Co-occurring psychiatric disorders include depression, anxiety disorders, conduct disorder, and attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (Deas and Thomas 2002).\n\nAttention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a childhood mental disorder characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, and may contribute to alcohol-related problems in adolescence and adulthood. ADHD is highly associated with the early onset of drinking and progression to abuse or dependence. The presence of ADHD in persons with alcohol abuse or dependence has important treatment implications because treatment approaches must take into consideration their deficits in attention and impulse control (Smith, Molina, and Pelham 2002; Molina and Pelham 2003).\n\nChildren with antisocial behavior and related mental disorders such as conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder are more likely to develop alcohol problems during adolescence. This may be due to a common origin of both disorders; both antisocial behavior and alcohol use disorders may result from common genetic or environmental influences coupled with poor impulse control in the person. Programs aimed at reducing antisocial and impulsive behavior during childhood may prevent the future development of alcohol problems (Clark, Vanukov, and Cornelius 2002).\n\n# Risk Factors for Alcohol Abuse and Dependence\n\nThe regulation of all behavior, including drinking behavior, is influenced by the interaction of genes, brain transmitter chemicals, and environmental influences (Schuessler 2004). The development of alcohol dependence is also determined by multiple factors, including genetic makeup, familial influence, environmental experience, and the interaction of these factors.\n\nGenetics\n\nThe role of a genetic influence in the development of alcoholism has been confirmed by several investigations. These include a fourfold risk of alcohol dependence in relatives of alcoholics. Identical twins of alcohol-dependent subjects carry a higher risk for alcoholism than do fraternal twins or full siblings. And adopted children of alcoholics have the same fourfold increased risk for this disorder as do offspring raised by their alcohol-dependent parent (Goodwin et al. 1974; Cotton 1979; Prescott and Kendler 1999). Studies have confirmed that identical twins, who share the same genes, are about twice as likely as fraternal twins, who share an average of 50% of their genes, to resemble each other in terms of developing an alcohol use disorder (NIAAA 2003).\n\nMany genes play a role in shaping alcoholism risk. Some of these genes direct the production of proteins involved in the signaling process between neurons (brain cells), while other genes encode the enzymes that metabolize (break down) alcohol (NIAAA 2004). One well-studied relationship between genes and alcoholism involves variations in the liver enzymes that metabolize alcohol. Persons with this genetic variation accumulate greater amounts of the toxic alcohol metabolic product acetaldehyde, causing the symptoms of flushing, nausea, and rapid heartbeat.\n\nGenes associated with flushing are more common among Asian populations than other ethnic groups, and the rates of excessive alcohol use are correspondingly lower in these Asian groups (Luczak et al. 2001; Suwaki et al. 2001; Fromme et al. 2004).\n\nPersons vary greatly in their response to stress. These individual differences are also genetically influenced and help shape susceptibility to psychiatric illness, including alcoholism. Research suggests that genes affecting the activity of the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) serotonin and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) may play a role in alcoholism risk by influencing response to alcohol or vulnerability to stress (NIAAA 2003).\n\nAlthough the offspring of alcoholics are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than children of nonalcoholics (Gilbertson, Prather, and Nixon 2008), and 40 to 60% of the risk for alcoholism is genetically determined, genes alone do not preordain that someone will be alcoholic. The development of alcohol dependence is a complex problem largely involving the interaction between genetic and environmental factors (Hazelden Aug. 2001).\n\nEarly Environment\n\nIn general, exposure to stressors early in life and the cumulative effect of chronic stress exposure result in long-lasting neuroendocrine, physiological, behavioral, and psychological changes. These changes negatively affect the development of brain systems involved in learning, motivation, and the capacity to handle stress.\n\nThere is also evidence that the greater the number of stressors an individual is exposed to, the higher the risk of developing addiction (Sinha 2008).\n\nDeficient Infant Caregiving\n\nConsiderable brain development occurs during the first two years of life, and this developmental process is very susceptible to adverse influences from the environment. A chaotic, unstable caregiving environment during infancy may create an overreactive stress response system, resulting in subsequent impairments in the ability to regulate emotions, motivation-reward, and impulse control that constitute a vulnerability to development of an addictive disorder (Kalinichev, Easterling, and Holtzman 2003; Pryce and Feldon 2003; Goodman 2009).\n\nResearchers have found that children who were adopted from deprived institutional settings before age three and a half display marked degrees of inattention and overactivity at six and eleven years of age, as well as deficits in the executive functions of planning, inhibition, set-shifting (ability to change behavior in response to change in the environment), working memory, generativity (concern for others), and action monitoring (capacity to evaluate correctness of response to a current situation) (Goodman 2009).\n\nThese executive function deficits were most severe in children who had experienced more than six months of institutional maternal deprivation (Colvert et al. 2008; Stevens et al. 2008). While deficient infant caregiving has been associated with many neurobiological abnormalities, the most widely reported are hypersensitivity of the stress response systems (Caldji, Diorio, and Meaney 2000; Holmes et al. 2005; Aisa et al. 2008; Ladd et al. 2004; Plotsky et al. 2005; Goodman 2009).\n\nChildhood Stress and Trauma\n\nSubstantial evidence has linked adverse childhood experiences and later development of substance use disorders. A study of female identical twins where one twin, but not the other, had experienced childhood sexual abuse, found the twins exposed to sexual abuse had a substantially increased risk for alcoholism and other drug addictions (Kendler et al. 2000). Researchers following substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect into young adulthood have verified the causal role played by childhood victimization in the development of alcohol abuse (Schuck and Widom 2001). Childhood sexual abuse also increases the overall risk for the development of numerous psychiatric disorders (Fergusson and Mullen 1999; Bulik, Prescott, and Kendler 2001; Goodman 2009).\n\nChildren who have been sexually or physically abused manifest either abnormally elevated or abnormally flat cortisol (a stress hormone) levels in response to stress, and childhood abuse may initially sensitize the stress response system, creating a heightened vulnerability to stress during childhood and increasing the risk for stress-related disorders. Changes in the brain from childhood abuse may include the abnormally excessive release of the stress hormone called corticotropin-releasing hormone during stress (Fries et al. 2005; Goodman 2009). Also, the greater the duration of childhood physical abuse, the more likely the person is to later develop an alcohol or other drug addiction (Lo and Cheng 2007).\n\nTogether, these processes enhance the risk of developing an addictive disorder by facilitating the atrophy, or shrinkage, of two brain regions called the hippocampus and cortex.\n\nThe resultant reduction of brain cell and brain circuit integrity in these two brain regions worsens the ability to modulate or inhibit stress or fear responses that are generated by other brain regions, and the ability to block or slow the release of other stress hormones (de Geus et al. 2007). These stress-induced processes may degrade executive functioning, impair the ability to regulate one's emotions, and increase the risk of problems with impulse control.\n\nStudies have also found that the chronic stress of neglectful or abusive parental care during childhood results in a major stress response system in the body (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or HPA) that is hypersensitive to psychosocial stressors and a midbrain that produces an exaggerated response to triggers of dopamine release. Both of these conditions are highly conducive to the development of addictive disorders (Pruessner et al. 2004; Goodman 2009).\n\nWe currently don't know whether alterations in brain chemistry ob served in chronic addicts are caused by environmental factors such as physical or sexual abuse which came before the substance abuse, or by the long-term alcohol or other drug use itself (Cleck and Blendy 2008).\n\nPsychosocial Environment\n\nMany people drink in response to stress, and this drinking can increase when stress becomes chronic (Walter et al. 2005). People are more likely to consume alcohol in response to stress when other means of coping are absent, when alcohol is available, and when the person believes that alcohol will relieve stress. Many factors influence whether and to what extent a person will drink for stress relief, including genetic factors, the individual's pre-stress drinking pattern, the intensity and type of stressor, the sense of control over the stressor, and the presence or lack of social support (Tsigos and Chrousos 1995).\n\nThe physiological response to stress, and the perception of what is stressful, is influenced by genetic factors and by the early caregiving environment. Exposure to severe or chronic stress in childhood can increase the vulnerability to alcohol problems by permanently altering the stress responses that are mediated by HPA axis activity and locus coeruleus (brain region involved in mediating the emotional and physiological response to stress) function. Abnormal activity and function in these two brain networks in turn alters the response to alcohol (De Bellis 2002; Pohorecky 1991).\n\nAlthough a direct relationship between stress, drinking behavior, and the development of alcoholism has not been established, the connection is considerably stronger in persons who are already alcoholic. Relapse in abstinent alcoholics can be triggered by personally threatening, severe, or chronic stress, although the likelihood of relapse is reduced by sufficient coping skills, self-efficacy, and social support (Brown et al. 1995).\n\nThe beliefs and attitudes (expectancies) that people harbor toward alcohol can influence how they drink. People are motivated to drink alcohol, sometimes to excess, by social influences, social norms, and social contexts. The perception of social reward through cultivating and maintaining a certain image, and the assumed avoidance of social rejection, can serve as powerful motivators to drink (NIAAA 2000). Experience with the pharmacologic effects of alcohol and vicarious learning from parents, peers, and media portrayals of drinking can result in the development of expectancies regarding the effects of drinking. These expectancies can then influence the decision to consume alcohol.\n\nExpectancies about drinking are typically formed much earlier in life than the first drinking experience and can predict future drinking behavior. For instance, young teenagers who believe that alcohol makes it easier to socialize will later drink significantly more than their peers who did not share this belief. Expectancies and the immediate effects of alcohol are mutually reinforcing, and some researchers believe that expectancy bridges the gap between the pleasurable effects of alcohol and the decision to drink in a given situation (NIAAA 2000; Smith et al. 1995).\n\nThe impact of the social environment is also seen in women who drink, or drink more than they normally would, to fulfill what they believe are the expectations of others such as peers or boyfriends. A study showed that female college students overestimate the amount of alcohol that males want their female friends, dating partners, and sexual partners to consume, and that this misperception affects females' drinking behavior (LaBrie et al. 2009).\n\nA large percentage of women mistakenly believe that males want them to drink to risky levels, defined as five or more drinks, especially in the context of female friends and sexual partners. Also found was that women drink more than they otherwise would in order to make themselves appear attractive and desirable in the pursuit of intimate relationships and attention from male peers (LaBrie et al. 2009).\n\nThe Influence of Family\n\nIn addition to the genes passed on from parent to child, and the direct effects of childhood abuse or neglect, other factors encountered in the family environment can increase the risk of developing an alcohol problem when the following are present:\n\n * an alcoholic parent who is depressed or has other psychological problems,\n * abuse of alcohol or other drugs by both parents,\n * severe parental alcohol abuse, or\n * family conflicts that escalate to aggression or violence (NIAAA 2007b).\n\nAlthough a positive family history of alcoholism is a risk factor for alcoholism, and the risk of alcohol dependence is three to four times greater among the first-degree relatives of persons with alcohol dependence, most children of alcoholics do not become problem drinkers (APA 2000).\n\nCultural Influences\n\nTraditional cultural expectations of alcohol use provide specific, often gender-based norms that designate approval or disapproval over specific drinking behaviors (Bussey and Bandura 1999). For instance, traditional Mexican gender-based cultural expectations communicate a message of community disapproval of alcohol use by Mexican women while communicating an acceptance of it among men. This cultural expectation creates great differences in the rates of alcohol use by Mexican men relative to Mexican women, which is much greater than the differences between white American men and women (Castro and Coe 2007).\n\nGene-Environment Interaction\n\nZucker et al. (1996) described a pattern of influence for the development of alcoholism, which includes the following genetic, psychological, and environmental factors:\n\n 1. A heightened genetic vulnerability for alcoholism (genetic)\n 2. A temperament that results in relationship problems and conflict (psychological)\n 3. A child-rearing environment that may encourage problem alcohol use (environmental)\n 4. A family structure with conflict within its boundaries (environmental and psychological)\n\nResearch involving children of alcoholics (COAs) has found protective and risk factors in the development of alcoholism. Parenting approach plays an important role. Parenting influences can be placed into two categories:\n\n * Alcohol-specific\n * Nonalcohol-specific\n\nAlcohol-specific parenting influences include the modeling of parental drinking behavior and thinking positively about alcohol and its anticipated effect (alcohol expectancies). These influences probably affect COAs more strongly than children of nonalcoholics.\n\nIn contrast, nonalcohol-specific influences, such as parent-child interactions that favor aggressive, antisocial behavior, or parents with psychological disorders, similarly increase the risk for alcohol problems in children of both alcoholics and nonalcoholics (Jacob and Johnson 1997).\n\nFurther research on COAs has found differences between sons of alcoholics (SOAs) and sons of nonalcoholics (non-SOAs). These differences may increase the risk in SOAs of developing alcohol problems. For example, SOAs are likely to react to stressful stimuli more intensely than do non-SOAs and to exhibit physiological responses, such as increased heart rate, that are associated with heightened tension and anxiety. Following alcohol use, SOAs' reactions to both stressful and nonstressful stimuli are substantially reduced compared with non-SOAs. SOAs also tend to have a more heightened reward experience and less impairment from alcohol than non-SOAs, both of which predict future alcohol problems (Finn and Justus 1997).\n\n# CHAPTER 3\n\n# Societal Impact of Alcohol Use and Dependence\n\nThe abuse of alcohol is linked to many harmful consequences, not only for the drinker, but also for his or her family and friends. In addition, the community and society where the drinker lives and works incur consequences. Some of the social harms commonly associated with drinking include crime, accidents and injuries, illness, disease and death, and disrupted school and work performance and productivity (Gmel and Rehm 2003).\n\n# Social Impact\n\nWhen someone experiences alcohol problems, the negative effects of drinking exert a toll not only on the drinker, but also on his or her partner and other family members (McCrady and Hay 1987). About one child in every four (28.6%) in the U.S. is exposed to alcohol abuse or dependence in the family (Grant 2000). The widely documented association between alcohol use and interpersonal violence clearly demonstrates how alcohol use negatively impacts the family (Roberts, Roberts, and Leonard 1999). Family problems that are likely to co-occur with alcohol problems include the following (Brennan, Moos, and Kelly 1994):\n\n * Violence\n * Marital conflict\n * Infidelity\n * Jealousy\n * Economic insecurity\n * Divorce\n * Fetal alcohol effects\n\nDrinking problems may negatively alter marital and family functioning, but there is also evidence that they can increase as a consequence of marital and family problems (Magura and Shapiro 1988). Heavy drinking and alcohol abuse is also associated with unemployment, and can likewise result in economic consequences for the individual and emotional strain on the family. Heavy drinking can lead to financial hardship and poverty through a number of means, including lowered wages due to missed work and poor job performance, lost employment opportunities, increased medical expenses for illness and accidents, legal cost of alcohol-related offenses, and reduced loan eligibility (WHO 2004).\n\n# Public Health, Morbidity, and Mortality\n\nAlcohol use contributes to a wide range of negative health consequences to the drinker and those in proximity to the drinker, such as his or her friends and\/or colleagues at work. Some of these consequences occur during intoxication, while others are the result of chronic alcohol abuse (Rehm et al. 1996).\n\nRanking of Alcohol in Causes of Disease and Death\n\nThe leading causes of death in 2000 were\n\n * tobacco (435,000 deaths, or 18.1% of all U.S. deaths),\n * poor diet and physical inactivity (365,000 deaths; 15.2%), and\n * alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%) (Mokdad et al. 2004).\n\nOther specific causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle accidents (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit drug use (17,000) (Mokdad et al. 2004).\n\nImpact of Underage Drinking\n\nInjury is the leading cause of death among young people in the U.S., and alcohol is the leading contributor to injury deaths. In the U.S., an estimated 5,000 persons under age 21 die each year from injuries caused by drinking (USDHHS 2007). These include\n\n * motor vehicle crashes (about 1,900 deaths),\n * homicides (about 1,600 deaths), and\n * suicides (about 300 deaths).\n\nImpact of College Drinking\n\nAlcohol use among college students aged 18\u201324 results in a wide range of injuries and criminal conduct (Hingson et al. 2005):\n\n * Deaths: An estimated 1,700 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle accidents; roughly half of these students were under age 21.\n * Injuries: An estimated 599,000 students are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol every year.\n * Assaults: It is estimated that more than 696,000 students are assaulted by another student who is under the influence of alcohol each year, including 430,000 by a college student under age 21.\n * Sexual Assault: An estimated 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape each year, with about half being students under 21.\n * Unsafe Sex: It is estimated that more than 400,000 college students had unprotected sex as a result of drinking, and more than 100,000 students each year report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex.\n * Academic Problems: An estimated 25% of college students report academic consequences from alcohol use, including missing class, falling behind, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades.\n * Vandalism: Roughly 11% of college student drinkers report that they have damaged property while intoxicated.\n\n# Accidents and Injuries\n\nUnintentional injury is the leading cause of death in the U.S. among those under 44 years of age. More than 100,000 Americans die annually as a result of accidental injuries, nearly half of which are from motor vehicle crashes, and the remainder from falls, burns, poisonings, and drownings, among other causes. Unintentional injury accounts for an even higher rate of morbidity, with the rate of serious injury estimated to be more than 300 times the mortality rate (Vyrostek, Annest, and Ryan 2004), and it is estimated that more than 70 million Americans annually require medical treatment for nonfatal unintentional injuries. Intentional injuries, those resulting from violence-related events (homicides and assaults) and from suicide (attempted and completed), also account for substantial proportions of fatalities and those requiring medical intervention.\n\nA substantial amount of literature exists on the association of alcohol and injury. Longitudinal studies in the general population have found injuries to be more common among those who are alcohol dependent and heavy drinkers than among others (Anda, Williamson, and Remington 1988; Klatsky, Friedman, and Siegelaub 1981). Other data supporting the alcohol-injury link have come from a variety of sources including reports of trauma histories among alcoholics, case series reports from hospital and coroner records, and epidemiologic studies, many of which have been conducted in hospital emergency rooms (ERs) (Cherpitel et al. 2009; reviewed in Cherpitel 1993, 2007; Roizen 1989; Romelsj\u00f6 1995).\n\nWhile alcohol is known to be associated with injury, its association with severity of injury has been an issue of ongoing debate, and the literature suggests mixed findings (Li et al. 1997). Alcohol may be significantly associated with increased risk of serious injury, possibly due to other factors that are associated with alcohol use, such as speeding, not wearing seat belts or helmets, and other risk-taking behaviors. On the other hand, alcohol intoxication itself can bias injury severity scores upward (Waller 1988), and those more severely injured are also more likely to reach the ER sooner, and consequently more likely to have a positive (and higher) blood alcohol concentration (BAC) than those less severely injured who arrive later.\n\nMore attention has been paid to fatal accidents compared to nonfatal accidents, and among nonfatal accidents, motor vehicular crashes have received the most attention.\n\nAlcohol Involvement by Location and Cause of Injury\n\nMotor Vehicle Accidents\n\nAutomobiles. Car crashes are the leading cause of death from injury and the greatest single cause of all deaths for those between the ages of 15 and 34. Almost 50% of these fatalities are believed to be alcohol-related and alcohol's involvement is even greater for drivers involved in single-vehicle nighttime fatal crashes. The risk of a fatal crash is estimated to be from 3 to 15 times greater for those with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.10 g\/dL or above compared to a nondrinking driver (Roizen 1982).\n\nAlcohol is less frequently present in nonfatal than in fatal crashes, and it is estimated that about 25\u201335% of those injured drivers requiring ER care have a BAC of 0.10 or greater. One study found that accident-involved drivers were six times more likely to have positive BACs than site-controlled nonaccident drivers (Borkenstein et al. 1964), and the likelihood of an accident risk increased with increasing BACs (Hurst, Harte, and Frith 1994).\n\nMotorcycles. Motorcyclists are at an even greater risk of death than automobile occupants, with up to 50% of fatally injured motorcyclists having a BAC of 0.10 or greater (Romelsj\u00f6 1995).\n\nPedestrians. Pedestrians killed or injured by motor vehicles also have been found more likely to have been drinking than those not involved in such accidents (Romelsj\u00f6 1995). Estimates of 31\u201344% of fatally injured pedestrians have been found to be drinking at the time of the accident, with 14% of fatal pedestrian accidents involving an intoxicated driver compared to 24% involving an intoxicated pedestrian.\n\nAviation. Flying skills have been found to be impaired at BACs as low as 0.025, and a BAC of 0.015 or greater was found in 18\u201343% of deceased pilots (Romelsj\u00f6 1995; Ryan and Mohler 1979).\n\nHome Accidents\n\nAmong all nonfatal injuries occurring in the home, an estimated 22\u201330% involve alcohol, with 10% having BACs above 0.10. Coroner data suggest that alcohol consumption immediately before a fatal accident occurs more often in deaths from falls and fires than in motor vehicle deaths.\n\nFalls. Falls are the most common cause of nonfatal injuries in the U.S. (accounting for more than 60%) and the second-leading cause of fatal accidents. The risk of a fall is directly related to impairment of balance. Several studies have found that individuals with BACs above 0.10 are at increased risk of swaying on the Romberg test, which measures the ability to stand upright (Hingson and Howland 1993). Alcohol's involvement in fatal falls has been found to range from 21% to 77%, and in nonfatal falls from 17% to 57%. Risk is likely even higher for the elderly who may already have balance impairment due to neurological processes or side effects of certain medications, coupled with a lower tolerance to alcohol when they do drink.\n\nFires and Burns. Fires and burns are the fourth-leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Alcohol involvement has been estimated in 12\u201383% of these fatalities (with a median value of 46%) and up to 50% among nonfatal burn injuries (with a median value of 17%) (Hingson and Howland 1993). It has been estimated that about 50% of burn fatalities were intoxicated and that alcohol exposure is most frequent among victims of fires caused by cigarettes.\n\nRecreational Accidents\n\nDrownings. Drownings rank as the third-leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. for those aged 5 to 44, and the fourth-leading cause across all age groups (Howland et al. 1995). Estimates of alcohol involvement have ranged from 30% to 54% (with an average of 38%) in drowning fatalities and 35% in those coming close to drowning. Alcohol is associated with physiological and cognitive effects which may contribute to drowning, including dilation of the blood vessels leading to hypothermia in cold water and an increased possibility of caloric labyrinthitis, an inner-ear disturbance which may cause the person suddenly immersed in cold water to become disoriented and swim down rather than up, as well as retard laryngospasm when water is aspirated.\n\nOne survey found 36% of the males and 11% of the females reported drinking at the last recreational occasion on or near the water, and nearly a third of the males reported at least four drinks at that occasion (Howland and Hingson 1990).\n\nBicycle Injuries. Bicycling is the leading cause of recreational injuries, resulting in more than 500,000 ER visits, 20,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000 deaths annually in the U.S. (Li et al. 1996). Among those fatally injured, 32% were found to be BAC positive and 23% had BACs of .10 or above (Li and Baker 1994). A comparison of fatal bicycle injuries with nonfatal injuries found fatal injuries more likely to have positive BACs (30% vs. 16%) and to have BACs of .10 and above (22% vs. 13%) (Li et al. 1996).\n\nSnowmobiles and Mopeds. Forty percent of snowmobile injuries have been found to involve alcohol (Smith and Kraus 1988), along with 30% of moped injuries (Roizen 1989).\n\nHypothermia and Frostbite. Alcohol has been found to greatly increase the risk of hypothermia and frostbite. Among exposure-related fatalities, 63% were found to be BAC positive with 48% at 0.15 or higher (Luke and Levy 1982), while 53% of frostbite patients have been found to be alcohol positive (Urschel 1990).\n\nOccupational Injuries\n\nAlcohol's involvement in work-related accidents varies greatly by type of industry. The proportion of those positive for blood alcohol is considerably lower than for other kinds of injuries, regardless of workplace. This is particularly true in the U.S. where drinking on the job is not a widespread regular activity. An estimated 15% of work-related fatalities have been found to be alcohol positive, with a range of 1\u201316% for nonfatal injuries (Roizen 1989; Stallones and Kraus 1993).\n\nIntentional Injuries\n\nViolence-Related Injuries. Alcohol has been found to be more prevalent in violence-related injuries (homicide, assault, domestic violence, robbery) than in those from unintentional causes. High proportions of both victims and perpetrators were found to be alcohol positive at the time of the event. Alcohol is thought to facilitate aggressive behaviors on the part of the perpetrator, as well as induce cognitive impairment related to normal judgment and decision making on the part of the victim. Among homicides, more than half involved alcohol by either the offender or the victim (Collins and Messerschmidt 1993). In a review of ER studies, between 22% and 70% of violent-related injuries were BAC positive compared to a range of 7\u201322% for nonviolence-related injuries attending the same ERs during the same period of time (Cherpitel 2007).\n\nSuicide. A review of suicides found a range of 10\u201369% for completed suicides (with an average of 33%) and a range of 10\u201373% for attempted suicides (Cherpitel, Borges, and Wilcox 2004). About 20% of suicide victims have been identified as alcohol dependent, and are at increased risk of suicide compared to those in the general population. The suicide risk among alcoholics is estimated to be almost twice as high as for nonalcoholics and 60 to 120 times higher than for other nonpsychiatrically ill in the general population (Roy 1993).\n\nMechanisms Linking Alcohol to Injury\n\nA number of factors in combination (one of which is alcohol) link alcohol consumption to injury with various time relationships to one another and to the outcome of injury (Romelsj\u00f6 1995). Alcohol consumption, together with other contributory causes, provides a sufficient cause for injury.\n\nDrinking during the Event\n\nAlcohol consumption is known to diminish motor coordination and balance and\/or increase reaction time and impair attention, perception, and judgment regarding behavior, all of which may potentiate the likelihood of both intentional and unintentional injury occurrence. A dose-response relationship is also presumed; that is, the more alcohol consumed, the greater the likelihood of injury occurrence. Reviews of fatal vehicular crashes have found risk increases exponentially with increasing BAC (Hurst 1973; Perrine, Peck, and Fell 1989), and a summary of U.S. findings show a dose-response relationship, with a BAC of 0.8%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0% associated with a twofold, sevenfold, tenfold, and twentyfold increased risk, respectively, for a road traffic accident (Brismar and Bergman 1998).\n\nA Finnish ER study found a dose-response relationship between BAC and the likelihood of injury from falls, with those with BACs between 0.06 and 0.10 three times more likely to be injured than those with non-detectable blood alcohol; while those with BACs between 0.10 and 0.15 were ten times more likely, and those with BACs above 0.15 were sixty times more likely to have suffered a fall injury (Honkanen et al. 1983).\n\nThe influence of hangover may also be linked to injury, but it has received little attention. A case-control study of those incurring ski injuries found drinking at least twelve hours prior to injury increased the risk for a skiing accident, but no association was found for drinking in closer proximity to the event, suggesting injury may have been due to the residual alcohol effect including fatigue (Cherpitel, Meyers, and Perrine 1998).\n\nUsual Drinking Patterns\n\nWhile the amount of drinking on any particular occasion is an important risk factor in the occurrence of injuries, the pattern of usual drinking may also play a part in risk of injury. Injured patients, generally, have been found more likely to report frequent, heavy, and problem drinking compared to both non-injured patients and those in the general population from which they come (Borges et al. 1998; Cherpitel 1995).\n\nA study of crash-involved drivers, however, found more frequent drinkers to be at lower risk than less frequent drinkers at all BAC levels (Hurst, Harte, and Frith 1994). Other analysis of cross-sectional data of drinking and driving in the U.S. found the highest risk of injury was associated with those who only occasionally drank heavily but who drank more than their usual amounts at the time of the event (Gruenewald, Mitchell, and Treno 1996; Treno and Holder 1997), suggesting heavy episodic drinking may be more strongly related to injury than usual volume of drinking.\n\nAlthough heavy drinkers are at highest risk of injury, usually light drinkers may account for more alcohol-related injuries because they are more numerous and are more liable to the effects of heavy drinking occasions (Gmel et al. 2001). Data from a Swiss ER study found risk of injury increased with volume of drinking, heavy episodic drinking, and drinking in the twenty-four hours prior to injury (Gmel et al. 2006).\n\nAt the same level of alcohol use in the twenty-four hours prior to injury, however, high-volume drinkers were at a lower risk of injury than low-volume drinkers, suggesting that while all groups of drinkers were at increased risk of alcohol-related injury, those who usually drank little but on occasion drank heavily were at greater risk (Gmel et al. 2006).\n\nAlcohol Use Disorders\n\nThe literature on the role of alcohol use disorders (alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse), as opposed to unwise drinking in injury occurrence, suggests that those with dependence or abuse may be at a greater risk of both fatal and nonfatal injuries than those who drink prior to an accident.\n\nThose with alcohol use disorders are significantly more likely to be drinking and to be drinking heavily prior to an accident than others. Among fatalities from all injury causes, they have been found to be more than twice as likely as other drinkers to have a BAC at 0.10 and above (Haberman and Baden 1974). The risk of accidental death has been estimated to be from three to sixteen times greater for dependent drinkers than for other drinkers (Haberman and Baden 1974). Dependent drinkers have also been found to experience higher rates of both fatal and nonfatal accidents even when sober.\n\nStudies conducted in hospital ERs have reported mixed findings regarding alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and injury. However, these studies have used varying measures of AUDs, so prevalence rates across studies are not comparable (Cherpitel 2007). Additionally, some of these studies based prevalence rates on both drinkers and nondrinkers, which would provide lower prevalence rates since nondrinkers would not be expected to report symptoms of AUDs.\n\nThese data, then, raise the question as to whether chronic use and abuse of alcohol are more closely linked to injury occurrence than acute use of alcohol (drinking in the injury event). While the association of drinking during the injury may be attributed to a number of known physiological phenomena as described earlier, including diminished coordination and balance, less is known about the role and mechanism of usual alcohol consumption in injury occurrence or the interaction of acute and chronic use.\n\nIt is possible that prolonged use of alcohol over time may provide a protective effect for injury occurrence if an individual has developed a level of tolerance that allows him or her to engage in certain activities while drinking, which could result in injury at lower levels of consumption for a less experienced drinker. On the other hand, chronic alcohol abuse has long-term physiological and neurological effects that may increase the risk of accidents, as well as recovery from injury (impairing liver function, which compromises the immune system, predisposing the alcoholic to bacterial infections).\n\n# Medical and Health Conditions Associated with Short-Term Alcohol Use\n\nAlcohol use affects practically every organ in the human body. More than sixty disease conditions have been linked to the use of alcohol. This association between alcohol and health problems is primarily dependent on the quantity and pattern of alcohol use and by the presence of alcohol dependence (WHO 2004). Some of the more common medical consequences from alcohol use are described in later paragraphs and elsewhere.\n\nHangover\n\nHangover is experienced by approximately 75% of persons who drink alcohol (Harburg et al. 1993), and consists of headache, malaise, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, tremulousness, and anorexia the day following drinking. Hangover can have sufficient severity to disrupt the performance of daily tasks and responsibilities (Wiese, Shlipak, and Browner 2000).\n\nThe amount of alcohol typically sufficient to produce hangover in an average adult is five to six drinks for an 80-kg (approximately 176 pounds) male and three to five drinks for a 60-kg (approximately 132 pounds) woman (Wiese, Shiplak, and Browner 2000). Hangover symptoms peak twelve to fourteen hours after drinking ends (Ylikahri et al. 1976).\n\nAlcohol hangover impairs the cognitive functioning in healthy adults, resulting in decreased functioning in visual, memory, and intellectual processing (Kim et al. 2003). Memory retrieval has also been found to be impaired by alcohol hangover (Verster et al. 2003). Social drinkers tested forty-eight hours after heavy drinking have shown impairments in tasks involving memory recall, recognition, and psychomotor performance (McKinney and Coyle 2004). Concern has been raised over the lingering negative effects of drinking on cognition, especially in persons such as pilots involved in mentally complex tasks when the awareness of impairment is likely to be absent (Yesavage and Leirer 1986).\n\nBlackouts\n\nDuring a drinking episode, certain types of memory can be impaired. Some drinkers experience a partial or complete inability to recall events that occurred during drinking. Termed blackouts, these memory disruptions are caused by the blocked transfer of short-term memory into long-term storage for later retrieval.\n\nInterestingly, immediate memory (memory of events and conversation topics in the past thirty to ninety seconds) and long-term memory of facts, events, and procedures are not affected by alcohol intoxication. Blackouts are strongly associated with a rapid rise in BAC, so that a person rapidly ingesting four drinks is more likely to experience a blackout than a person slowly drinking seven drinks.\n\nWomen are more susceptible to blackouts and undergo a slower recovery from cognitive impairment than men.\n\nDifferent brain functions are impaired by alcohol at different rates and levels of BAC. For example, memory impairment usually occurs before motor skills and coordination become impaired. This can result in the drinker having little or no recall of events from the previous night, which may cause the drinker to falsely conclude that he or she must have appeared severely intoxicated even though the person appeared relatively normal to others.\n\nBecause immediate and long-term memory recall is intact, and since short-term memory may become disrupted before motor coordination, persons in a blackout are capable of participating in conversation and operating vehicles. There are even reports of highly complex activities being performed by persons in the middle of a blackout, such as surgery and piloting an aircraft (Rose and Grant 2010).\n\nTrauma, Burns, and Recovery from Injury\n\nBy increasing both the likelihood and severity of injury, alcohol plays a significant role in trauma. Alcohol abusers are more likely than non-drinkers to be involved in a trauma event. They are also more likely to be hurt seriously. Also, an estimated 27% of all trauma patients treated in emergency departments and hospitals are candidates for an intervention on their drinking (Gentilello et al. 2005; RSA 2009).\n\nRecovery from trauma and injury can be hampered by alcohol use. Alcohol use can alter the natural inflammatory response and immune function, which is worsened in cases of existing or concurrent injury. Chronic heavy drinking also depresses estrogen levels, which eliminates estrogen's beneficial effects on the immune system and weakens a woman's ability to fight infections and tumors. This negative effect may be compounded by an alcohol-induced elevation in steroidal hormones, known as glucocorticoids, which suppress immune responses in both men and women (Kovacs and Messingham 2002; RSA 2009).\n\nAlcohol Overdose or Poisoning\n\nFrom 1996 to 1998, the average number of deaths directly caused by alcohol poisoning was 317 a year, with an additional 1,076 deaths caused by alcohol as a contributing factor (Yoon et al. 2003).\n\n# Medical and Health Conditions Associated with Chronic Alcohol Abuse\n\nNutrient Deficiency\n\nChronic alcohol abuse can lead to depletion of important nutrients. Epidemiological data have found vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiencies in 30% to 80% of alcoholics; folate deficiencies in 60% to 80%; B6 (pyridoxine) deficiencies in 50%; and B2 (riboflavin) deficiencies in 17% of alcoholics (Cook and Thomson 1997). Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (the biologically active coenzyme of vitamin B6) is often deficient in alcoholics (Stickel et al. 2003). Compared with 2% in a control population, 46% of chronic alcoholics admitted to an ER displayed abnormalities suggestive of a thiamine deficiency (Hell, Six, and Salkeld 1976). These B vitamins are involved in many physiologic processes, including glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, amino acid production, and synthesis of glucose-derived neurotransmitters (Stickel et al. 2003).\n\nLiver Disease\n\nAlcoholic liver disease (ALD) includes three conditions: fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis. ALD, and cirrhosis in particular, has long been considered one of the most frequent and devastating conditions caused by alcoholism, and is one of the leading causes of alcohol-related death (Mann, Smart, and Govoni 2003).\n\nSome of the ways that heavy alcohol use promotes ALD include the impaired absorption of nutrients, such as protein and vitamin A; the impaired metabolism of lipids by alcohol; and the toxic byproducts of alcohol itself (Lieber 2003).\n\nHepatitis C virus (HCV) is particularly common among alcoholics. Infection with HCV is a common cause of liver disease, including cirrhosis, and of cirrhosis-related death in the U.S. The high incidence of HCV among alcoholics is due to\n\n * the immune system dysfunction and chronic liver inflammation from heavy alcohol consumption,\n * exposure to infection with certain viruses and bacteria, and\n * high-risk behaviors such as sharing needles and unsafe sex (Lieber 2001).\n\nChronic alcohol consumption also interferes with treatment for HCV by promoting liver disease; by reducing the effectiveness of interferonalpha, a drug commonly used to treat HCV infection; and by disrupting the patient's ability to follow the medication regimen (Lieber 2001).\n\nBrain Dysfunction\n\nAlcoholism can affect the brain and behavior in a variety of ways, ranging from simple \"slips\" in memory to permanent and devastating conditions requiring the need for permanent custodial care. The risk of alcohol-induced brain damage and neurobehavioral deficits varies from person to person and is influenced by age, gender, drinking history, and nutrition (Oscar-Berman and Marinkovic 2003).\n\nThe breakdown of carbohydrates in brain cells is largely reliant on the B-vitamin thiamine; without thiamine, cells cannot produce vital brain chemicals such as neurotransmitters and other molecules that are necessary for building proteins and DNA.\n\nUp to 80% of alcoholics have a thiamine deficiency, and serious brain disorders, including Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, result from the long-term alcohol-induced disruption in dietary thiamine intake, thiamine absorption from the gastrointestinal tract, or impaired use of thiamine by the cells (Martin, Singleton, and Hiller-Sturmh\u00f6fel 2003).\n\nPersistent ALD can also lead to the buildup of toxic ammonia and manganese in the blood and brain, leading to hepatic encephalopathy\u2014a serious and potentially fatal brain disorder characterized by severe cognitive deficits, psychiatric symptoms, and motor disturbances (Butterworth 2003). Also, certain brain areas are often smaller in volume in people with an alcoholism history than in nonalcoholic subjects. Some examples of the brain damage that may occur from chronic alcoholism are\n\n * brain shrinkage,\n * the disruption of fibers that carry information between brain cells, and\n * the impairment of associated cognitive and motor functions (Rosenbloom, Sullivan, and Pfefferbaum 2003).\n\nBirth Defects\n\nChildren born to drinking mothers represent a distinct subgroup of children of alcoholics because they were directly exposed to the toxic effect of alcohol as a fetus (Maier and West 2001). Exposure of the growing fetus to alcohol can have a potentially catastrophic effect on the development of many normal behaviors, including motor and sensory skills, social skills, and learning abilities that lasts a lifetime (RSA 2009).\n\nData from the CDC indicate that 12% of pregnant women drink alcohol. Roughly one in one hundred babies is born with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, ranging in severity from minor cognitive and behavior abnormalities all the way to full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) (RSA 2009). The magnitude of harm to the fetus is dependent on the amount and pattern of maternal alcohol use during pregnancy and during the various stages of fetal development; a binge-like pattern of drinking may produce greater and more persistent deficits, such as reduced brain growth, than continuous alcohol use (Maier and West 2001). In addition to prenatal alcohol exposure producing lasting changes in brain anatomy, impaired cognitive and behavioral function, and low IQ (Chen et al. 2003), other effects can include stunted physical growth, abnormal facial features, and central nervous system deficits (Mattson, Schoenfeld, and Riley 2001; Larkby and Day 1997).\n\nThe term executive functioning refers to the cognitive functions involved in anticipating, planning, and executing behavior, and also the ability not to act on impulse and to delay gratification. These functions are grouped into cognition-based and emotion-related executive functions.\n\nThey are particularly impaired in people who were exposed to alcohol in utero. These deficits in executive function are believed to account for many of the behavioral problems seen in alcohol-exposed children and adults, such as difficulty in understanding the social consequences of behavior. Impairment in this group of functions is believed to originate from alcohol-induced abnormalities in specific brain structures, and abnormalities in the connections between these brain regions (Kodituwakku, Kalberg, and May 2001). It is now believed that there is no amount of alcohol that is considered safe during any stage of pregnancy (RSA 2009).\n\nCancer\n\nChronic alcohol abuse is associated with an increased risk of several types of cancer. Cancers that are most strongly linked with alcohol use include cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, and larynx. Alcohol modestly increases the risk of developing stomach, colon, rectum, liver, breast, and ovarian cancers. Most importantly, drinking four or more drinks per day significantly increases the risk of developing any type of cancer. However, alcohol use alone does not appear to cause cancer, but may instead act as a co-carcinogen\u2014a substance that promotes or accelerates cancer when taken with other cancer-causing substances such as cigarettes (Bagnardi et al. 2001).\n\nEndocrine Dysfunction\n\nHeavy alcohol use can delay puberty in girls by suppressing the normal growth of the ovaries by disrupting the hormones that control ovarian function. Alcohol also can disrupt important endocrine functions, which can result in delayed puberty and poorly coordinated development of the reproductive system (Dees, Srivastava, and Hiney 2001). Alcohol use is also associated with low testosterone and altered levels of other reproductive hormones in males (Emanuele and Emanuele 2001).\n\nCardiovascular Disease\n\nConsumption of more than three drinks per day has a direct toxic effect on the heart. Heavy drinking, particularly over time, can damage the heart and lead to high blood pressure, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, and hemorrhagic stroke. Heavy drinking also impairs fat metabolism and raises triglyceride levels (RSA 2009).\n\n# Beneficial Health Effects of Alcohol\n\nMany studies suggest that moderate drinking (no more than two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women) helps protect against heart disease by raising HDL (good) cholesterol and reducing plaque buildup in the arteries. Alcohol also has a mild anticoagulant effect, which keeps blood platelets from clumping together to form clots. Both actions can reduce the risk of heart attack, but the exact mechanism remains unclear (WHO 2004). Genetic factors (e.g., differences in the enzymes that break down alcohol in the body) can modify the positive effect that alcohol has on coronary heart disease (Mukamal and Rimm 2001). There is also some evidence that moderate alcohol use may offer some protection against developing diabetes and gallstones (WHO 2004).\n\n# Criminal Justice Impact of Alcohol Use\n\nOverall Contribution to Crime\n\nAlthough the stereotype of a criminal offender is often that of a drug addict, alcohol use is actually the major problem. More arrestees over the age of 21 report recent alcohol use than test positive for drugs (Hazelden Mar. 2002). Alcohol use is powerfully associated with criminal behavior. The Bureau of Justice reports that 36% of all offenders under jurisdiction of the criminal justice system reported being under the influence of alcohol at the time of their offense. This accounts for approximately one and a half million convictions annually (Greenfield 1998). When broken down by type of offense, state prisoners reported that alcohol was used at the time of offense in\n\n * 41.7% of violent crimes,\n * 34.5% of property offenses,\n * 27.4% of drug offenses, and\n * 43.2% of public-order offenses (Mumola 1999; Hazelden Dec. 2000).\n\nViolence and Violent Crime\n\nAn association between alcohol use and all forms of violence has been known for a long time. The amount of alcohol consumed directly influences the severity of violent behavior (WHO 2004). The types of violence linked with alcohol use include personal violence such as suicide; interpersonal violence such as assault, rape, homicide, and domestic abuse; and group violence such as disorderly and riotous acts at sporting events (Gordis 2001).\n\nPersons with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a psychiatric condition characterized by a long-term pattern of violent behavior and disregard for other people's rights, may be especially prone to alcohol-induced aggression. However, persons without an ASPD diagnosis can also become more aggressive under the influence of alcohol, especially if they show aggressive tendencies while sober (Moeller and Dougherty 2001).\n\nAlcohol increases the risk of aggressive behavior through several mechanisms. Alcohol may interact with the brain chemicals serotonin and GABA to reduce fear and anxiety over the social, physical, or legal consequences of one's actions. Alcohol also affects cognitive functioning by impairing problem solving in conflict situations, and by making it more likely the drinker will overreact with an excessively emotional response in conflict. Alcohol use can also intensify the concern among males of demonstrating personal power (WHO 2004).\n\nSexual Assault\n\nApproximately half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol use by the perpetrator, the victim, or both. Although perpetrator and victim know each other in at least 80% of sexual assaults, alcohol-involved sexual assaults often occur among strangers or persons who barely know each other. Certain beliefs surrounding alcohol's effects, attitudes regarding women and alcohol use, and high levels of alcohol consumption may heighten the risk of sexual assault by men. In addition, alcohol can interfere with the accurate interpretation of subtle nonverbal cues indicating a sexual interest or lack thereof in both the victim and the perpetrator (Abbey et al. 2001).\n\n# Domestic Violence\n\nDomestic violence is defined as the intentional use of force by one family member or partner to control another. A strong correlation exists between alcohol use and physical violence in marital or partner relationships. Domestic violence is a significant public health issue in the U.S.\u2014one in six couples experience a physical assault each year (O'Farrell, Van Hutton, and Murphy 1999), and one-fourth to one-half of those who commit domestic violence also have substance abuse problems (Fazzone, Holton, and Reed 1997). While alcohol and\/or other drug use does not cause or explain domestic violence, the importance of its association cannot be overlooked (Hazelden Nov. 2000).\n\nPrevalence\n\nDomestic violence is the most common cause of nonfatal injury to women. It represents a substantial threat to women for both injury and death. For instance,\n\n * 22% of all women receive an injury of some type resulting from domestic violence,\n * 30% of female trauma patients have been victims of domestic violence, and\n * 33% of women who are victims of homicide die as a result of violence committed by a spouse or partner (Kyriacou et al. 1999).\n\nPerpetrators are not easily categorized when multiple factors are involved, such as experiencing violence while growing up, the need for control and power, and intimacy and dependency issues (Fazzone, Holton, and Reed 1997). Severe physical assaults occur in 8\u201313% of marriages and reoccur in two-thirds of these marriages (Hazelden Nov. 2000; Fazzone, Holton, and Reed 1997). Figures are not available on the prevalence of male victims of domestic abuse and violence.\n\nStrong Correlation\n\nA strong correlation exists between alcohol use and domestic violence. In one study where newlyweds were interviewed one year after marriage, researchers found a strong association between alcohol use and escalating severity of domestic violence (Leonard and Quigley 1999).\n\n * In cases of verbal abuse, 3\u201310% of the husbands were using alcohol.\n * In cases of mild physical abuse (defined as throwing something, pushing, grabbing, shoving, or slapping), 11\u201327% of the husbands were using alcohol.\n * In cases of severe physical aggression (defined as being kicked, hit with a fist, hit with an object, beaten up), 38\u201343% of the husbands were drinking.\n\nThese researchers followed the couples into the third year of their marriage and found that the violence present in the first year predicted violence in the third year. The relationship between drinking and violence of husbands and wives was complex. The most violence occurred in marriages where the husband was a heavy drinker and the wife was not (Hazelden Nov. 2000; Quigley and Leonard 2000).\n\nViolence appears to be more closely associated with alcohol than with other drug use.\n\nIn one study of women who were injured intentionally, 52% reported that their partners were using alcohol just before the assault while 15% said their partners used drugs prior to the assault (Kyriacou et al. 1999). In general, women's drinking does not seem to predict whether a woman is a victim of marital violence (Kyriacou et al. 1999; Leonard and Quigley 1999). But even though there appears to be a strong correlation between alcohol and other drug use and domestic violence, two factors remain unexplained.\n\nFirst, we do not know the direction of the correlation between alcohol and domestic violence. Abuse of alcohol or other drugs may cause domestic violence, or domestic violence may cause alcohol or other drug abuse, or an entirely different factor may cause both.\n\nAnd second, a large proportion of domestic violence (i.e., probably at least 50%) is not associated with alcohol use. Alcohol may increase the distortion of power and control, which is believed to be the main determinant of conflict in intimate relationships, and lead to violence (Kyriacou et al. 1999). Some researchers have theorized there are different types of male perpetrators of domestic violence: (1) antisocial types who are generally violent, both inside and outside the home; (2) controlling, perfectionistic, or domineering men whose violence mainly occurs in the home; and (3) men with attachment and abandonment issues, who vacillate between being calculatingly violent and desperately needy and remorseful (Hazelden Nov. 2000; Fazzone, Holton, and Reed 1997). Little information is available on the types of female perpetrators of domestic violence.\n\n# Youth Crime, Violence, and Alcohol\n\nAccording to a National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), adolescents who used alcohol in the previous month before the survey were significantly more likely to have behaved violently in the previous year (Greenblatt 2000). Youth aged 12\u201317 were divided into groups based on their alcohol use patterns in the past month: heavy drinkers (drank five or more drinks per occasion on five or more days), binge drinkers (five or more drinks on one to five occasions), light drinkers (one to four drinks on any occasion), and nondrinkers. Heavy drinkers were much more likely than binge or light drinkers to report destroying property and threatening or assaulting others. Nondrinkers were the least likely to engage in these behaviors (Hazelden Jan. 2002).\n\nThe levels of alcohol use were also associated with the severity of criminal behavior. Heavy- and binge-drinking youth were significantly more likely to report shoplifting, drunken driving, drug trafficking, and having been arrested or booked for legal violations at least once in their lifetimes compared to nondrinking peers. The NHSDA report also found significant differences among drinking groups in terms of violence directed toward the self. Heavy- and binge-drinking youth were twice as likely to think about killing themselves and three times more likely to try to hurt or kill themselves compared to nondrinking peers.\n\nViolent behavior appears to be both a risk factor for and a consequence of alcohol and other drug abuse in this population. Aggression and impulsivity in young children is predictive of later chemical abuse in adolescence (Berman et al. 1993; Caspi et al. 1996). Conversely, studies have shown that substance use decreases inhibitions and self-control, which, in turn, increase the likelihood of violent behavior (Hazelden Jan. 2002).\n\n# DWI Policy and Practices\n\nDriving while intoxicated (DWI) is one of the most common criminal behaviors engaged in during drinking, and many DWI offenders continue to drive while intoxicated after their first arrest (Voas and Fisher 2001).\n\nIn 2001\u20132002, 23.4 million, or 11.3%, of American adults aged 18 and older reported they had drank and driven one or more times. Younger drivers; men; Native Americans; people who were widowed, separated, divorced, or never married; and those with a post-high school education were more likely to drink and drive (Voas and Fisher 2001).\n\nChanging Perception of the DWI (DUI) Offender\n\nDuring the mid-twentieth century, both the American public and health care professionals viewed the DWI offender as an otherwise law-abiding social drinker who made an isolated error in judgment that could be remedied through a brief educational intervention. The real problem, according to the viewpoint of the time, was the small percentage of alcoholic repeat DUI offenders (Vingilis 1983). This \"needle in the haystack\" view of the high-risk DUI offender went on to be challenged by judicial activists (Kramer 1986) and researchers (Crancer 1986) as being based on the false assumption of the social-drinking DWI offender. Further studies of DUI offenders have revealed the following information (White and Gasperin 2007):\n\n * Between 40% and 70% of first-time DUI offenders have already been convicted of alcohol- or drug-related criminal offenses (Taxman and Piquero 1998; Chang and Lapham 1996; Kochis 1997).\n * A driver would have to operate a vehicle while impaired between 200 and 2,000 times to statistically generate one arrest (Voas and Hause 1987; Beitel, Sharp, and Glauz 2000).\n * Most alcohol-impaired drivers treated in hospital emergency departments are not arrested and prosecuted for the intoxicated driving that led to their injuries (Soderstrom et al. 2001).\n * The proportion of social drinkers within the DUI arrest pool has been reduced by the cumulative exposure to successful media-based DUI educational campaigns (NHTSA 1997; Yi, Williams, and Dufour 2002).\n * More than 80% of DUI offenders have a significant alcohol and\/or other drug problem (Lapham et al. 2001; Brinkmann et al. 2002).\n\nThus, it is now believed that collectively DUI offenders are drinkers who are developing or have developed a serious alcohol problem. There is also growing awareness that a subgroup of hardcore drinking drivers poses the most serious and sustained threat to public safety (White and Gasperin 2007).\n\n# Impact of Alcohol Use on Special Populations\n\nBinge Drinking in Teens and Young Adults\n\nBinge drinking (five or more drinks per occasion) is a very common drinking pattern among young drinkers. Underage drinking in persons aged 12 to 20 years contributes to the three leading causes of death (unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide) in that age bracket, and most of the adverse health problems from underage drinking stem from binge drinking and the resulting state of intoxication. Students who binge drink are more likely than nondrinkers and drinkers who do not binge to perform poorly in school, and to be involved in other health risk behaviors such as riding with an intoxicated driver, being sexually active, using tobacco and illicit drugs, being a victim of dating violence, or attempting suicide. A direct relationship has been found between the frequency of binge drinking and the frequency of these other health risk behaviors (Miller et al. 2007).\n\nOne of the complications from underage drinking is the potentially harmful impact on normal development. As children mature, they achieve key developmental milestones such as changing the way they interact with parents and peers, starting school and progressing through different grade levels and school settings, undergoing puberty, gaining greater independence, and taking on more responsibilities. The immediate, short-term, and long-term negative effects of alcohol vary with developmental periods. In persons aged 15 years and younger, the negative effects of alcohol can include disrupted school attendance, impaired concentration, relationship harm with parents and peers, and the potential for altered brain function and\/or other aspects of development.\n\nThe negative effects of alcohol use in this age bracket can have future consequences in such areas as work, adult relationships, health, and overall well-being (Masten et al. 2005). Chronic alcohol abuse during adolescence is associated with cognitive deficits and alterations in brain activity and structure (Tapert and Schweinsburg 2005; De Bellis et al. 2000). However, it is unknown whether these deficits came before the drinking and contributed to the alcohol use, or if they are the result of alcohol use (Hill 2004). Also unknown is the degree to which these deficits resolve with abstinence (Dahl 2004; Dahl and Hariri 2004).\n\nWomen and Alcohol Problems\n\nAlcohol use disorders produce different physiological, psychological, and social consequences in women than in men.\n\nPhysiological Factors\n\nHeavy drinking among women is associated with increased rates of breast cancer (Smith-Warner et al. 1998). Women are often more susceptible to alcohol-related medical disorders than are men. For example, alcoholic women develop cirrhosis (Gavaler 1982), cardiomyopathy (Urbano-Marquez et al. 1995), and brain impairment (Mann et al. 1992) at the same rate, or sooner than, their male counterparts despite lower lifetime levels of alcohol consumption.\n\nThis accelerated development of physical problems is consistent with other research that shows that overall the course of the disease of alcoholism seems to develop somewhat more rapidly among women than men, though the progression of symptoms is quite similar (Schuckit et al. 1995). This phenomenon is known as a \"telescoping effect,\" where the time from first heavy drinking to first treatment or other major problems is shortened (Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\nWhy do women have unique health risks associated with heavy alcohol use? Women may have reduced levels of the gastric enzyme that metabolizes alcohol, resulting in proportionately higher BAC. In addition, alcohol may increase estrogen-related hormones, such as estradiol. Complicating matters, these two systems may be interrelated, creating synergistic effects (Erikkson et al. 1996). Women who are pregnant and use substances face additional problems. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a serious teratogenic (a teratogen is a substance that causes birth defects) alcohol-related problem, and is one of the leading causes of mental retardation (Welsh 1994; Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\nPsychological Factors\n\nWomen with alcohol and other drug problems generally have a more complex mental health picture than do men. Common psychological problems among women in treatment include depression, anxiety, eating disorders (Sinha et al. 1996; Walters and Kendler 1995), borderline personality disorder, suicide attempts, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and histories of physical and\/or sexual abuse (Wilsnack et al. 1997; Windle et al. 1995). Rates of these disorders are at least twice as high among alcohol- and drug-addicted women as women from the general populations (Regier et al. 1990). Despite the presence of these disorders, women's treatment outcomes are generally comparable or better than men's. It may be that the psychopathology is greater, but the severity of the substance abuse is less (Pettinati et al. 1997), or it may be that women more readily engage in the treatment process (Gil-Rivas, Fiorentine, and Anglin 1996; Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\nResearch suggests that women who experience problems in their intimate relationships tend to drink more than other women. Heavy drinking is also more common among women who have never married, are living unmarried with a partner, or are divorced, separated, or widowed. The effect of divorce on a woman's later drinking may depend on her drinking pattern during the marriage. Women are also more likely to drink excessively if their husbands are heavy drinkers (NIAAA 2008).\n\nAlcohol use is a significant risk factor for sexual assault and other consequences. A woman's odds of experiencing sexual aggression are three to nine times higher on days when alcohol has been consumed (Parks and Fals-Stewart 2004), and more than 65% of women involved in a sexual assault were drinking at the time (Frintner and Rubinson 1993; LaBrie et al. 2009).\n\nSocial Factors\n\nWomen with alcohol or other drug use problems battle ingrained stigma and stereotyping from society at large. The resulting stigma serves to victimize substance-abusing women and becomes a treatment barrier. Screening instruments may miss some of the unique features of women's early developing alcohol and drug problems, such as unsafe sexual behavior, breakdown in child care routines, and neglect of personal appearance (Ames et al. 1996; Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\nMany women may seek help at mental health or medical clinics, or are placed in correctional settings where alcohol or other drug problems may be missed. One study found women in relationships with substance-dependent men were heavy users of alcohol, cocaine, or marijuana and were twice as likely as other women to marry men with drinking problems (Windle et al. 1995; Hazelden Jan. 1999).\n\n# Economic Cost of Alcohol Problems\n\nThe economic cost of alcohol abuse and alcoholism was estimated to be $184.6 billion in 1998 (Harwood 2000). When this figure is adjusted for the 2007 dollar value, the total economic cost becomes $234.8 billion (Thavorncharoensap et al. 2009).\n\nThis estimate represented a 25% increase from the $148 billion comprehensive estimate for 1992 (Harwood 2000). By comparison, estimates of the total overall cost of the abuse of other substances, including health-and crime-related costs and lost productivity, are $181 billion for illicit drugs (which includes the abuse of prescribed drugs as well as illegal drugs) (ONDCP 2004) and $168 billion for tobacco (CDC 2005).\n\nTable 3.1 breaks down the components of the total cost incurred by alcohol (Harwood 2000).\n\nTable 3.1\n\n# Contributing Factors to the Total Economic Cost of Alcohol Problems\n\nOf the total economic cost incurred by alcohol use in the U.S.,\n\n * 15% stems from the cost of medical consequences and alcohol treatment;\n * more than 70% is due to reduced, lost, and forgone earnings; and\n * the rest is due to the cost of lost worker productivity, accidents, violence, and premature death (RSA 2009).\n\nOf the $134 billion in productivity losses that alcohol use costs American business, 65.3% is caused by alcohol-related illness and absence from work, 27.2% is due to premature death, and 7.5% is due to crime. People who are alcohol dependent use twice as much sick time as nonproblem drinkers, are five times more likely to file a worker's compensation claim, and are the cause of most of the injuries to themselves or others while on the job (Mangione, Howland, and Lee 1998; SAMHSA 2004; Hazelden Sept. 2002; SAMHSA 1998; RSA 2009).\n\nOther economic costs incurred by alcohol use include the following (Hazelden Sept. 1998):\n\n * Children of alcoholics are hospitalized more often and stay longer than other children (Children of Alcoholics Foundation 1990).\n * Twenty percent of the total national health expenditure for hospital care is spent on alcohol-related illness (NIAAA 1990).\n * In 1990, more than one million arrests were made for drug offenses and more than three million for alcohol offenses (Institute for Health Policy 1993).\n * Elderly people are hospitalized for alcohol-related problems at the same rate as for myocardial infarction, at considerable cost to Medicare (Adams et al. 1993).\n\nThe total economic impact of costs incurred from acute intoxication and chronic use are considerable. Table 3.2 summarizes the total economic cost of alcohol use, by country.\n\nTable 3.2\n\n# Percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product]\n\n# CHAPTER 4\n\n# The Science of Alcohol and Alcoholism\n\nIn 2000, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) published the revised criteria used in the diagnosis of alcohol dependence. According to this criteria, the single most defining aspect of alcohol dependence is the power of the relationship with alcohol: The stronger the relationship, the more likely the person will continue problematic drinking despite internal and external consequences.\n\nPsychological dependence, where the person believes alcohol is necessary to get through daily activities, alleviate stress, and cope with problems, is a symptom of alcohol addiction. Tolerance and withdrawal are often present, but they alone are not sufficient for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence. Alcohol dependence is diagnosed behaviorally by these signs and symptoms:\n\n * the presence of cravings for alcohol;\n * preoccupation with drinking;\n * sneaking and concealing the use of alcohol;\n * loss of ability to control drinking; and\n * continued drinking despite physical, psychological, social, occupational, or legal consequences (APA 2000).\n\nValdez and Koob (2004) state that physical withdrawal alone should not be used as a barometer of alcohol dependence because physical withdrawal is usually not the most powerful motivator for seeking alcohol. Instead, a separate component of withdrawal, consisting of the emotional or psychological component of withdrawal manifested as anxiety or depressed mood, is critical in the development of dependence.\n\nThis negative psychological state is called motivational withdrawal (Valdez and Koob 2004). In 2008, Kalivas and O'Brien concluded that the essential elements of dependence are the persistent and recurrent seeking and use of alcohol at the expense of the pursuit of normal rewards (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008). Also in 2008, Angres and Bettinardi-Angres stated that although the disease of alcohol or drug addiction represents a diversity of people, the end result is the same: compulsive behavior in the face of negative consequences.\n\nThis pattern of behavior is complicated by the presence of denial, a complex defense mechanism that typically accompanies addictive disease. Addiction is said to be the one disease where the affected individual is convinced he or she really doesn't have it. Denial is reinforced both by the powerful reward of the alcohol or drug addiction, and by the deficits in learning, motivation, memory, and decision making that accompany the development of addiction (Angres and Bettinardi-Angres 2008).\n\n# Alcohol Dependence Is a Chronic Disease and Illness\n\nThe question of whether alcoholism is a disease has been debated for decades, if not centuries. The answer is vitally important to researchers, medical practitioners, and treatment providers, as well as to those who suffer from addiction and their family members. This is especially the case in light of absurd proclamations that alcoholism is a behavior choice and not a disease, that it represents a failure of willpower and a reflection of a maladapted and warped character formation, and therefore merits the assignment of judgment and blame. Of course the normal nondependent use of alcohol is a choice; it is alcohol dependence for which the designation of disease is appropriate.\n\nHistory reveals many examples of illnesses for which the afflicted were held personally responsible until science and medicine were able to provide abundant proof that a biological disease process was responsible and not the weak will of the patients. Such illnesses have included leprosy, seizure disorders, cancer, and major depression. If addiction were really a choice, people would simply quit after the consequences exceeded the perceived benefits (Halpern 2002).\n\nAddiction scientists have produced substantial evidence supporting the viewpoint that alcohol dependence is a chronic disease. Many aspects of alcohol dependence are similar to those of other recognized chronic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, diseases, and high blood pressure (McLellan et al. 2000). Alcohol dependence is fundamentally similar to other chronic diseases on several key dimensions:\n\n * Identifiable signs and symptoms: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA 2000) describes the symptoms of alcohol dependence, which are based on research evidence and expert consensus. The diagnosis of alcohol dependence is established when several of these symptoms are present. Likewise, diabetes and hypertension are diagnosed through an established set of symptoms, signs, and laboratory findings (Lewis 1994; Hazelden Aug. 1998).\n * Biological basis: Neuroscience has made enormous contributions in the understanding of alcoholism as a chronic brain disease. Scientists have identified changes that occur in brain functioning and brain structure that correspond with the progression from regular drinking to alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, and chronic alcoholism. These changes in brain function and structure are also believed to account for the behavioral signs and symptoms that define alcohol dependence, including loss of control over drinking and the inability to stop drinking, preoccupation over alcohol, craving, and continued use despite consequences. Some of these changes do not revert back to normal when the person stops drinking. The alcohol-dependent person remains at risk of relapse for years and even decades after drinking has ceased, and a long-term and varied pattern of relapse and remission is observed in many alcoholics.\n * Genetic heritability: Similar to many chronic diseases, a genetic contribution plays a prominent role in many cases of alcoholism. Response to the effects of alcohol is complex, and some persons experience, for example, intense euphoria and a sense of well-being, or a marked reduction in stress or anxiety. Many of the individual responses to alcohol that increase the risk of alcoholism are genetically determined. Researchers study family members to understand the role of genetics in disease. They have found a fourfold risk of alcohol dependence in relatives of alcoholics, higher rates among identical twins than in fraternal twins or full siblings, and the same fourfold increased risk of alcoholism among adopted children of alcoholics as with children raised by their alcohol-dependent parent (Goodwin et al. 1974; Cotton 1979; Prescott and Kendler 1999). Persons vary greatly in their responses to stress. These individual differences are also genetically influenced and help shape susceptibility to psychiatric illness, including alcoholism. Although the children of alcoholics are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than children of nonalcoholics (Gilbertson, Prather, and Nixon 2008), and 40 to 60 percent of the risk for alcoholism is genetically determined, genes alone do not preordain that someone will become alcoholic. As with other chronic diseases, the development of alcohol dependence largely involves the interaction between genetic and environmental factors (Hazelden Aug. 2001).\n * Effective treatment: Also consistent with alcohol dependence as a chronic disease is a recent paradigm change in how best to treat alcoholism. The conventional treatment model for decades has been twenty-eight to thirty days in a service- and staff-intensive residential or inpatient care, combined with brief \"follow-up\" or \"aftercare\" with the expectation of sustained recovery or even \"cure\" (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003). The poor patient outcomes and high costs with this approach are increasingly viewed as reflecting the shortcomings of a treatment approach appropriate for an acute illness but inadequate for a chronic disease. This acute care model of alcoholism and drug addiction treatment was challenged in 1983 by George Vaillant with results from a long-term study of alcoholism and recovery. He concluded that alcoholism cannot be effectively treated with a single episode of \"acute care\" treatment, and that repeated relapses following multiple episodes of acute treatment do not mean that the particular patient is untreatable (Vaillant 1983; White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003). Subsequent researchers have made compelling arguments that alcohol and drug dependence are often chronic and relapsing in nature (Simpson et al. 1986), have much in common with other chronic relapsing diseases such as diabetes and hypertension (O'Brien and McLellan 1996), and that approaches used in managing chronic disease should be adapted for the treatment of alcohol and drug dependence (Lewis 1994; McLellan et al. 2000; White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n * Role of personal responsibility: The concept of alcoholism as a chronic disease is not incompatible with personal responsibility. With alcoholism and drug addiction, the concept of personal responsibility is most relevant in relation to the motivation and capacity for self-care and \"self-management\" following treatment. As is the case with other chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, self-care is often the determinant in preventing disease recurrence or relapse. Capacity for self-care of one's recovery can include regular and long-term involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, establishing meaningful connections with other persons in recovery, and breaking ties with former addicted companions. However, as with the self-care in other chronic diseases, these can be undermined by factors such as an unstable, unsupportive, or stressful living or family environment; chronic unemployment; homelessness; addiction to multiple substances; or active psychiatric illness.\n * Other similarities: Alcohol dependence shares the following additional characteristics with other chronic disease: \n * a pattern of onset that may be sudden or gradual;\n * a prolonged course that varies from person to person in intensity and pattern; and\n * the risk of profound pathophysiology, disability, and premature death (White and McLellan 2008).\n\n# Social Use and Abuse of Alcohol (i.e., Nondependent Use) Is Not an Illness\n\nNot all persons who experience alcohol problems inevitably progress to alcohol dependence. Some young persons experience alcohol use problems that are developmental and are outgrown in the successful transition from adolescence into adulthood. Others develop an alcohol use problem when experiencing difficult life events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, or job loss. Their problem is often resolved with time, emotional support, brief professional intervention, or peer-based intervention by others in recovery (Burman 1997; Granfield and Cloud 1999; Bien, Miller, and Tonigan 1993; Bernstein et al. 2005). Similarly, many persons will experience a period of high blood pressure that essentially resolves through lifestyle change, weight loss, and increased physical activity without developing chronic hypertension (White and McLellan 2008).\n\nAlthough most adults have used alcohol, and some have abused alcohol, the recreational use of alcohol and alcohol abuse is obviously not considered an illness. Many persons drink heavily without developing an alcohol dependency syndrome. Only alcohol dependence is characterized by profound changes in the structure and function of key brain regions. These biological changes are what drives the symptoms of alcohol dependence, and are viewed as hallmarks of the disease of alcoholism. None of the patterns of nondependent drinking are associated with these profound and lasting changes to the brain.\n\n# Other Considerations Regarding Alcohol Dependence as a Chronic Illness\n\nRelapse is not inevitable, and not all persons suffering from alcohol dependence require multiple treatments to achieve stable, long-term recovery. Even among those who relapse following treatment, families, friends, and employers should not abandon hope that recovery is possible. Community studies of recovery from alcoholism report long-term recovery rates of 50% and higher (Dawson et al. 2005).\n\nViewing alcohol dependence as a chronic illness does not reduce or absolve the alcohol-dependent person of personal responsibility, any less than persons with diabetes or hypertension are absolved of the responsibility for continuous self-care because their condition is a recognized disease (White and McLellan 2008).\n\nComparing alcoholism with other chronic illnesses can arouse strong negative feelings. To some people, discussing alcohol dependence as a disease appears to communicate what they think is an inappropriate \"medicalization\" of addiction. Some believe that calling addiction a disease contributes to the denial of personal responsibility and creates a built-in excuse for treatment failure. Individuals with alcohol dependence who have achieved sobriety may also resent the idea that they have a continuing chronic illness (White and McLellan 2008). Therefore, care must be taken in how the chronic nature of addictive disease is communicated to the public, clients, family members, referral sources, and those working on the front lines of addiction treatment (White and McLellan 2008).\n\nWhen we view alcohol dependence as a chronic illness, it helps explain the frequent and high rates of relapse following the completion of treatment. An important implication of alcohol and other drug dependence as a chronic illness relates to its treatment approach. Treatment of alcohol dependence is currently delivered in a manner more appropriate for acute illnesses, and there is growing belief that treatment of these patients should adapt the chronic care medical monitoring strategies currently used in the treatment of other chronic illnesses (McLellan et al. 2000; White and McLellan 2008).\n\nNote:\n\nAlcohol dependence shares many of the characteristics that define chronic diseases such as hypertension, asthma, and type 2 diabetes. These include an established set of signs and symptoms, a biological basis, a genetic component, the contributing role of behavior choices, treatment response, and high rates of relapse that are influenced by poor patient self-care and self-management. People with social or heavy nondependent alcohol use are not considered to have a disease. It is only alcohol dependence that has a disease basis, and this is because the symptoms and behavior are the direct reflection of abnormalities in brain structure and function. As with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, having the disease of alcohol dependence does not reduce or free the alcoholic of personal responsibility for managing the illness. Relapse following treatment for alcoholism is not inevitable, and if a relapse does occur, those close to the patient should remain hopeful that long-term recovery can still be achieved.\n\n# Alcohol Pharmacology and the Biology of Alcoholism\n\nTo understand how alcohol dependence is a brain disease, we must first understand the changes that occur in the brain as a drinker progresses from social drinking to alcohol abuse and ultimately to dependence (Cruz et al. 2008).\n\nAlcohol and other drugs of abuse affect the brain in three major ways. They\n\n 1. immediately alter perceptions or emotions;\n 2. lay the stage for dependence in persons with heavy and frequent use by producing symptoms of tolerance, withdrawal, and other changes such as alterations in important interconnected brain pathways that control motivational processes such as arousal, reward, and stress; and\n 3. result in neurological damage with chronic addiction (Hazelden July 2001).\n\nAll substances with addiction potential have strikingly similar effects on many of the same networks of brain cells and brain regions (Iacono, Malone, and McGue 2008). Even behavioral addictions\u2014such as sex, gambling, and food (especially sweets) addiction\u2014are driven by many of the same core brain processes that underlie alcohol and other drug addiction (Goodman 2008).\n\nNeuroscience studies the relationship between brain function and behavior, which makes it an ideal discipline to study the biological basis of addiction. Neuroscientists have contributed enormously to our understanding of how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with addiction are actually a reflection of the changes in the structure and function of key brain regions (Winger et al. 2005).\n\nThe Basics\n\nThe human brain is made of billions of nerve cells, which are called neurons. Every thought, feeling, behavior, sensation, perception, and effect from alcohol or other drug that a person experiences is the result of a \"conversation\" between neurons. Neurons \"talk\" to other neurons, and these conversations take place when information passes between neurons in the form of a chemical message, called a neurotransmission. The molecule that makes up the chemical message passed between neurons is called a neurotransmitter.\n\nWhen a neurotransmitter is released from one neuron, it travels across the small space between neurons called the synapse, to bind to an adjacent neuron that has a receptor for the specific type of neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters bind to these receptors to either stimulate (excite) or slow (inhibit) the activity of the receiving neuron (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008; Schuessler 2004).\n\nUntil recently, efforts to pinpoint the biological origin of addiction focused on isolated brain regions. The nucleus accumbens, a brain region with a high concentration of neurons that contain receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine (simply termed dopamine receptors), was identified as the source of the euphoria and high produced by alcohol and other drugs. Therefore, the nucleus accumbens was believed to be the location where addiction developed (Dackis and Gold 1985).\n\nRecent advances in brain science have produced a much broader and more complex understanding. We now understand that it is not a single brain region but multiple brain regions and neuron pathways that are involved in the addiction process.\n\nNeural circuits or pathways are large and often widespread. The networks perform the brain's essential functions, such as storing information, regulating basic body functions, and directing behavior. Neuron pathways link and coordinate communication between different brain regions. It is now believed that addiction develops from alterations to these neuron pathways within the mesolimbic dopamine system (MDS).\n\nThe MDS is a good example of how neuron pathways harness different brain regions so that together they can perform complex brain functions. The MDS neuron pathway connects brain regions that control\n\n 1. bodily functions (the brain stem and peripheral nervous system);\n 2. emotion (the limbic system, including the amygdala) with brain regions involved in thinking, planning, and decision making (the prefrontal cortex); and\n 3. reward\/reinforcement (nucleus accumbens).\n\nThese different brain regions within the MDS relay information back and forth, using the neurotransmitter dopamine, the endogenous opioids, and several other neurotransmitters (Angres and Bettinardi-Angres 2008; Gonzales, Job, and Doyon 2004).\n\nOne of the essential functions of the MDS is to serve as a reward pathway. The MDS serves to motivate the behavior that is essential for survival, such as eating, loving, and reproducing. MDS releases dopamine and other neurotransmitters to produce pleasure that rewards these pro-survival behaviors. The same release of dopamine is achieved with alcohol and other drugs, but the effect is much more intense than what can be achieved by natural rewards (Comings and Blum 2000). All five classes of commonly abused drugs (stimulants, opiates, alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine) activate the MDS to produce euphoria and the high. Differences in the extent of MDS activation partially explain the differences in abuse liability among the various recreational drugs and alcohol (Pierce and Kumaresan 2006).\n\nNote:\n\nBrain cells or neurons are the most basic components of the brain. Neurons form extended networks with other neurons, called neuron pathways. These pathways link different parts of the brain together to perform the complex functions of the brain and body. Neurons communicate with adjacent neurons by using chemicals called neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters either excite or slow the activity of the receiving neuron. One of the neuron pathways that is fundamental in the development of alcohol dependence is called the mesolimbic dopamine system, or MDS.\n\nAny behavior is likely to be repeated when it is associated with the experience of pleasure. And one of the normal functions of the MDS is to produce pleasure when a person has sex, eats (especially sweets), or engages in other behavior that is conducive to survival. This pleasurable effect is caused by the temporary increase within the MDS of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Alcohol and drugs of abuse also stimulate dopamine release in the MDS. The intensity of the pleasurable effect from drugs is much greater than what can be achieved through natural rewards. The MDS is referred to as the reward pathway.\n\n# The Initial Effects of Alcohol\n\nAlcohol and all other drugs of abuse have an immediate effect on neurotransmitters and the molecules that carry messages from one brain cell to another. Although every cell in the brain is affected by alcohol, dopamine is believed to be the primary neurotransmitter responsible for the pleasurable effect of alcohol. Dopamine is associated with feelings of well-being and euphoria.\n\nWithin the MDS, earlier called the reward pathway, alcohol causes dopamine cells in the ventral tegmental area to release dopamine into the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens. Although dopamine is released in the MDS when we engage in pleasurable and rewarding activities such as eating (especially sweets) or sex (Blum et al. 2000), MDS dopamine release may be three to five times higher in response to alcohol (Di Chiara and Imperato 1988; Wise 2002). This is an important point.\n\nAs you can see, alcohol causes a release of dopamine and ensuing euphoria and high that is vastly greater and more intense than what any non-drug experience can deliver. Although nondrug experiences can produce some of the same feelings of euphoria, the dopamine response to nondrug experiences diminishes with successive exposures. In contrast, alcohol delivers the same powerful rewarding effect with every use (at least before addiction develops) (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008).\n\nThe highly pleasurable dopamine effect produced by alcohol is referred to as the positive reinforcing effect because it motivates the person to repeat the behavior. In other words, the behavior of drinking alcohol is reinforced through pleasure (Kalivas and Volkow 2005). This process of striving to recapture the euphoria from previous drinking experiences actually describes a learning effect that is based on reward, and reveals that dopamine release is a key event in the process of learned behaviors (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008).\n\nOther brain chemicals besides dopamine also contribute to the pleasurable effects of alcohol. A second neurotransmitter called serotonin also plays an important role in alcohol response. Individuals with dysfunctional serotonin activity may be more prone to developing alcoholism (Heinz et al. 2001; Hazelden July 2001).\n\nAlcohol enhances the activity of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) and curtails the activity of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. These two actions produce the sedating effect of alcohol (NIAAA 2004). Alcohol also activates the release of endogenous (produced within the body\/brain) opioids, which contribute to the pleasurable effects of drinking (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008).\n\nDuring the initial stage of alcohol use, changes in brain chemistry begin to occur that affect the normal balance of neurotransmitters, the receptors these neurotransmitters interact with, and various other molecules. Although these early changes are short-lived and are based on the initial effects of alcohol in the brain, repeated exposure of the brain to alcohol eventually creates longer-lasting changes in neuron and neurotransmitter function (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008).\n\nNote:\n\nWhen a person drinks, changes occur in the activity of several neurotransmitters, which account for the short-term effects of alcohol. Alcohol stimulates the release of dopamine in the MDS, or the pleasure pathway, to produce the mood-altering effect of euphoria and high. Alcohol also (1) increases the release of serotonin and the endogenous (produced within the body\/brain) opioids, (2) increases the activity of GABA, and (3) decreases the activity of glutamate. The combined effect of alcohol on GABA and glutamate produces the well-known sedating effect of alcohol.\n\n# The Transition to Alcohol Dependence\n\nRelatively short-lived changes in brain chemistry and brain function are thought to initially occur at the onset of alcohol dependence. Continued heavy and persistent alcohol use transforms these short-term changes into lasting changes by the functioning of several neuron pathways (Nestler 2005). Problem drinking progresses to alcohol dependence at different rates in different people. Some drinkers rapidly progress to very heavy, loss-of-control drinking within a short period of time; for other drinkers this escalation may take several decades.\n\nBefore the development of addiction, alcohol use is regarded as voluntary, while alcohol use after the onset of addiction is considered compulsive. For example, before the development of addiction, a parent may have to make a choice between helping a child with homework or drinking a glass of wine in the evening. At this stage the drinker will usually make the socially appropriate choice. With the development of alcohol dependence, the drinker may make a deliberate choice to drink and to neglect his or her obligations or responsibilities.\n\nUsing the same example, the dependent drinker may encounter other people, places, or things associated with alcohol use (environmental cues) that conflict with his or her wish to help the child with homework that evening. As a result, the parent may begin experiencing steadily increasing levels of anxiety, irritability, and feelings of unease since his or her last drink. Contact with environmental cues and increasing distress since the last drink can both intensify and trigger the overwhelming urge to drink.\n\nThe urge itself activates a powerful goal-directed drive to seek and consume alcohol. The intensity of this impulse to drink, and the inability to control the impulse (i.e., to not drink) directly stems not from a lack of will or moral judgment but from substantial neural changes beginning to occur to the structure and function of the brain (Leshner 1997).\n\nAddiction to alcohol represents at its most basic level a dramatic and persistent change in brain structure and function. With the development of alcohol addiction come the establishment and strengthening of new memory pathways. These new pathways contribute to the distortions in thinking and behavior seen in alcoholics. These pathways are accompanied by the weakening of the brain process involved in planning, impulse control, and judgment. In time, the impulse to drink simply overwhelms the progressive loss of ability to resist (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008). It is this compulsive craving to drink alcohol\u2014and the intensity of the craving that overwhelms all other motivations, such as feeling responsible to help the child with homework\u2014that is the root cause of the enormous health and social problems created by alcoholism (Leshner 2001).\n\nEarlier Theories of How Alcohol Addiction Developed\n\nEarlier theories of addiction focused on the pleasurable effect or reward of drinking alcohol or using other drugs. Dependence was thought to stem solely from the intense and recurrent drive to experience the reward sensation (Wise 1980); in other words, addiction was driven by the positive reinforcement induced by the alcohol or other drug (Gill, Amit, and Koe 1988). Researchers also observed that alcohol or other drug dependence often resulted in unpleasant psychological and physical effects if the person stopped abruptly.\n\nAs a result, the addicted person often resumed drinking as a means to avoid the distressing symptoms of withdrawal (that is, negative reinforcement or behavior motivated to avoid or reduce an unpleasant experience or state). The positive and negative reinforcement theories provided some insight into the development and maintenance of alcohol and other drug dependence, but the theories were unable to fully account for many aspects, such as relapse after prolonged abstinence.\n\nCurrent neuroscience discovery goes further by showing that addiction is a series of persistent changes in brain structure and function from prolonged heavy alcohol use that explains the nature of addiction, and the tendency to relapse even when abstinence has been achieved (Feltenstein and See 2008).\n\nMany Alcohol Abusers Do Not Develop Alcohol Dependence\n\nAlthough the risk factors for developing alcohol addiction have been identified, the exact mechanism by which some heavy drinkers progress to alcohol dependence while others do not has yet to be discovered. However, an important point is that many heavy drinkers do not develop alcohol dependence. Some actually abuse alcohol for decades without developing alcohol addiction (Vaillant 2003).\n\nIndividuals differ substantially in how easily and quickly they become addicted; these individual differences are the result of a combination of environmental and genetic factors (Leshner 2001). Also, many people who abuse alcohol or other drugs as teenagers or young adults either quit or moderate their use as they get older, a process referred to as \"maturing out\" (Chen and Kandel 1995). The process of maturing out may occur in tandem with major positive life events such as marriage, family, or career. This process is explained by a rewarding event or opportunity (positive reinforcer) that enters into the life of the drinker and is incompatible with alcohol use. At this point, the reinforcing properties of the alcohol or other drug, relative to those of the competing reinforcers (marriage, family, or career), diminish to the point where addictive alcohol or other drug abuse is no longer behaviorally sustainable.\n\nPeople who do not mature out of heavy alcohol or other drug use may not have access to these alternative positive reinforcers, may not seek them out, or may find the reinforcement from alcohol or other drugs superior to these nonsubstance experiences (Winger et al. 2005). However, alcohol abuse in the absence of alternative reinforcers, or even heavy alcohol use in preference of other normally rewarding activities, does not in itself indicate alcohol dependence.\n\nBrain Regions That Mediate the Process of Alcohol Dependence\n\nDuring the development of alcohol dependence, neuron pathways are reorganized to establish the behaviors that are characteristic of addiction (Kalivas and Volkow 2005). The MDS, or reward pathway, is believed to be the primary brain location in the development of alcohol dependence. The role played by components of the MDS in the process of alcohol dependence involve the following three brain regions:\n\n 1. The nucleus accumbens\/central nucleus of the amygdala: This is a structure in the forebrain involved in the rewarding effects of alcohol that promote the binge intoxication stage of addiction. This system contains the reward neurotransmitter dopamine and the endogenous opioids that are released when alcohol is consumed to produce euphoria and high (Koob 2006). Another important function of this system is the regulation of emotional states (Hyytia and Koob 1995).\n 2. The extended amygdala: Persistent alcohol abuse activates what are referred to as brain stress pathways. The amygdala is involved in the memory of emotionally powerful events and experiences, and contains the brain stress systems involving the neurotransmitters CRF and NPY (neuropeptide Y). CRF controls the hormonal, sympathetic, and behavioral responses to stress, and is believed to mediate the motivational withdrawal (described below) and negative emotional state that develops with alcohol dependence (Koob and Volkow 2010).\n 3. The medial prefrontal cortex: This region regulates the executive functions that are degraded with alcohol dependence, and also plays a key role in relapse (Koob 2006). The prefrontal cortex is involved in decision making, judgment, and planning (executive function). In a normal nonaddicted person, the prefrontal cortex suppresses the impulse to act on an anticipated reward when the behavior is judged as socially inappropriate or detrimental to a larger, long-term goal.\n\nExamples of the medial prefrontal cortex in action include a person turning down an invitation to get drunk on a work night, or deciding not to pursue a sexual encounter with a co-worker or subordinate. The changes in the prefrontal cortex during the development of addiction have been described as an acceleration of \"go\" signals (to get drunk) and the impairment of \"stop\" signals (not on a work night), which contribute to uncontrolled alcohol use despite severe consequences (Clay, Allen, and Parran 2008).\n\nAll three of these brain regions linked by the MDS are involved in the activation and modulation of behavior. The nucleus accumbens and extended amygdala are involved in reward-motivated and fear-motivated behavior. The prefrontal cortex is involved in control over the behavioral response to the input from these other two brain regions (Kalivas and Volkow 2005).\n\nReturning to the earlier example, the opportunity for a sexual encounter with an attractive subordinate at work may be intensely enticing to the normal nonaddicted person. However, the impulse to pursue the sexual encounter will not be acted on because activity in the normal, nonimpaired prefrontal cortex weighs the potential negative social and long-term consequences of the behavior against the short-term gratification. The person concludes the risks far outweigh the reward (Kalivas and Volkow 2005). Not so with an alcoholic.\n\nThe various processes and pathways that contribute to the development of addiction are very complex and sometimes overlapping. Another way to look at this process is to isolate some of the behavioral aspects of alcohol dependence and to identify the brain regions where these symptoms originate (Koob and Volkow 2010):\n\n * Binge drinking and intoxication: ventral tegmental area, ventral striatum\n * Motivational withdrawal and negative emotional states: extended amygdala\n * Craving for alcohol: orbitofrontal cortex-dorsal striatum, pre-fontal cortex, basolateral amygdala, hippocampus, insula\n * Disrupted control over inhibitions: cingulate gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal cortices\n\nChanges in Brain Pathways Involved in Alcohol Reinforcement (i.e., Changes in the Motivation That Drives Alcohol Use)\n\nAs described earlier, alcohol or other drug dependence is much more likely to occur when adverse life experiences, genetics, or their combination alter brain function in such a way that predisposes the person to addiction.\n\nFor instance, during extreme stress such as emotional trauma or childhood neglect by one's parent, the brain releases powerful stress hormones that over time can alter brain function to result in an abnormally intense sensitivity. It can result in a diminished capacity to delay gratification and an increased risk of impulsive behaviors.\n\nIn this case, the brain reward system also becomes sensitized so that a more powerful and intense experience of euphoria and pleasure may occur from the use of substances and behaviors that trigger and release dopamine in the MDS. The same chronic release of stress hormones can also result in a persistent negative emotional state of irritability, sadness, anxiety, distress, and poor affect regulation (the ability to calm oneself when emotionally upset, to control one's thought response to an unsettling event, and to control emotion-based behavior). This can make the use of substances that calm or numb the emotional distress much more enticing (Goodman 2009).\n\nThus, the exact mechanism by which alcohol dependence develops in some but not most drinkers is unknown. However, persons with a heightened sensitivity to the pleasurable mood-altering effects and to the reduction in distressing emotions with alcohol use are most susceptible to developing alcohol dependence. Although these persons may possess altered brain reward pathways that came before their alcohol use, persistent alcohol abuse over time further alters these reward pathways to result in profound and lasting changes in the brain pathways involved in motivation. Some of these pathways mediate reward, while others mediate stress. These changes are the basis of the development of sensitization, tolerance, withdrawal, and dependence, and are described on the next pages.\n\nPositive Reinforcement\n\nPositive reinforcement describes behavior that is driven or motivated by the desire to achieve a pleasant or exhilarating state like euphoria. The positive reinforcing effects of alcohol are important factors that motivate the continued drinking before the onset of alcohol dependence (Gilpin and Koob 2008). However, the onset and progression of alcohol dependence is accompanied by impaired function of brain reward systems, including MDS dopamine and opioid function that produces the mood-altering euphoria with drinking. This loss of function in brain systems that produce reward and reinforcement occurs in tandem with the progressive activation of brain stress systems (Gilpin and Koob 2008).\n\nNegative Reinforcement\n\nNegative reinforcement describes behavior that is motivated or driven by the desire to reduce or remove an unpleasant state. With the development of alcohol dependence, an unpleasant emotional state begins to emerge during abstinence from alcohol that consists of dysphoria, anxiety, and irritability, and is distinct from the actual physical withdrawal from alcohol (described later). This negative emotional state is termed motivational withdrawal, and persons who have become alcohol dependent may drink to prevent or reduce the anxiety and distress they experience when they are not drinking (Gilpin and Koob 2008).\n\nThere are two factors that contribute to the development of negative reinforcement during alcohol dependence. The first involves the loss of normal MDS function. Impaired dopamine function in this system creates dysphoria (a state of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and emotional distress). It is accompanied by impaired serotonin function that contributes to dysphoria, and decreased GABA activity that contributes to anxiety and irritability (Koob 2006). The second factor involves the recruitment of brain stress systems in the extended amygdala (CRF and NPY), which contribute to the negative emotional state (dysphoria, anxiety, and irritability) that drives compulsive alcohol use (Koob 2006).\n\nNegative reinforcement often develops and intensifies during the course of addiction. However, some people, especially those who have experienced childhood trauma or severe and chronic stress, are more vulnerable to the powerfully rewarding and motivating effects of negative reinforcement. Such persons are very likely to possess impaired affect regulation and to experience painful and overwhelming emotions and emotional instability. If they find that alcohol provides temporary emotional relief, a powerful negative reinforcement is activated (Goodman 2008).\n\nNeuroadaptation\n\nNeuroadaptation is a term that describes the process by which the brain adapts to the constant presence of alcohol in order to keep performing the normal brain functions (NIAAA 2009). The function and activity of key neurotransmitters is altered with neuroadaptation, and several processes that occur during neuroadaptation serve to increase the compulsion to drink. These processes include\n\n * sensitization, in which heightened sensitivity to alcohol causes the desire for alcohol to escalate into a pathological craving;\n * tolerance, which describes the diminished response to alcohol and the need to drink greater amounts to achieve the desired effect; and\n * physical withdrawal (described in chapter 5), which is the process that can occur when the alcohol-dependent person abruptly stops drinking (Koob 2003; Gilpin and Koob 2008; NIAAA 2009).\n\nAs mentioned earlier, an important effect of alcohol on neurotransmitter function is to reduce the activity of excitatory glutamate, and to increase the activity of inhibitory GABA. Now, an alcoholic doesn't drink with that intention in mind, but the chronic stimulation of GABA and suppression of glutamate with chronic alcohol exposure cause the brain to attempt to regain a normal state by cranking up the activity of glutamate receptors (Vengeliene et al. 2008). As a result, intoxication begins to feel normal for a person dependent on alcohol.\n\nWhen a drinker passes out or falls asleep, and alcohol use is abruptly stopped, this heightened glutamate receptor activity creates a state termed hyper-excitability, which is believed to account for many of the symptoms of physical alcohol withdrawal or hangover such as agitation, anxiety, insomnia, and potentially seizures or convulsions (Pulvirenti and Diana 2001; Gilpin and Koob 2008).\n\nThree distinct types of alcohol craving have been identified below. Each type of craving is associated with a different stage in the development of alcohol dependence, and is a reflection of corresponding disruptions in different neurotransmitter systems and brain regions (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008):\n\n * Craving for reward, stemming from alterations in dopamine and\/or brain opioid systems that diminish the positive reinforcing effects of alcohol (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008).\n * Craving for relief from emotional distress or anxiety: Adaptations within the amygdala stress systems help increase the anxiety and emotional distress that compels the drinker to escalate alcohol use. The craving to drink is motivated by the intense desire for relief from anxiety and distress, or negative reinforcement (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008).\n * Obsessional craving. This is the loss of control over alcohol-related thoughts as they intrude into the person's normal thinking process. This type of craving is believed to result from alcohol-induced deficits in serotonin function (Addolorato et al. 2005). Obsessive craving, when accompanied by loss of control and compulsive alcohol use, may also reflect enduring changes in glutamate signaling pathways in the limbic and motor systems (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008).\n\n# Completion of the Transition to Alcohol Dependence\n\nThe transition to alcohol dependence is believed to occur in a sequence.\n\nThe first system to become altered is the MDS, followed by the ventral striatum, dorsal striatum, and orbitofrontal cortex, and eventually the prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and extended amygdala (Koob and Volkow 2010). The final significant brain alteration with alcohol dependence involves the development of a signaling pathway from the prefrontal cortex to the nucleus accumbens that transmits glutamate. This development has profound behavioral consequences.\n\nIt greatly diminishes the capacity of the drinker to respond to nonalcohol rewards; substantially decreases the ability to deliberate, plan, control impulses, and use judgment over the use of alcohol; and creates a hyper-response to people, places, and things associated with drinking, which intensifies the behavior directed toward obtaining and using alcohol (Kalivas and Volkow 2005).\n\nThe resultant state is termed impaired behavioral inhibition, which means that the person is much more likely to act on the urge for short-term reward or reinforcement (positive, negative, or both) despite longer-term consequences. An important point is that impaired behavioral inhibition is usually present in addicted persons to some degree before they develop an addiction, which also serves to heighten the risk for addiction (Goodman 2008).\n\nThe development of this excitatory glutamate pathway contributes to the two hallmarks of alcoholism: loss of control over alcohol use and continued drinking despite harmful consequences (Clapp, Bhave, and Hoffman 2008; Angres and Bettinardi-Angres 2008). Persons with the symptom of loss of control may not necessarily lose control of their alcohol use every time they drink, but instead, their attempts to control their drinking have often failed (Goodman 2008).\n\nNote:\n\nThe progression to alcohol dependence is accompanied by profound changes in several brain regions and neuron pathways, which produce the symptoms and behavior changes that define alcoholism. During the development of alcohol dependence, the MDS reward pathway becomes impaired so that pleasurable effects from alcohol are diminished. This loss of function in the MDS pathway, and the growth and activation of other neuron pathways that produce emotional distress, result in the drinker experiencing anxiety, irritability, or depression during dry periods. The drinker is now compelled to resume drinking in order to avoid this unpleasant state, and to compulsively pursue the pleasurable effects of alcohol, which have become more difficult to recapture.\n\nAs the drive to consume alcohol intensifies, nondrinking activities and pursuits lose the ability to produce reward. Eventually, the motivation to drink overrides all other competing drives and motivations, leading to the abandonment of activities and pursuits that were formerly enjoyable and rewarding, such as family involvement, career, and hobbies.\n\nWith the increasing intensity in the urge to drink comes an increasing inability to control or put the brakes on this urge. This is due to loss in function of the prefrontal cortex, and accounts for such behaviors as drinking to intoxication when the drinker initially only intended to have one or two drinks. In addition, drinking despite predictably severe social, occupational, or legal consequences is another sign of dependence. To summarize it another way: continued drinking is positively reinforced and abstinence is negatively reinforced (Gorski 2001).\n\n# Chronic Alcohol Dependence\n\nBy the time the alcohol-dependent person has reached this stage, obtaining and consuming alcohol influences behavior to the point where the need for alcohol dominates the motivational hierarchy (Bozarth 1990). In other words, the need to drink eclipses all other obligations, relationships, and activities.\n\nAs described above, this progressively greater orientation of behavior toward alcohol use and the progressive loss of reward and reinforcement from nonalcohol experiences are the direct results of the profound changes in the brain motivational circuitry (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008). Alcohol has become the only potent reinforcer, and perhaps the only reinforcer at all, relative to competing rewards, such as family involvement and hobbies in the life of the alcoholic (Winger et al. 2005). Essentially, alcohol has \"hijacked\" the brain motivation and reinforcement pathways (Lubman, Yucel, and Pantelis 2004). These profound alterations in brain pathways can persist long after alcohol use has stopped (Kalivas and O'Brien 2008).\n\nThis loss of interest in previously gratifying and rewarding relationships, obligations, and leisure activities can result in child neglect and abandonment, the disintegration of marriages and business partnerships, and professional irresponsibility and misconduct. It is not surprising that the behavior and conduct of persons in this stage of addiction can resemble elements of psychiatric disorders such as antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). The overlap in behavior is considerable.\n\nASPD is characterized, in part, by a chronic pattern of failure to meet important financial and family obligations, employment instability and the abandonment of multiple jobs, impulsivity, pursuit of illegal activities and occupations, little regard for the truth, and the absence of guilt or remorse. NPD is characterized, in part, by a chronic pattern of extreme self-centeredness and the inability to experience empathy for others (APA 2000).\n\nHowever, while the symptoms of ASPD and NPD typically emerge during adolescence to early adulthood and remain stable throughout adulthood, persons with chronic alcohol or other drug dependence, in the absence of a pre-existing personality disorder, are usually able to regain the ability to fulfill their financial and family obligations when they have stopped drinking. Then, they can re-enter into meaningful relationships that do not revolve around alcohol use and find enjoyment from nondrinking activities and pursuits. And unlike persons with ASPD and NPD, individuals who have stopped drinking are often intensely remorseful over the suffering endured by others as a consequence of their addiction.\n\nFor others, the capacity to experience pleasure or reward from ordinary nondrinking or nondrug experiences remains grossly impaired. The powerful drive to alter one's distressing emotional state may persist long after alcohol or other drug use has stopped and physical withdrawal has ended. Such persons may begin the compulsive pursuit of activities that are not necessarily harmful and that provide a degree of symptom relief. These activities may be physical in nature and include running, martial arts, or yoga. Although these activities may be labeled as substitute addictions, they serve a positive purpose of introducing an intense non-substance reward that is sustainable, and in doing so can help the person transition from active drinking to ongoing abstinence.\n\nHowever, in other cases the intense drive to alter one's feeling or emotional state unfolds destructively with the development of a sex, food, or gambling addiction. They are often driven by the same dynamics as alcohol and other drug dependence:\n\n * the desire to experience mood alteration through intense (if fleeting) euphoria and well-being,\n * the intense desire to reduce or eliminate emotional distress,\n * chronic feelings of emptiness or low self-esteem, and\n * the inability to control or moderate the behavior despite consequences.\n\nThese shared dynamics are the reflection of a common underlying biological and psychological basis (Goodman 2008; Goodman 2009).\n\nNeurodegeneration\n\nChronic ingestion of high doses of alcohol can lead to profound changes in the structure, growth, and survival of neurons. Researchers have found substantially reduced volumes of many brain structures in alcoholics, particularly the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum, although this is at least partially reversed with prolonged abstinence. As described above, deficits in the prefrontal cortex can affect motivational circuits and impair the ability to control impulsive behavior, further contributing to alcoholic drinking (Jentsch and Taylor 1999). Alcohol-dependent persons also possess smaller amygdala volumes than nondependent individuals, which is associated with risk of alcohol relapse (Wrase et al. 2008; Gilpin and Koob 2008).\n\nRelapse to Alcohol Use during Abstinence\n\nThe cardinal behavioral feature of alcohol addiction is the persistent vulnerability to relapse after physical withdrawal from alcohol has ended. This risk of relapse persists even after years of abstinence, and arises from an intense desire for alcohol and a diminished capacity to control that desire (Kalivas and Volkow 2005; Wolffgramm and Heyne 1995). Intense alcohol cravings, even after years of abstinence, can be provoked by emotional distress; exposure to people, places, or things (cues) associated with drinking; or changes in mood (Vengeliene et al. 2008). As mentioned earlier, alcohol addiction is caused, in part, by a learning process involving the lasting memories of powerful alcohol experiences, and in this context, relapse occurring from cue exposure may be understood as a response to learned behavior (Kauer and Malenka 2007).\n\nThe brain of addicted persons is altered and responds very differently to stress than the brains of nonaddicted persons in ways that increase relapse risk (Cleck and Blendy 2008). Studies examining the well-established relationship between stress and relapse have found that exposure to stress activates brain reward pathways, possibly explaining why craving for alcohol or other drugs is triggered when recovering alcoholics and addicts are under stress (Sinha et al. 2000; Cleck and Blendy 2008).\n\nResearchers have found that relapse occurring from exposure to people, places, or things associated with drinking may be mediated by the endogenous opioid system. These findings have important implications for the development of pharmacological therapies to prevent relapse in alcoholics (Gilpin and Koob 2008).\n\nThe summary of a scientific conference addressing the interactions between stress, craving for alcohol or other drugs, and relapse during abstinence was published (Breese et al. 2005). Some of the key findings included\n\n * exposure to stressful life events is an important risk factor for relapse in abstinent alcoholics;\n * stress exposure in abstinent alcoholics increases alcohol craving and susceptibility to relapse after treatment completion;\n * alcohol craving triggered by stress can be amplified by other risk factors, such as exposure to people, places, and things connected with drinking, and by the disruption of brain stress-regulatory systems stemming from chronic alcohol abuse;\n * the cumulative adaptive changes from chronic alcohol abuse can interact with stress to increase the severity of physical and motivational withdrawal symptoms;\n * the behavioral and physiological changes that contribute to relapse extend well beyond the period of physical withdrawal from alcohol, and this vulnerability to relapse is associated with a heightened sensitivity to stress;\n * stress and alcohol-related environmental triggers can interact to increase relapse risk.\n\nThe results presented at this conference provide the rationale for the support of research efforts to reduce stress-induced alcohol craving through pharmacological or psychosocial interventions. They also underscore the powerful effect of people, places, and things associated with alcohol use on increasing the risk of relapse.\n\nSummary of the Biological Basis of Relapse Vulnerability\n\nSeveral factors related to altered brain chemistry and function contribute to the high risk of relapse among alcoholics trying to remain sober. Alcoholism can alter normal dopamine and serotonin function, especially within the MDS, and enhance stress pathways to increase the release of CRF. These effects may persist well into abstinence, leading to difficulties in experiencing pleasure from nonalcohol activities and the emergence of a restless irritability, anxiety, mood instability, and feelings of emptiness. Other factors that contribute to relapse risk include the conditioning process that has occurred throughout active alcohol addiction.\n\nConditioning refers to the deeply ingrained learning and memory process where people, places, and things (environmental cues) become strongly associated with alcohol use and intoxication. A poor stress tolerance, where stress can emotionally overwhelm the abstinent alcoholic, is another factor that reflects the altered brain chemistry with alcoholism. Abstinent alcoholics can experience intense urges to drink when under high levels of stress. Poor stress tolerance can also interact with exposure to environmental cues to overwhelm the ability of the alcoholic to resist drinking (Goodman 2008; Weiss et al. 2001).\n\nIn conclusion, several factors contribute to the very high risk of relapse in the recovering alcoholic. These include biological changes in the brain; the behavioral choices made by the alcoholic in recovery, such as whether or not to avoid old drinking associates and environments; and the degree (or lack of) self-care, such as involvement in a recovery program like AA.\n\nNote:\n\nThe profound changes in the brain that occur during alcohol dependence can persist long after drinking has stopped and physical withdrawal has ended. These persistent alterations account for the vulnerability to relapse even years after the alcoholic has quit drinking. This vulnerability is explained by the impaired ability to experience pleasure and reward from nondrinking experiences, ongoing emotional distress, and reduced capacity to resist acting on impulses and urges. The impulse to drink can be triggered by contact with people, places, or things that were associated with drinking experiences, and stress can also trigger the urge to drink, increasing the risk of relapse.\n\nNeurotoxic Effects of Alcohol on Cognitive Function\n\nAlcohol can damage brain cells by impacting the structure, function, and production (i.e., neurogenesis) of neurons, ultimately resulting in cognitive impairment (Crews 2008).\n\nAlcoholism is the second-leading cause of dementia, after Alzheimer's disease (Eckardt and Martin 1986). Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome (commonly known as \"wet brain\") is a type of dementia associated with long-term alcohol use and the malnutrition that often accompanies alcoholism. This syndrome is characterized by the inability to learn new information. Often, the person with Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome will make up or create scenarios to fill in the missing information (Beeder and Millman 1997). In addition to eroding cognitive function, chronic alcohol dependence may produce personality changes. Damage to the frontal lobe of the brain, for example, reduces impulse control, which can result in impulsive or violent behavior (NIAAA 2000; Hazelden July 2001).\n\nBrain impairment from chronic alcoholism may reveal itself in the following areas:\n\n * Working memory: Temporarily retaining numbers or facts for use in the immediate future, e.g., for balancing a checkbook or considering several options. While new information may be learned, it may take more review and repetition than it normally would.\n * Executive functioning: These are the higher-level cognitive functions involving attention, planning, abstract reasoning, problem solving, judgment, and sensitivity to the consequences of one's behavior.\n * Visuospatial perception: The ability to grasp new and complex information visually; recognition and recall of visual images; the skills to learn new routes through buildings, or to solve a puzzle (Hazelden Nov. 2006).\n\nBrain science has recently provided us with a greater understanding of how alcoholism can result in deficits in cognitive function:\n\n 1. Structural changes: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies consistently show shrinkage of the brain among alcoholics, with both gray matter (nerve cells) and white matter (transmission routes) losing volume, especially in the prefrontal region (Ende et al. 2005; Sullivan and Pfefferbaum 2005). This loss of brain mass is associated with age and the quantity of alcohol consumed (Spaminato et al. 2005).\n 2. Neurotoxicity: Alcohol causes new nerve cells to die. Throughout life (though more slowly as we age) new brain cells are normally created in a process known as neurogenesis; alcohol, however, interferes with neurogenesis (Herrera et al. 2003).\n 3. Circuitry: The degradation of the neural circuitry, or nerve transmission, may be responsible for cognitive deficits, resulting in what is called processing inefficiency. As the brain reorganizes how it processes information during active alcohol dependence, it compensates for deficits and uses higher-level functions for lower-level tasks. This means the brain needs to work harder to perform the same functions (Fama, Pfefferbaum, and Sullivan 2004; Sullivan and Pfefferbaum 2005).\n\nSome people may be more susceptible to alcohol's effects. Women generally experience the negative physical consequences of alcoholism sooner than men, given the same number of years of drinking. This phenomenon, known as telescoping, accounts for earlier onset of liver and heart damage among alcoholic women, and is very likely to occur in the brain as well (Mann et al. 1992; Mann et al. 2005). Adolescents may be especially vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol because their brain is still active and developing (Barron et al. 2005; Goldstein and Volkow 2002; Hazelden Nov. 2006).\n\nNote:\n\nAlcohol dependence is associated with damage to brain cells, brain regions, and neuron pathways, resulting in persistent problems in thinking and memory function for some persons. The specific functions most likely to be impaired from chronic alcohol use include short-term memory; judgment, planning, and anticipating the consequences of one's actions; and the learning and recall of visual information.\n\nCognitive Impairment and Recovery\n\nBetween 50% and 80% of individuals with alcohol use disorders experience some degree of neurocognitive impairment. There has been a persistent belief among clinicians that neurocognitive impairment plays an important role in determining treatment outcome (Bates, Bowden, and Barry 2002).\n\nFor most people, the brain heals itself given abstinence and time. Abstinent alcoholics show improvements in cognitive function within a few months of their last drink (Nixon and Crews 2004). Brain imaging (MRI scans) has shown increases in brain volume during abstinence as gray and white matter increase.\n\nNeuropsychological tests reflect improvements in functioning in abstinence that correspond to normalization of brain structure (Rosenbloom, Pfefferbaum, and Sullivan 2004). Neurogenesis begins to resume, and is associated with increases in positive mood and the ability to learn. In turn, recovery tasks become easier and the resulting abstinence makes continued cognitive improvement possible, creating a spiral of continued progress (Crews et al. 2005).\n\nThese positive changes take place over a variable timeline. Some improvements occur within the first month of recovery and shortly thereafter, particularly in short-term memory and visuospatial tasks (Sullivan et al. 2000). Interestingly, patients with a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder have a slower rate of recovery in deficits involving executive functioning. Age alone is not a factor in the rate of cognitive recovery, and persons of all ages who quit substance abuse are capable of some degree of short-term cognitive recovery (Bates et al. 2005). While some gains come early in recovery, other subtle cognitive improvements in executive control functioning may take several years. As one group of researchers concluded after reviewing longitudinal results, \"... the message emerging from these studies is clear: Abstinence contributes to recovery, and longer abstinence contributes to greater recovery...\" (Rosenbloom, Pfefferbaum, and Sullivan 2004).\n\nPersons with substantial cognitive impairment do not have a worse chance for recovery. One MRI study found that those with the greatest impairment showed, with abstinence, improvement (Sullivan et al. 2000), reflecting not only the obvious greater room for improvement but also the resiliency of the brain. Also, the extent of cognitive impairment does not predict treatment success. However, motivation may be a critical component, and the relatively simple strategies of using support systems and avoiding alcohol-related situations may be the most important tools in early recovery. The Twelve Step approach may be especially helpful because of the repetition and social network it provides, and because it reinforces breaking complex tasks into smaller ones (Hazelden Nov. 2006).\n\nNote:\n\nImpairments in memory, learning, and thinking that are caused by alcohol dependence are in most cases reversed if the drinker remains abstinent. Recovery in cognitive function occurs at different rates in different people, and some areas of function recover more rapidly than other areas. Contrary to popular belief, persons with more extensive cognitive impairment do not have a worse chance for successful recovery from their addiction. One of the reasons for this is that motivation is a crucial element of success in treatment and recovery.\n\n# Subtypes of Alcoholics\n\nEarlier in this chapter we looked at the brain process that forms the basis of the development as well as the progression of alcohol dependence. We also saw how these changes in the brain account for the symptoms of alcohol dependence that are described by the DSM-IV-TR, which include loss of control over drinking, continued drinking despite consequences, preoccupation with alcohol use, tolerance, physical withdrawal, and the foregoing of important social and recreational activities in favor of alcohol use (APA 2000). Although core symptoms representing alcohol dependence are generally agreed upon, not all persons with a serious drinking problem exhibit the same pattern of symptoms.\n\nAlcoholism is a complex disease with a development that is influenced by genetic, environmental, psychological, and behavioral factors. For more than sixty years, researchers and clinicians have recognized distinct differences in the pattern of symptoms that manifest among alcoholic patients. This recognition resulted in efforts to classify alcoholics into meaningful subgroups in the belief that identifying subtypes of alcoholic patients could increase the effectiveness of treatment selection, treatment outcome prediction, and prediction of the future disease course (Pombo et al. 2008; Moss, Chen, and Yi 2007).\n\nThe history of modern alcoholic subtyping systems actually began with the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, first published in 1939. On page 31 there is reference to the moderate drinker, the problem drinker, and the \"real alcoholic\" (Alcoholics Anonymous 1939). This unscientific observation was the catalyst for the first scientific investigations into various types of problem drinking. E. M. Jellinek began the scientific investigation of alcoholism in the late 1930s, and devised a classification system consisting of what he termed \"species\" of alcoholism primarily influenced by responses to a questionnaire from the Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter called the Grapevine (Fingarette 1989). The following are brief descriptions of the species identified by Jellinek (Jellinek 1960).\n\nAlpha Alcoholism\n\nAlpha alcoholism is marked by a purely psychological dependence on alcohol, but without loss of control or the inability to abstain. There is a powerful reliance on alcohol to self-medicate stress and life problems, but progression is not inevitable. Jellinek notes that other writers may refer to this species as problem drinkers.\n\nBeta Alcoholism\n\nBeta alcoholism is identified by medical problems resulting from alcohol use, such as cirrhosis or gastritis, in the absence of psychological or physical dependence. It is more likely to occur in persons from cultures with widespread heavy drinking and inadequate diet.\n\nGamma Alcoholism\n\nThis species exhibits tolerance to alcohol, physiological changes leading to withdrawal symptoms, and loss of control over drinking; undergoes a progression from psychological to physical dependence; and experiences the most devastating physical and social consequences. According to Jellinek this is the most common species in the U.S. and in AA.\n\nDelta Alcoholism\n\nVery similar to the gamma variety, delta alcoholism exhibits psychological and physical dependence but without loss of control, and persons are likely to suffer from withdrawal when abstaining for even brief periods.\n\nEpsilon Alcoholism\n\nThis species has not been studied in depth, but it is fundamentally different from other species. Jellinek called this periodic alcoholism as it is characterized by binge drinking.\n\nRecently Identified Alcoholism Subtypes\n\nA study of Swedish adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents resulted in identifying two distinct alcoholism subtypes, Type I and Type II. These two subtypes differ by the age of onset of alcoholism, the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors, gender and personality traits, and whether co-occurring psychiatric disorders (such as antisocial personality disorder) are present (Cloninger, Sigvardsson, and Bohman 1996).\n\nC. Robert Cloninger, M.D., identified Type I alcoholism as characterized by later onset of dependence (25 years or older), few sociopathic features, drinking that is motivated by the desire for stress and anxiety relief, and fewer alcohol-related problems and childhood risk factors. Type II alcoholism was characterized by early age of onset, character pathology with antisocial and impulsive features, childhood risk factors, and more severe alcohol-related problems (Kenna, McGeary, and Swift 2004). Further research revealed three traits that most readily identified type: harm avoidance, reward dependence, and novelty (thrill) seeking. Different brain systems are believed to underlie these traits, an example being dopamine involvement in the trait of novelty seeking (Cloninger 1987).\n\nThe following table highlights the differences between Cloninger Type I and Type II alcoholics (Henderson 2000).\n\nTable 4.1\n\n# Traits That Distinguish the Cloninger Alcoholism Subtypes\n\nThe Lesch typology integrates biological, social, and psychological factors in one classification (Lesch et al. 1990; Lesch and Walter 1996) and identifies four subtypes:\n\n * Type 1 (model of allergy) are patients with heavy alcohol withdrawal symptoms who tend to use alcohol to reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms.\n * Type 2 (model of anxiety or conflict) are patients who use alcohol to self-medicate anxiety and stress.\n * Type 3 patients have an underlying mood disorder and use alcohol as an antidepressant (Kiefer and Barocka 1999).\n * Type 4 patients (alcohol as adaptation) show pre-alcohol brain dysfunction, behavioral disorders, and a high social burden (Hillemacher and Bleich 2008).\n\nPerhaps the most-studied alcoholism typology is that of Babor et al. (1992). Relative to type A alcoholics, type Bs are characterized by greater severity, earlier onset, stronger family history of alcoholism, more childhood risk factors such as conduct disorder, and greater frequency of co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders (Bogenschutz, Tonigan, and Pettinati 2009).\n\nSeveral of the typologies share common features, such as the Cloninger and Babor systems. The most widely recognized subtyping of alcoholics separates alcoholics who have a later onset of problem drinking and less severe alcohol dependence and alcohol-related problems from alcoholics with an early age of onset of problem drinking, a strong family history of alcoholism problems, pre-existing disorders such as conduct disorder, and severe alcohol dependence and alcohol-related problems. The age of onset of problem drinking and disease progression are also partially determined by genetics (Babor and Caetano 2006).\n\nThe recognition of these differences in disease pattern has been critically important in the discovery of differences between subgroups of alcoholics in treatment response, reflecting the genetic differences between these subgroups (O'Brien 2005). Several types of medications that act on brain serotonin systems have been found to be helpful in some subtypes and not in others. The two FDA-approved medications, acamprosate and naltrexone, are more effective in certain subtypes of alcoholics than in others (Pombo and Lesch 2009).\n\nThe different subtypes in Lesch's typology have corresponding differences in neurobiology that may have practical implications for clinicians. One of these is related to differences in how glutamate transmission is regulated by the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor, which has important implications for treatment response to acamprosate and naltrexone (Hillemacher and Bleich 2008). This approach to studying how medication response is influenced by genetic makeup is referred to as pharmacogenetics or pharmacogenomics, and is further described below (Hillemacher and Bleich 2008).\n\nNote:\n\nFor many decades, workers in the field of alcoholism have noticed pronounced differences among their patients in the patterns of alcohol use, co-occurring problems, and family histories. These observations led to efforts to identify distinct subgroups of alcoholics in order to better match alcoholism subtype with treatment and to optimize outcome and improve the prediction of disease course. More recently, researchers have used their understanding of the genetics of alcoholism, the role of environmental factors, and the interaction of genetics with environment to identify and define several subtypes of alcoholism. Although several classification schemes have been published, two subtypes have been consistently identified. The two differ by\n\n * the age of onset;\n * the severity of the alcohol addiction;\n * the extent of alcoholism and psychiatric illness in the biological family; and\n * the presence or absence of character and personality traits such as impulsive or antisocial traits, thrill seeking, anxiety and stress, and harm avoidance.\n\nThese differences between subtypes are believed to reflect differences in the underlying neurobiology. Numerous studies have found important differences in how subtypes of alcoholics respond to treatment.\n\n# Brain Science on the Frontier of Treatment Development\n\nAlcoholism, like other addictions, is a brain disorder. Research has shown that genes help shape how an individual experiences alcohol\u2014how intoxicating, pleasant, or sedating it is\u2014and helps influence how susceptible the drinker is to developing an alcohol problem. Research has also shown that alcohol dependence causes long-term\u2014and perhaps permanent\u2014changes in the way the brain responds to alcohol. These parallel insights from neuroscience research are paving the way for new medications that will improve alcoholism treatment and relapse prevention (NIAAA 2004).\n\nBased on neuroscience research, scientists are developing medications that could potentially target both the acute response to alcohol and the adaptation of the brain to constant alcohol exposure (neuroadaptation) that occurs with alcohol dependence. Potential medications may target specific receptor types, the series of chemical reactions set off by receptor activation, or the production of critical protein enzymes involved in these processes within the brain cells. To use these strategies effectively and safely, however, researchers must first understand in detail where and how alcohol produces its effects (NIAAA 2004).\n\nThe age of initial use and regular use of alcohol, and the age of onset of alcohol dependence, are influenced by environmental and genetic factors, as are the adaptive changes in the brain that occur with chronic alcohol exposure. It is likely that differences between alcoholics in the brain process of adaptation will be found in the near future, and that this discovery will further help researchers understand the differences in response to medication treatment (Spanagel and Kiefer 2008).\n\nEnormous ground has been covered by neuroscience in explaining the development of addiction, and in describing how the persistent changes in brain structure and function continue to place the recovering alcoholic at risk of relapse long after abstinence has been achieved. Many prominent researchers in the field of alcoholism and addiction are also looking to neuroscience to address key issues related to recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction. It will be this focus on the neurobiology of recovery that represents the new frontier of addiction research. Among the questions that remain to be answered by neuroscience include the following (White 2007):\n\n * What is the degree to which neurobiology influences the ability or inability to recover from addiction?\n * To what extent can long-term recovery reverse addiction-related brain pathology?\n * What is the time frame over which such pathologies are reversed?\n * What is the role played by pharmacological adjuncts, social support, and other services in extending and speeding this brain recovery process?\n * Is the extent and time frame of neurobiological recovery influenced by the age of onset of use, duration of addiction, problem severity and complexity, age of onset of recovery, gender, genetic load for addiction, or developmental trauma?\n\nNote:\n\nNeuroscience has contributed enormously to a greater understanding of many aspects of alcoholism. These include the vulnerability to developing alcohol addiction, how changes in brain structure and function influence the change in behavior as one's drinking progresses into alcohol dependence, and how these changes in brain structure and function persist into abstinence to heighten relapse risk. This information is now being used to develop interventions that more accurately target the functional abnormalities in brain chemicals and neuron pathways. However, many questions remain unanswered and will be the focus of ongoing future investigation by neuroscientists and addiction researchers. Especially important areas for future research include the process of recovery from addiction, restoration of normal brain function, and factors that influence the ability or inability to achieve recovery from addiction.\n\n# CHAPTER 5\n\n# Alcohol Withdrawal and Its Management\n\nAn alcoholic is likely to experience the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal when he or she suddenly stops drinking. Although symptoms of alcohol withdrawal have been recognized since ancient times, even today alcohol withdrawal remains under-recognized and undertreated. The signs and symptoms of acute alcohol withdrawal can begin as early as six hours after the initial decline from peak intoxication (even when the patient still has significant blood alcohol concentrations) and include the following: (CSAT 2006; Trevisan et al. 1998):\n\n * Restlessness, irritability, anxiety, agitation\n * Anorexia (lack of appetite), nausea, vomiting\n * Tremor, elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure\n * Insomnia, nightmares\n * Poor concentration, impaired memory and judgment\n * Increased sensitivity to sound, light, and tactile sensations\n * Hallucinations that can be auditory, visual, or touch-related (tactile)\n * Paranoia or delusions of being persecuted\n * Grand mal seizures (a severe, abnormal electrical discharge in major brain regions that may cause loss of consciousness, brief cessation of breathing, and muscle rigidity followed by muscle jerking and then confusion)\n * Hyperthermia (high fever)\n * Delirium with disorientation, fluctuating level of consciousness\n\n# Acute Alcohol Withdrawal, Delirium Tremens, and Their Treatment\n\nMild alcohol withdrawal generally consists of anxiety, irritability, difficulty sleeping, and decreased appetite. Severe alcohol withdrawal, occurring in roughly 10% of patients, consists of trembling hands and arms, sweating, elevated pulse and blood pressure, heightened sensitivity to noise and light, and brief periods of hallucinations.\n\nSeizures and full-blown delirium tremens (DTs) reflect the most extreme forms of acute and severe alcohol withdrawal. DTs are fatal in as many as 25% of patients who experience them. Since alcohol withdrawal is potentially deadly, patients may require admission to an intensive care unit for severe or complicated alcohol withdrawal (CSAT 2006; Trevisan et al. 1998).\n\nThe course of alcohol withdrawal varies from patient to patient. Symptoms usually start within a few hours of the last drink. DTs sometimes follow after one to three days and may last two to ten days, and consist of an altered awareness of one's surroundings, disorientation, poor short-term memory, disrupted sleep-wake cycle, and hallucinations (NIAAA 2005). The severity of alcohol withdrawal may be influenced by the quantity of alcohol consumed before withdrawal, the severity of the last withdrawal episodes, and the number of previously treated or untreated withdrawal episodes. The severity of alcohol withdrawal can be intensified by older age; poor health and nutritional status; the presence of co-existing medical or psychiatric disorders; and the use of prescription, over-the-counter, or herbal medications (CSAT 2006).\n\nA class of drugs known as the benzodiazepines has been the medication of choice in managing alcohol withdrawal for decades, and remains so today. The favored drugs from this class are diazepam (Valium), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), lorazepam (Ativan), and oxazepam (Serax). Early recognition of alcohol withdrawal and rapid administration of a suitable benzodiazepine will usually prevent a progression in symptom severity. Generally, patients with severe withdrawal require 20 mg of diazepam or 100 mg of chlordiazepoxide every two to three hours until improvement or sedation prevails (CSAT 2006). Other medications have been used to manage alcohol withdrawal, including antiseizure drugs, beta-blockers, alpha-adrenergic agonists, and antipsychotic drugs. However, these agents are either incompletely effective or have not been sufficiently evaluated (CSAT 2006). An approach called symptoms-triggered withdrawal therapy involves the rating of signs and symptoms by medical personnel, and then administering benzodiazepines only when the signs and symptoms reach a particular threshold score (CSAT 2006).\n\nAlcohol withdrawal must be treated aggressively because the severity of alcohol withdrawal is progressive and life-threatening. Death or permanent disability can result from delirium tremens or seizures without adequate medical care. Patients who have experienced seizures and delirium tremens during withdrawal are likely to experience even more severe alcohol withdrawal in the future, and there is evidence that some patients become less and less responsive to medication during subsequent alcohol withdrawal episodes (CSAT 2006).\n\n# Post-acute Alcohol Withdrawal\n\nPost-acute alcohol withdrawal (PAW), also called protracted abstinence syndrome and protracted withdrawal, are symptoms of alcohol withdrawal that extend beyond the period of acute alcohol withdrawal (Satel et al. 1993).\n\nThe symptoms of PAW can include the following (CSAT 2010):\n\n * Cognitive impairment, including difficulty concentrating, impairment in abstract reasoning, rigid repetitive thinking Memory impairment, including short-term memory problems, difficulty in remembering significant events, difficulty learning new information\n * Emotional overreaction, irritability, mood instability\n * Sleep disturbances\n * Fatigue\n * Hypersensitivity to stress\n * Emotional numbness, difficulty in experiencing pleasure\n\nThe intensity and time frame of PAW varies; some will experience few if any symptoms of PAW following acute alcohol withdrawal, while others may experience symptoms for several months (CSAT 2010).\n\nSeveral factors are believed to contribute to PAW. For some recently sober persons, anxiety and depression may be the result of single or multiple drinking-related crises such as job termination, divorce, or legal problems that occurred before they became sober.\n\nFor others, problems with mood and emotion can reflect a psychiatric condition such as depression that has become unmasked during abstinence. Significant problems with memory and cognitive function may reflect the neurotoxic effects of chronic alcoholism or brain trauma that may have occurred during intoxication.\n\nBut perhaps for most persons, the symptoms of PAW stem from the long-lasting changes to the brain from chronic alcohol abuse, such as the process of neuroadaptation described previously. In this case, the brain attempts to compensate for the sedating effects of alcohol by cranking up the release of excitatory neurotransmitters such as glutamate, which are suppressed by alcohol. When alcohol is withdrawn from the system, this compensation process may take some time to revert back to normal, resulting in the continued release of excessive amounts of stimulating brain chemicals that produce agitation, insomnia, anxiety, and restlessness (CSAT 2010; Martinotti et al. 2008; Pozzi et al. 2008).\n\nA very interesting aspect of PAW is the observation by workers in the field of alcoholism and by the original authors of the text used by Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholics Anonymous 1976). They believed that active engagement in a recovery program such as AA can lessen PAW, and that the symptoms of PAW can re-emerge in recovering alcoholics who discontinue their participation in a recovery program. The book Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book) describes the alcoholic as in a restless, irritable, and discontented state before a relapse (Alcoholics Anonymous 1976). Although disengagement from a recovery program as the cause of re-emergent PAW has not yet been validated (or disproven) by scientific investigation, the association between the two has received wide enough observation to be incorporated into the Gorski and Miller model of relapse prevention (Gorski and Miller 1986).\n\nAn important point is that although the distress some persons experience during PAW may result in relapse, the risk of relapse persists long after the resolution of PAW (Heilig et al. 2010).\n\nBefore we begin a discussion of specific therapy approaches in chapter 6 that help alcoholics achieve sobriety, a couple of questions related to alcoholism treatment in general need to be addressed.\n\nShould Abstinence Be the Goal for Alcohol-Dependent Patients?\n\nWith a drinker who has progressed into an alcohol-dependency syndrome, the goal of abstinence is logical, achievable, and, in the end, easier than attempting to moderate the drinking. There are other compelling reasons for abstinence as a treatment goal. Persons with multiple substance dependencies increase the risk of relapsing to another drug, such as cocaine, if they resume drinking (Owen and Marlatt 2001).\n\nThe concept of teaching alcohol-dependent patients to control their drinking reached the pinnacle of enthusiasm a couple of decades ago with Linda and Mark Sobell's 1970s study that involved training alcohol-dependent patients to control and moderate their drinking (Sobell and Sobell 1976). This study was famous worldwide for years\u2014until their patients were followed up at the ten-year mark and found to have fared no better than controls (Pendery, Maltzman, and West 1982). These long-term results served to discredit controlled drinking as a viable treatment option for alcohol-dependent drinkers (Vaillant 2005).\n\nHow Can the Twelve Steps or Psychological Therapy Help Treat a Biological Brain Disease?\n\nCurrent neuroscience research has shown that alcohol dependence is a brain disease characterized by dramatic and persistent changes in brain structure and function that are responsible for producing the various behavioral symptoms of alcoholism.\n\nA natural question to ask at this point is, \"How can a biological brain disease be successfully treated with Twelve Steps or psychosocial interventions?\" Or in other words, how can a biological disease be treated by a nonbiological therapy?\n\nAs we know, sensations, perceptions, emotions, psychological experiences and problems, and psychiatric disorders are mediated by biochemical events in the brain (Seidel 2005). Likewise, life experiences and events, especially ones involving trauma, can produce substantial and even permanent changes in the biochemical functioning of specific brain regions and interconnected pathways of neurons. Childhood abuse, for example, is a risk factor for developing alcoholism because the extreme stress can create lasting alterations in brain systems that regulate the ability to manage emotional stress.\n\nThe brain is now viewed as an open system that is influenced by, and interacts with, the environment. Brain cells continue to grow and the neural circuitry that integrates various parts of the brain remains active throughout life. This adaptive aspect of the brain is referred to as neuroplasticity, which also means that early deficits in brain functioning can be changed with new experiences and new learning, and changing old memories with new information.\n\nAlso, \"emotionally meaningful experience\" helps create new neuron connections, suggesting that new learning may not be possible without emotion. Research has also found that a significant close relationship later in adulthood with an intimate partner or a therapist can reduce impaired development and psychological deficiencies, and that such transformative relationships actually alter the structure and function of the brain in a positive, more healthy direction (Kranzberg 2000\/2001; Allen 1999; Rolfe 2000).\n\nA growing body of research is establishing that the positive effects of psychotherapy are dependent on long-term positive changes in pathological brain patterns. These studies have used imaging tests, typically PET (positron emission tomography) or fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to scan the brains of patients with major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other psychiatric conditions before, during, and after the successful completion of psychotherapy. Most of these studies have employed cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, or psychodynamic psychotherapy as the form of psychotherapy. These studies have identified changes that occur as progress is made in therapy and distressing symptoms lessen or resolve (Etkin et al. 2005). Psychotherapy facilitates therapeutic change through biological mechanisms, and symptom reduction is directly related to underlying changes in brain function (Seidel 2005). It should be stressed that psychosocial therapy has a very complex effect on neurobiology that defies simple explanations (Schuessler 2003).\n\nSome of the mechanisms involved in the positive change in brain structure and function associated with psychotherapy include the alteration of memory processing, reducing the overactivation of brain stress systems, normalizing the metabolic activity in key brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, improving the regulation of specific neurotransmitter function, modifying brain circuits involved in negative emotions and fear, and altering activity in the thyroid axis stress response system (Porto et al. 2009; Frewen, Dozois, and Lanius 2008; Centonze et al. 2005; Liggan and Kay 1999).\n\nFundamental changes in brain biology are now regarded as the basis for the lasting positive changes in behavior, thinking, or emotions resulting from successful involvement in psychological therapy (Bogerts 1996). Very little is known of the neurobiological changes that result from sudden transformative spiritual experience, or whether a profound spiritual experience might be the result of a sudden and dramatic or quantum change in brain chemistry. William Miller, the creator of Motivational Interviewing, co-authored a book called Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives that explores this issue. AA involvement is the most effective approach for achieving durable sobriety from alcohol dependence. Folk wisdom in AA states that its Steps and principles are the basis of its spiritual program. However, many psychosocial factors have been identified as \"active ingredients\" in AA, and in addition to spiritual factors, these psychosocial factors have been confirmed as playing a significant role in helping members of AA achieve and maintain sobriety.\n\nThus, it seems reasonable to assume that some of the positive changes in brain structure and function that result from psychotherapy are also likely to occur with long-term regular AA involvement. These positive changes in brain function account for at least some of the improvements in thinking, mood, behavior, feelings of serenity and well-being, and ability to achieve sobriety that develops over time with AA involvement.\n\nNote:\n\nAlcohol dependence is a disease with symptoms and behaviors caused by the altered function of brain chemicals and networks of brain cells. This biological basis may lead a person to ask how talk therapy such as Twelve Step participation or psychological treatment can help the alcoholic achieve abstinence. Neuroscientists have begun answering this question with brain imaging technologies that have identified specific brain changes that occur as patients undergo psychotherapy for psychiatric conditions. As will be discussed later, psychological factors play an essential role in the process by which alcoholics recover through AA involvement. Because research is now showing how psychological therapy alters and normalizes abnormal brain function in persons with psychiatric conditions, it seems reasonable to assume that many of the psychological factors that contribute to the benefits of AA involvement also produce positive brain changes. At this time there is very little information on how spiritual experiences or spiritual factors produce positive changes in brain biology that promote abstinence. This would be a fascinating and very useful area for future research.\n\n# CHAPTER 6\n\n# Twelve Step and Other Self-Help Therapies\n\nIn the U.S., roughly eighteen million persons are in need of treatment for alcohol dependence every year, but only about one million receive any treatment (Kranzler et al. 2006). Because of this, self-help groups provide a vital resource for the alcoholic who is seeking support for abstinence. Self-help groups are nonprofessional organizations that are peer-operated by persons who share the same addictive disorder. Self-help groups are free (Humphreys et al. 2004), and members can attend them indefinitely if they wish. This is an important point in light of the emerging view that alcohol and drug addiction is best treated as a chronic illness that entails a long-term, low-intensity management approach that is similar to diabetes and high blood pressure (hypertension) (WSASHO 2003).\n\nSome key facts about alcoholism self-help groups in the U.S. include the following:\n\n * They are the most frequently accessed resource for alcohol problems.\n * AA is much larger and more available than non-Twelve Step organizations.\n * Alternative self-help groups exist both for individuals desiring a different approach to the traditional Twelve Step model and for persons with co-occurring psychiatric illness and alcoholism (WSASHO 2003).\n\nThe growth of AA has also spawned a larger self-help movement. The Twelve Steps of AA have been adapted for those addicted to other substances (Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous), for family members and spouses or partners (Al-Anon, Alateen, Ala-Tot), for other compulsive behaviors (Gamblers Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous), for child abusers (Parents Anonymous), and even for persons who grew up in a dysfunctional family (Adult Children of Alcoholics, Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families) (Kurtz 1991).\n\n# Alcoholics Anonymous\n\nAlcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an abstinence-based support and self-improvement program that is based on the Twelve Step model of recovery. AA is widely considered the most successful treatment for alcoholism, and has helped hundreds of thousands of alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety (McGee 2000). The Twelve Step model emphasizes acceptance of addiction as a chronic progressive disease that can be arrested through abstinence but not cured. Additional elements of the AA model include spiritual growth, personal responsibility, and helping other alcoholics. By inducing a shift in the consciousness of the alcoholic, AA offers a holistic solution. AA is also a resource for emotional support (Humphreys et al. 2004), and is perhaps more accurately classified as a mutual-help organization (Kranzler et al. 2006). AA is widely available, and in AA there are no dues or fees. AA is guided by a tradition to be fully self-supporting. Many AA meetings and members are willing to work with treatment centers and medical professionals.\n\nA sizable number of adults in the U.S. have had at least some contact with AA. A study from 1990 found that 13.3% of the adult U.S. population reported attending one or more Twelve Step meetings of any kind (Room and Greenfield 1993), while a more recent study estimated that 3 to 3.5% of adults have attended at least one AA meeting (Kaskutas et al. 2008). An estimated 80% to 90% of abstinence-based treatment programs are built\u2014to a greater or lesser degree\u2014around the Twelve Step model (Forman, Humphreys, and Tonigan 2003).\n\nReferral to AA following treatment is also very widespread. Among substance abuse treatment programs in Veterans Administration Medical Centers, 79% referred clients to AA upon discharge (Humphreys, Huebsch, et al. 1999). Almost 80% of adults who seek help for alcohol dependence participate in AA (Dawson et al. 2006). Most persons receiving formal substance abuse treatment attend AA, even if only for a limited time, and for many people AA is the first and only point of contact for receiving help for their alcohol problem (Tonigan 2007). Thus, AA is a widely used resource for alcoholics attempting to get sober.\n\nDemographics of AA:\n\nWho Shows Up and Who Stays\n\nAA membership is informal. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking (i.e., the person may still be drinking), and membership is achieved simply by expressing this desire. Membership records are not kept. A key principle for Twelve Step groups is anonymity, which allows members to attend meetings without fear that their addiction or what they discuss in the meeting will be revealed to anyone outside the group. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. AA groups are self-supporting through their own contributions.\n\nA report of the General Service Office of AA, dated January 1, 2010, produced the membership figures shown in table 6.1 (Alcoholics Anonymous 2010):\n\nTable 6.1\n\n# AA Membership by Individuals and Groups\n\nThe Most Recent AA Membership Survey Results\n\nAA conducts a membership survey every three years. The most recent survey is from 2007 and was based on the responses by more than 8,000 AA members in the U.S. and Canada. The survey was due to be conducted again in 2010, but due to an oversight, the request for approval was left off the Agenda for the 2010 General Service Conference (Nancy B. 2010). The Alcoholics Anonymous 2007 Membership Survey pamphlet and current 2011 demographic data are available online at www.aa.org.\n\nAA Attendance Is Not the Same as AA Involvement, and the Difference Matters\n\nHistorically, mere attendance of AA meetings was regarded as the sole and sufficient measure of AA involvement, and attendance was also viewed as sufficient to obtain the benefits of sobriety and improved emotional health (Emrick et al. 1993; Tonigan, Toscova, and Miller 1996). A perspective of AA affiliation has recently emerged (Tonigan, Connors, and Miller 1996; Humphreys, Kaskutas, and Weisner 1998; Tonigan, Miller, and Vick 2000) that has allowed researchers to more precisely measure the outcome of AA affiliation based on the different levels of engagement and commitment to AA. Research consensus is that the level of involvement in AA has a much more powerful effect on the achievement of abstinence and other benefits than the number of meetings attended.\n\nAnother important finding is the long-term beneficial effect of the level of AA participation; the extent of involvement at three years strongly predicts involvement at ten years. The different elements that make up AA involvement included practicing the principles of the AA program, involvement in the fellowship of AA, and attendance at AA meetings (Westphal, Worth, and Tonigan 2003). A pattern of AA affiliation has been observed among many persons who are successfully staying sober; initially, attendance of meetings is higher, but over time attendance declines while involvement remains steady or increases (Owen et al. 2003).\n\nResearch on AA Affiliation and Drop-Out\n\nThe different patterns of AA participation are important to study in order to (1) identify AA-related behaviors that are associated with positive outcome, and to (2) understand why and under what circumstances people choose to discontinue their AA involvement.\n\nAn examination of AA membership surveys, U.S. population surveys, and longitudinal treatment data have found stable female and minority representation in AA over time. Disengagement from AA did not appear to necessarily translate into loss of abstinence among those with initial high levels of AA involvement, but long-term abstinence was more likely among those with continued AA involvement (Kaskutas et al. 2008).\n\nDespite the narrow demographic origin of AA as a program founded by white, male, Protestant, middle-class Americans, AA has been shown to be equally attractive to clients from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Results from the Project MATCH treatment study suggest that AA affiliation patterns may vary among persons from different ethnic backgrounds. For example, although the AA attendance rates of Hispanics and African Americans were lower than those of whites, Hispanics demonstrated higher levels of commitment to AA despite lower attendance than did whites. Most importantly in the Project MATCH study, both AA attendance and AA involvement were associated with improved abstinence regardless of racial or ethnic background (Tonigan, Connors, and Miller 1998).\n\nEvidence shows that persons considered members of special populations (women, adolescents, the elderly, persons from different racial and ethnic groups, and people with disabilities) do not experience undue problems with AA affiliation (Timko 2008). This may be due to the intentional design of the Twelve Step program to be broad and open to divergent interpretations, and that AA's ideological flexibility allows wide application across diverse special populations holding different beliefs and values. However, people are more likely to join and benefit from groups that are composed of members with similar characteristics and who have goals and values that are consistent with their own (Mankowski, Humphreys, and Moos 2001; Timko 2008).\n\nAlthough Twelve Step groups are an important resource for managing alcohol and other drug problems, their efficacy in patients with a history of physical or sexual abuse is unknown. Schneider, Burnette, and Timko (2008) observed that physical or sexual abuse history was actually associated with greater attendance and involvement in Twelve Step groups and found that the extent of participation in these groups predicted abstinence at one year, regardless of abuse history.\n\nDually diagnosed individuals (those with alcohol or other drug dependence and a co-occurring psychiatric condition) attend Twelve Step programs at rates comparable to the nondually diagnosed, although specific diagnoses may have some effect on attendance. The benefits of Twelve Step attendance do not appear to be markedly different for those with psychiatric disorders. Although specialized Twelve Step programs such as Dual Recovery Anonymous, Dual Diagnosis Anonymous, and Double Trouble in Recovery may have benefits for the dually diagnosed above and beyond those of AA, it is also likely that all three organizations possess a common mechanism that facilitates sobriety and emotional health (Bogenschutz 2007).\n\nA study that followed persons with impaired executive functioning (problems with decision making, impulse control, planning, and organization) in their first six months of sobriety found similar outcomes between participants with and without impaired executive functioning, although persons with neurological damage are likely to use different means of working the AA program to compensate for their deficits (Morgenstern and Bates 1999).\n\nAA affiliation was found to be unaffected by differences in alcoholism subtype, suggesting that AA participation appeals equally to type A and type B alcoholics (Bogenschutz, Tonigan, and Miller 2006).\n\nAnecdotes from Minneapolis\/Saint Paul AA members suggest an income disparity between those who attend AA only after completing treatment and those who attend AA without having gone through formal treatment. Persons with fewer financial resources appear to use AA as a primary resource more often than those in the middle or upper classes. This was observed by the difference in proportion of members who have not had treatment between inner city and suburban AA clubs (Willenbring and Rose 1993).\n\nAtheists and Agnostics\n\nThe well-documented problem of high dropout rates among new AA members may be related to alienation over the spiritual\/religious emphasis (Zemore 2008). Further exploration of this potential obstacle is vitally important, since persons who drop out of AA cannot obtain the benefits of AA involvement.\n\nTo examine the process by which atheists and agnostics enter and affiliate with AA, Tonigan, Miller, and Schermer (2002) tracked 1,526 alcoholics during and after outpatient treatment. Atheist and agnostic clients attended AA significantly less often than clients who described themselves as spiritual or religious. However, AA attendance was significantly associated with improved abstinence regardless of God belief. No differences in abstinence were found between atheist and agnostic clients compared with spiritual and religious clients.\n\nThe researchers concluded that although God belief appears relatively unimportant in obtaining the benefits of AA, atheist and agnostic clients are less likely to initiate and sustain their AA attendance relative to spiritual and religious clients. This reluctance among atheists and agnostics to become involved with AA should be recognized by clinicians and counselors. They should be sensitive to this issue but still encourage these clients to affiliate with AA since they obtain the same positive outcomes as religious and spiritually oriented clients. Therapists need to understand the positive outcomes with atheist and agnostic AA members, because research has shown that therapists are much less likely to refer problem drinkers to AA who identify themselves as atheists (Winzelberg and Humphreys 1999).\n\nAA Attendance by Drug-Dependent Persons\n\nAnother very important aspect related to the background characteristics of persons who affiliate with AA involves the large numbers of drug-dependent persons who choose to attend AA in conjunction with or to the exclusion of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and other drug-oriented Twelve Step programs. In the past, some AA meetings strictly enforced the singleness of purpose principle (limit sharing only to alcohol and alcohol-related problems) and banned the sharing of other drug experiences. Today, most, if not all, AA meetings are flexible and meet the needs of their group members, whether or not they also use drugs. Reasons for affiliating with AA among persons with drug addiction histories may have less to do with the need to identify with persons whose addiction involved the same substance and more to do with the desire to connect with other persons in recovery who share similar demographic characteristics such as race, gender, or social class (Laudet 2008).\n\n# Components of AA\n\nJust as individual members are encouraged to achieve sobriety by working the Twelve Steps, AA is guided in its structure and function by the Twelve Traditions, originally developed by Bill Wilson and the early members of AA to preserve the unique nature of AA while allowing for an independent and thriving recovery organization (Alcoholics Anonymous 1952).\n\nStructure and Organization\n\nSome examples of guidance by the Twelve Traditions include the following, the Second Tradition: \"For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority\u2014a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.\" AA does not have a leader running the organization or making decisions for the membership. In addition, the Seventh and Eighth Traditions state that each AA group shall be \"fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions\" and shall \"remain forever nonprofessional\" (Laudet 2008; Alcoholics Anonymous 2010).\n\nAA has a General Service Board made up of alcoholic and nonalcoholic trustees. Whenever a decision on movement-wide policy is needed, the Board turns to the General Service Conference, a body that includes the trustees and non-trustee directors, AA staff, and delegates who represent AA members. The General Service Board takes care of its administrative duties through two operating corporations (Alcoholics Anonymous 2010): (1) AA World Services, Inc., based in New York City, where 85 employees maintain contact information for AA groups in the community, in treatment centers, and correctional facilities; respond to inquiries from the media and the public; and prepare, publish, and distribute conference-approved AA literature; and (2) the AA Grapevine, Inc., which publishes the Grapevine, the monthly international periodical of AA with a current circulation of 120,000. Each corporation is overseen by a board of AA members who are trustees, non-trustee directors, and management of the respective corporation.\n\nThe Twelve Step Program\n\nThe organization of AA has its roots in the Oxford Group, a religious movement that operated informally through small discussion groups, where an emphasis was placed on confession, honesty, frank discussion of emotional difficulties, unselfishness, and praying to God as personally conceived. Both cofounders of AA had been involved in the Oxford Group and for a short time worked within its framework (Trice 1959).\n\nThe program of AA is described in the basic texts of AA: the books Alcoholics Anonymous (usually referred to as the Big Book) and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (sometimes referred to as the Twelve by Twelve). Such great care is taken to preserve the original message and language (Kurtz 1979) of AA that the principal texts of both volumes are reprinted but not revised.\n\nAdmitting powerlessness over alcohol and living a life based on spiritual principles are the foundation of the Twelve Step program of AA. The program encourages members to refrain from drinking alcohol one day at a time, to look to a power greater than themselves for strength (termed a Higher Power), and to embrace spiritual values and practices as suggested in the Twelve Steps. The concept and definition of Higher Power is left entirely to each individual. Some common interpretations or representations of the Higher Power include the AA meeting itself, a sponsor, the God of an organized religion, or simply an external force or the energy of the Universe (Laudet 2008).\n\nIn fact, one of the most bitterly debated points in the development of the Twelve Steps related to spiritual references. Atheist and agnostic members adamantly challenged the concept of God, and other members objected to doctrinal implications. Ultimately, the common agreement was on the phrase \"a Power greater than ourselves\" and \"God, as we understood Him.\" Thus, the Twelve Steps rest on a broad spiritual base that allows members to use virtually any conception of a Higher Power (Trice 1959).\n\nThe suggested program for recovery includes attending AA meetings, reading the AA literature such as the Big Book, having between-meeting contact with other AA members, working the Steps, working with a sponsor, sponsoring other members, and performing service work (the Twelfth Step), which can include making coffee and setting up chairs at meetings; serving as secretary, chair, or treasurer of a meeting; bringing AA meetings to hospitals and jails; or carrying the message to active alcoholics.\n\nThe Twelve Step program has been described as \"a simple program for complicated people.\" The deceptively simple and suggested prescription for sobriety, and mental and spiritual well-being, is referred to as \"the AA six pack\": Don't drink or use no matter what, go to meetings, ask for help, get a sponsor, find a home group, and get active. Thus, while relying on a Higher Power, AA members are also encouraged to take responsibility for their recovery by working the program and \"doing the footwork\" (Laudet 2008).\n\nThe Fellowship of AA\n\nThe fellowship of AA refers to the informal social contacts made through attending AA meetings and becoming socially involved with other AA members (Kurtz 1979). Twelve Step groups have been described as social worlds (Humphreys, Mankowski, et al. 1999); an important part of Twelve Step fellowships is what happens among members outside of meetings, such as coffee after the meeting and regular telephone contacts.\n\nLocal AA groups often sponsor dances, parties, and picnics. Families of members who attend such events together are often themselves members of Al-Anon. Individual members get together to eat lunch or drink coffee, or meet after work to bowl, fish, play cards, or go to movies. These informal contacts between members extend the relationships developed at the formal meetings. The core of this network of interpersonal relations is a shared effort to remain sober (Trice 1959).\n\nThe Spiritual Framework of AA\n\nAA and its Twelve Step program provide a spiritual framework for recovery from addiction. The premise of spirituality as a pathway out of active addiction is based on the understanding that people are born with an inner void that craves to be filled with meaning. Of course, alcoholics know well that this void can be artificially and temporarily filled with alcohol and drug intoxication, and that only more authentic and lasting frameworks of meaning can displace the craving for intoxication (White and Kurtz 2006).\n\nSpiritual programs of recovery such as AA focus on defects of character such as self-centeredness, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, anger, and preoccupation with power and control as the root of addiction, and provide a means of reaching both into oneself (through a fearless and searching moral inventory; developing the traits of honesty, humility, and tolerance) and outside oneself (reliance on a Higher Power; prayer; sharing one's experience, strength, and hope; making amends; service work; and involvement in the fellowship of AA) to resolve these character defects (Miller and Kurtz 1994; Green, Fullilove, and Fullilove 1998; White and Kurtz 2006).\n\n# Therapeutic Processes (the \"Active Ingredients\") within AA\n\nThe AA experience is made up of many concepts and activities, and identifying the specific aspects of AA that play the greatest role in facilitating sobriety has become the focus of intense research interest (White and Kurtz 2006).\n\nAA co-founder Bill Wilson stated in a 1944 presentation to the Medical Society of the State of New York (B. Wilson 1944) that AA is a synthesis of elements of medicine, psychiatry, religion, and the personal experience of its early members. He also stated that several of the core AA principles borrowed from medicine and religion are in agreement with each other, and include the following (B. Wilson 1944, 27\u201328; W. G. Wilson 1944):\n\n1. Medicine says: The alcoholic needs a personality change.\n\nReligion says: The alcoholic needs a change of heart, a spiritual awakening.\n\n2. Medicine says: The patient ought to be analyzed and should make a full and honest mental catharsis.\n\nReligion says: The alcoholic should make examination of the \"conscience\" and a confession\u2014or a moral inventory and a frank discussion.\n\n3. Medicine says: Serious \"personality defects\" must be eliminated through accurate self-knowledge and realistic readjustment to life.\n\nReligion says: Character defects (sins) can be eliminated by acquiring more honesty, humility, unselfishness, tolerance, generosity, love, etc.\n\n4. Medicine says: The alcoholic neurotic retreats from life, is a picture of anxiety and abnormal self-concern; he withdraws from the \"herd.\"\n\nReligion says: The alcoholic's basic trouble is self-centeredness. Filled with fear and self-seeking, he has forgotten the \"Brotherhood of Man.\"\n\n5. Medicine says: The alcoholic must find \"a new compelling interest in life,\" must \"get back in the herd.\" Should find an interesting occupation, should join clubs, social activities, political parties, or discover hobbies to take the place of alcohol.\n\nReligion says: The alcoholic should learn \"the expulsive power of a new affection,\" love of serving man, of serving God. He must \"lose his life to find it,\" he should join a church, and there find self-forgetfulness in service. For \"faith without works is dead.\"\n\nIn this same 1944 presentation, Wilson condenses the meaning of the Twelve Steps into the following (B. Wilson 1944, 29):\n\n 1. Admission of alcoholism\n 2. Personality analysis and catharsis\n 3. Adjustment of personal relations\n 4. Dependence upon some Higher Power\n 5. Working with other alcoholics\n\nWilson goes on to state that the initial aim of AA is to induce a crisis in the alcoholic by using the experience of hitting bottom to help the alcoholic reach the conclusion that he or she is an alcoholic and cannot recover without help. Under these conditions, the alcoholic is very likely to accept, and even embrace, the spiritual implications of the AA program.\n\nEssential elements of recovery are symbolized by the acronym HOW, which means\n\n * Honesty (with self and others),\n * Open-mindedness (to explore new ways of thinking and behaving), and\n * Willingness (to acquire new behaviors and thought patterns).\n\nHonesty about one's addiction is observed at AA meetings where members introduce themselves with: \"My name is X, and I'm an alcoholic.\" This is done to counteract denial, which is considered the hallmark of addiction, \"the disease that tells you that you don't have the disease\" (Laudet 2008).\n\nFully aware of the self-willed rebellious nature of the alcoholic, the AA founders presented the Twelve Step program of recovery as a suggestion rather than a directive that must be adhered to (Laudet 2008).\n\nWitbrodt and Kaskutas (2005) have developed a set of guidelines to assist professionals in helping their clients prioritize which element of the AA program to practice at specific stages of sobriety. In early sobriety, clients should be encouraged to commit to meeting attendance, obtain an AA sponsor, and form a social network that encourages sobriety such as the kind that AA can provide. Early involvement in service work also has a definite sobriety-enhancing effect.\n\nSpiritual Processes\n\nThe spiritual principles deeply embedded in the Twelve Steps are regarded by AA members as the key vehicle for attitude and behavior change in recovery (Sandoz 1999). One of the core principles of AA is that alcohol abuse is incompatible with spirituality. The essence of the AA program is not actually the disease model with which it is often confused, but the understanding that an alcoholic's best, if not only, hope for sobriety is through recognizing, appealing to, accepting help from, and directing his or her life toward a transcendent Higher Power, which is referred to as God in AA's Twelve Steps (Miller and Kurtz 1994).\n\nThe Twelve Steps are worked not just once, but rather as an ongoing lifelong program for living and transformation. Sobriety is understood in a spiritual context and involves far more than mere abstinence. It is taken for granted within AA that one can remain dry but not truly be sober, the latter having to do with a spiritual maturity that involves acceptance, humility, and serenity, with the former being a state where the underlying character defects remain unaddressed and active (Borkman 2008). It is, in AA's understanding, spirituality that finally and reliably drives out the possessive grip of addiction. Although AA meetings vary in many ways, one of the more reliable consistencies across groups is the presence of this emphasis on spirituality as the foundation for recovery (Miller 1998).\n\nThe concept of a Higher Power is the spiritual aspect most associated with AA. For many members of AA, this Higher Power is the God of a particular religious practice. However, the AA literature is not dogmatic on this issue and is clear on the importance of the Higher Power being any transcendent being or source that can serve in this capacity. The only parameter that applies to a Higher Power is that it is greater than and external to the individual, or conversely, that the AA member not be his or her own Higher Power. It was with much foresight that the founders of AA allowed for a broad and inclusive definition of God and\/or Higher Power. For many persons in AA, the AA group, their AA sponsor, and the community of AA members with whom they have made an emotional connection form the basis of a Higher Power or power greater than themselves (Connors, Walitzer, and Tonigan 2008).\n\nWhat exactly is spirituality and how is it defined? Spirituality, unlike religion, is difficult to define and describe, in part because spirituality has many dimensions. Several dimensions of spirituality have been suggested, and include (Miller 1998):\n\n * overt behavior, such as religious and spiritual practices;\n * belief, as it relates to a deity, the interrelatedness of living beings, soul or spirit, or life beyond material existence; and\n * experience, such as mystical and conversion experiences, serenity, and oneness.\n\nBill Wilson, who authored the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939, described the effect of a spiritual experience as a reformation of one's attitude toward one's life and other people (Alcoholics Anonymous 1976, 25) and described the two types of spiritual conversion processes which the recovering alcoholic may experience. The first type from the term spiritual experience suggests a sudden, spectacular, and profound phenomenon that is considered to be rare.\n\nThe second type is termed a spiritual awakening and is a slower, more gradual process considered to be much more common among recovering alcoholics in AA. Wilson also cites William James's description of a spiritual awakening as an educational process, in that spiritual growth is slow and gradual and based on learning experiences rather than dramatic, sudden transformation as described by William Miller in Quantum Change (Miller and C'de Baca 2001). Regardless of the type of spiritual process, the result is a personality change sufficient to bring about the recovery from alcoholism (Sandoz 1999).\n\nTiebout (1961) described this process of spiritual conversion among AA members as hitting bottom, followed by the maintenance of humility, surrender, and ego deflation. He also stated that the effect of both the sudden and the slow educational variety of spiritual experience produces a psychic change sufficient for recovery from alcoholism. Brown and Peterson (1987; 1990) described a change in the value system accompanied by the ability to handle life stress without resorting to alcohol or other drug use. This process includes working a Twelve Step program of recovery, which transforms one's value system.\n\nOther authors have linked the spiritual practices of AA members with enhanced life meaning and sobriety, and that practicing the Twelve Steps in all affairs in one's life actually represents that basis of recovery in AA (Carroll 1993). Others have described the process of recovery as moving beyond an attitude of selfishness into the service of helping others by changing one's attitudes and actions through the Twelve Steps (Gilbert 1991), while others have described the completion of specific Steps as a barometer in measuring spiritual health (Veach and Chappel 1992).\n\nConnors, Walitzer, and Tonigan (2008) described the primary spiritual practices of AA as the activities associated with the Twelve Steps, such as practicing prayer and meditation (Step Eleven); identifying one's character defects and admitting the results of a personal inventory \"to God, to ourselves, and to another human being\" (Steps Four, Five, and Ten); and the willingness to make amends to persons harmed in the past (Steps Eight and Nine). Also identified was the development of personal relationships characterized by the expression of feelings, honest communication, admitting when one is wrong, treating others as one would like to be treated, forgiving others as quickly as possible, and listening to others even when not agreeing with them (Brown and Peterson 1991).\n\nThe final Step of AA reflects the expectation that working and practicing all Twelve Steps will result in a spiritual awakening. Although there are many definitions of spiritual awakening, the most frequently used descriptions of spiritual progress among AA members include humility, serenity, gratitude, hope, and forgiveness (Connors, Walitzer, and Tonigan 2008).\n\nPsychosocial Processes\n\nSeveral top addiction researchers have concluded that success in AA is partially explained by its incorporation of sophisticated forms of biopsychosocial therapy. For example, many persons who enter AA have difficulties with what is termed self-regulation (the ability to keep emotions from becoming overwhelming and to limit behavior to within a socially acceptable range). The character defects that AA addresses are personality and character traits that make interdependence\u2014the ability to experience and express feelings and emotions\u2014and self-care problematic and difficult.\n\nAA encourages its members to confront these defects by effectively advocating surrender and acceptance of a Higher Power, and by challenging self-centeredness. AA also employs several of the tools used in group therapy\u2014such as insistence on openness and honesty, emotional support, and sharing of experiences and mutual concerns\u2014that address the vulnerabilities in self-governance and problems in regulating emotions and self-care (Khantzian and Mack 1989). After achieving sobriety in AA, a member cannot simply rest on his or her laurels but must actively engage in changing negative past behavior.\n\nThe process by which the Twelve Steps of AA facilitate change has also been described as one of cognitive restructuring. Treatment programs often use a Twelve Step approach to assist patients in developing a command of recovery slogans, which are then used to assist in problem solving and to address thinking errors. The cognitive restructuring process of the Twelve Steps describes its effect in helping the recovering alcoholic in learning to recognize and change unhealthy thoughts and attitudes (Steigerwald and Stone 1999). Others have concluded that the effectiveness of AA may be due to the use of four factors widely known to be effective in relapse prevention in addictions: external supervision, substitute dependency, new caring relationships, and enhancement of spirituality (Vaillant 2005).\n\nThe prominent alcoholism researcher Rudolf Moos (2008) reviewed an extensive body of research to identify the social processes within AA that account for the favorable outcomes among many members. He identified and described four theories that likely account for these effective outcomes:\n\nSocial Control Theory\n\nSocial control theory states that strong connections with family, friends, work, religion, and other aspects of traditional society motivate individuals to engage in responsible behavior and refrain from substance abuse and other destructive pursuits. Because these connections with others embody the elements of monitoring, supervision, and direction toward acceptable goals and pursuits, persons are more likely to engage in alcohol or other drug abuse, or other undesirable behavior, when these social bonds are weak or absent (Hirschi 1969).\n\nSocial Learning Theory\n\nSocial learning theory states that alcohol and other drug use is influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of the adults and peers who serve as role models for an individual. This modeling effect begins with observing and imitating the thinking and behavior that surrounds the use of substances, continues with social reinforcement and the expectation of positive effects from substance use, and culminates in the use and abuse of alcohol or other drugs (Maisto, Carey, and Bradizza 1999).\n\nBehavioral Economics or Behavioral Choice Theory\n\nBehavioral economics or behavioral choice theory addresses the protective factor from substance abuse played by activities that provide alternative rewards. This theory states that substance abuse is less likely to occur when a person has access to alternate rewards such as education, work, religion, and social\/recreational pursuits (Bickel and Vuchinich 2000).\n\nStress and Coping Theory\n\nStress and coping theory states that stressful life circumstances that originate from family members and friends, work, and financial or other problems lead to distress and alienation and ultimately to substance abuse, especially in impulsive persons who lack self-confidence and healthy coping skills and who avoid facing their problems. For these persons, substance use is a form of avoidance coping that involves self-medication to reduce alienation and depression, which can reinforce substance use (Kaplan 1996).\n\nMoos (2008) identifies the elements of AA involvement that are consistent with the four social processes described above:\n\n * Social control theory: AA groups provide support, goal direction, and structure by encouraging positive social values and the importance of re-establishing and maintaining the connections with family, friends, work, and religion.\n * Social learning\/stress and coping theories: AA groups emphasize the importance of identifying with sober persons who are working a good program of recovery, and bolster the members' self-efficacy and coping skills.\n * Behavioral economics: AA members are encouraged to participate in rewarding alcohol- and other drug-free pursuits, such as social activities and helping others with alcohol problems.\n\nMoos concludes that the combination of all four of these factors enhances the motivation for recovery, improves self-efficacy to resist substance use, and provides effective coping skills.\n\nSponsors and Sponsorship in AA\n\nDuring the initial weeks and months of AA attendance, new members are encouraged to attend ninety meetings in ninety days, and to find a sponsor. A sponsor is someone who has had more time in the AA program and who can offer guidance and support to the newcomer. Sponsorship is seen as an offshoot of the Twelfth Step of AA, with helping others viewed as a way to help oneself. Sponsors are advised to offer what they can that the newcomer needs, including help with detoxification, transportation, companionship, encouragement, and hope. They are cautioned to avoid giving too much advice or trying to force sobriety upon the newcomer. Similarly, newcomers are urged to ask someone to sponsor them (Doe 1955; Alcoholics Anonymous 1975).\n\nHelping other alcoholics is the embodiment of the \"helper therapy\" principle (Riessman 1965), where helping others benefits the helper, not just the recipient. Carrying the AA message of recovery to other alcoholics is viewed as enriching the recovery of the AA member through participation in a spiritual activity and by moving beyond one's self-centeredness to be concerned for the other person (Borkman 2008).\n\nAnecdotal evidence from AA members suggests that the sponsor plays a crucial role in the way that AA functions. Often, it is the presence of an AA sponsor that is instrumental in helping the new AA member make it through the difficult period of early sobriety, or if a relapse does occur, to help the person get back on the right track. Sheeren (1988), in a study of the relationship between relapse and involvement in AA, found that persons who relapsed were much less likely to be involved with an AA sponsor. Another study (Zemore and Kaskutas 2004) found that involvement in Twelve Step activities such as sponsoring newer AA members was strongly linked with total abstinence.\n\n# Empirical Studies of AA\n\nHistorically, AA has been a notoriously difficult organization to study for several reasons, including the decentralized structure and emphasis on anonymity (Mattson and Allen 1991). However, the past ten to fifteen years has witnessed a literal explosion of scientific studies involving AA that are not only abundant but very high in quality. The collective information provided by these studies has profoundly increased the level of understanding of the outcomes associated with AA and the processes that contribute to these outcomes (Tonigan 2008).\n\nProcess Research on AA\n\nBecause of the overwhelming data supporting the overall effectiveness of AA in promoting sobriety, the focus of research has now shifted to identifying and describing the processes within AA that contribute to its effectiveness, such as spirituality and psychosocial factors.\n\nSpirituality\n\nA core belief in AA is that spiritual development is fundamental in achieving sustained abstinence. However, research findings have been modest at best in terms of establishing a direct link between spirituality and abstinence. One of the reasons for this modest relationship has to do with the types of study design used in the published research. Although many of these studies have found a strong association between spirituality and enduring sobriety, determining a causal relationship between spirituality and long-term sobriety has been more difficult to establish. Other long-term studies that have measured level of spirituality at one point in time and drinking or abstinence at a second point in time have only found a modest effect (Tonigan 2007).\n\nHowever, it is very likely that spirituality produces a very important indirect effect on the achievement of sobriety. In this case, spiritual practices are associated with activity involving elements of the AA program, which in turn play a significant role in the achievement of abstinence. Thus, although the level of spiritual beliefs (measured by questionnaire) has only shown a modest effect on the achievement of abstinence, the level of spiritual practices significantly and positively influences successful abstinence (Tonigan 2007). Other findings that are related to spirituality and abstinence include the following (Tonigan 2007; Tonigan 2003):\n\n * Alcoholism severity predicts later AA attendance.\n * Atheists are less likely to attend AA, but once engaged in AA they obtain the same benefits as members believing in God before joining.\n * Belief in God before joining AA does not offer an advantage in AA-related outcomes.\n * The spiritual principles of AA appear to be endorsed in all AA meetings regardless of other differences.\n * Spiritual or religious beliefs and practices typically increase among AA members over time.\n\nThe rate of dropout among persons who attend AA is high, with some estimates ranging as high as 80%. Interventions that facilitate initial increases in spirituality have been found to increase the rates of AA affiliation, which, in turn, improves abstinence rates (Tonigan 2003). And contrary to popular belief, many atheists and agnostics attend and benefit from AA (Winzelberg and Humphreys 1999).\n\nPsychosocial Factors\n\nInvolvement in AA increases the motivation and commitment to abstinence, increases the use of active coping skills, increases social support for sobriety, and improves self-efficacy (the confidence to reduce and stop drinking). All four of these factors significantly contribute to the effectiveness of AA (Morgenstern et al. 1997; Hazelden Dec. 2004)\n\nA study of 914 AA participants that specifically examined the impact of self-efficacy on drinking outcomes (Connors, Tonigan, and Miller 2001) found that AA participation improved abstinence rates seven to twelve months after treatment. Self-efficacy was found to mediate this effect, in that AA participation improved self-efficacy levels, which in turn increased the abstinence rate. This effect persisted into the end of the third year following treatment (Owen et al. 2003; Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n\nOther theories of AA success include the replacement of the drinking social network with a sober peer group, and the learning of healthy coping skills similar to those gained from psychotherapy involvement (Humphreys, Mankowski, et al. 1999). A study of 2,337 male patients seeking treatment who had no previous AA experience supports the contribution of active coping skills and changes in social support networks to positive outcome in AA, in that AA participation resulted in greater use of active coping responses, improved quality of friendships, and support from friends to remain abstinent. All three of these factors were associated with reductions in substance use (Humphreys, Mankowski, et al. 1999; Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n\nAdditional evidence confirming the vital role of social support within AA comes from Bond, Kaskutas, and Weisner (2003), who followed 655 people for three years after treatment. They found the impact of AA on drinking outcome was strongly influenced by the number of social contacts who supported and encouraged abstinence from alcohol. Another study found that AA participation one year after treatment had a positive impact on lifestyle change, which included ending relationships with using friends and making new friends in recovery. These lifestyle changes, in turn, positively affected abstinence rates (Owen et al. 2003; Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n\nOutcome Research\n\nThere is now an abundant body of research with outcomes on AA. For instance, there is research on drinking outcomes, the interactive effect and outcomes between AA and treatment, combining AA attendance with professional counseling, the effect of sobriety on health care costs and the quality of life, outcomes on those whose attendance was coerced (such as mandated clients in criminal justice), and outcomes on attendance by other special populations (such as women).\n\nDrinking Outcomes\n\nThere is a remarkable consistency in the association between participation in AA and other Twelve Step groups and improved drinking and other drug use outcomes. These outcomes apply to persons with alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, or co-occurring alcohol or other drug use disorders and psychiatric disorders, and to women, youth, and older adults (Moos 2008).\n\nA recent summary of the entire body of published research on AA concluded that a causal relationship has been established between AA involvement and abstinence from drinking. Evidence supporting this conclusion includes the following: (1) the degree of effect (an effect much greater than chance would predict); (2) dose-response effect (greater AA involvement and longer duration of AA involvement equals greater likelihood of abstinence); (3) consistent effect (the same effect is demonstrated by several studies); (4) temporally accurate effects (controls for hindsight bias); and (5) plausibility (makes rational sense) (Kaskutas 2009).\n\nOverall, abstinence rates are twice as high among those who attend AA. Those with higher levels of AA attendance are related to higher rates of abstinence, and this relationship has been found among many different demographic groups and follow-up periods. A person's prior AA attendance is predictive of subsequent abstinence, and the mechanisms of action predicted by theories of behavior change (which were described earlier) are present in AA (Kaskutas 2009). With few exceptions, AA-focused studies have shown that commitment to and the practice of the AA program is a stronger predictor of long-term abstinence than the mere number of AA meetings attended (Tonigan 2008).\n\nPerhaps the first data on the drinking outcomes of alcoholics attending AA comes from Bill Wilson (1958). In a 1958 lecture to the New York City Medical Society on Alcoholism, Wilson stated that among those who wrote their stories for the first edition of the AA Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous 1939), 75% eventually achieved sobriety and that \"only 25% died or went mad.\" He also stated that many members who eventually achieved sobriety went through numerous tentative or fleeting contacts with AA followed by drop-out and relapse before they re-entered AA with a higher level of commitment.\n\nAnother consistent finding in studies of AA is what is called a dose-response effect. This term is borrowed from medicine, and refers to the extent of association between a higher dose or a more frequent administration of a medication and a corresponding reduction or elimination of symptoms. Longer AA participation is associated with better abstinence and self-efficacy outcomes. Persons participating in AA for twenty-seven weeks or more in their first year, and in years two and three after treatment, had better abstinence rates sixteen years into the study follow-up than did individuals who did not participate in AA (Moos and Moos 2006).\n\nSome of the contribution of treatment to drinking outcomes reflected participation in AA, while the contribution from AA was independent of the contribution from treatment. The results from this study underscore the importance of extended engagement in AA (Moos and Moos 2006). It was also found that attendance in AA for more than fifty-two weeks over a five-year period was associated with higher abstinence rates than attendance of less than fifty-two weeks over a five-year period. Part of the association between AA attendance and improvements in social functioning were related to AA participation. For some individuals, involvement in a circle of sober friends represents a turning point that enables them to address their problems, build healthy coping skills, and establish supportive social resources (Moos and Moos 2006).\n\nAn analysis of the body of published research on AA arrived at the following conclusions (WSASHO 2003):\n\n 1. Longitudinal studies (where participants are followed over an extended period) have linked AA involvement with abstinence, improved social functioning, and greater self-efficacy, and show that participation is more helpful when members engage in other group activities in addition to attending meetings.\n 2. AA involvement significantly reduces health care use and costs, thus removing a significant burden from the health care system.\n 3. Self-help groups are best viewed as a form of continuing care rather than as a substitute for acute care treatment services such as detoxification or hospital-based treatment.\n 4. Randomized trials with coerced populations (such as persons convicted of DWI) suggest that AA combined with professional treatment is superior to AA alone.\n\nA positive relationship between AA attendance and psychological health was found in an analysis of seventy-four published studies (Tonigan, Toscova, and Miller 1996; Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n\nIn a study of 2,319 male alcohol-dependent veterans one and two years following treatment, AA participation predicted improved rates of abstinence, with the effect on abstinence unrelated to patient motivation or the severity of their alcoholism (McKellar, Stewart, and Humphreys 2003; Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n\nPatients who involve themselves in the AA program with such activities as reading the AA literature, participating as sponsors, and applying the Twelve Steps to their daily life are more likely to remain abstinent than persons who do not engage in these activities (Humphreys et al. 2004). Between 40 and 70% of patients admitted to alcoholism treatment centers based on the Twelve Steps have already tried and dropped out of Twelve Step programs. Although enrolling these patients in treatment using the same approach that appears to not have previously worked may seem illogical, researchers have found that in general, the shortcomings of earlier engagements in Twelve Step programs among these persons is due to low levels of commitment or engagement. Thus, the challenge for treatment providers is to find effective ways to get these patients engaged and committed to AA participation after they leave treatment (Forman, Humphreys, and Tonigan 2003).\n\nInteractive Effect and Outcomes between AA and Treatment\n\nSeveral studies have compared the effectiveness of treatment plus AA involvement versus treatment alone or AA involvement alone. The following conclusions have been found:\n\n 1. Treatment combined with AA participation resulted in better initial outcomes than treatment alone (Timko et al. 2000). Persons attending treatment with AA had significantly higher rates of abstinence than those who attended treatment alone at one- and three-year follow-ups (Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n 2. Higher levels of AA involvement during the first year after treatment were predictive of better long-term outcomes (McKellar, Stewart, and Humphreys 2003; Moos and Moos 2004).\n 3. AA involvement is positively related to improved psychosocial and drinking outcomes. In the early 1990s, Emrick et al. (1993) conducted an analysis of 107 studies and found a positive correlation between AA involvement and substance use outcome when professional treatment and AA were combined (Hazelden Dec. 2004).\n 4. Fiorentine and Hillhouse (2000) reported that patients who attended at least one Twelve Step meeting per week remained in treatment longer, were more likely to complete treatment, and were more likely to be abstinent after treatment. These findings suggest that patients benefit from attending weekly AA meetings during the time they are in treatment.\n 5. Interestingly, the mere presence of an onsite AA group in an outpatient treatment setting enhances nearly threefold the rate of Twelve Step participation during treatment as well as nearly six times the rate of continuous abstinence from substance use one year after treatment ends. This represents a cost-free strategy that significantly enhances patient outcomes and that is easily implemented through a local AA hospital and institution committee for any treatment program that requests it (Laudet, Stanick, and Sands 2007).\n 6. Because approaches that integrate formal treatment with AA result in better outcomes, AA and other self-help groups should not be used as a substitute for treatment. Instead, AA can be thought of as a low-intensity aftercare that stabilizes the progress made in treatment and facilitates further growth (Humphreys et al. 2004).\n\nAA Attendance Combined with Professional Counseling\n\nPersons attending AA may need to seek professional help for a variety of reasons. The most recent AA membership survey estimated that 63% of members seek counseling for emotional, medical, and spiritual problems, and that 86% of these members report that such counseling was important for their recovery (Alcoholics Anonymous 2008).\n\nGiven the frequent and recurrent nature of relapse among alcoholics, formal alcohol treatment may also occur during the course of AA involvement. Obtaining outside help from professionals when needed is likely to improve long-term outcomes. One study that followed persons for ten years after they left treatment concluded that commitment to, and the practice of, AA-prescribed behaviors at ten-year follow-up was predicted by both prior AA participation and professional counseling. This is explained by the fact that previous AA participation, seeking the help of professional counselors, and current AA participation are enmeshed and mutually reinforcing processes (Tonigan and Connors 2003).\n\nHealth Care Costs\n\nPatients involved in AA are more likely to be abstinent one year after treatment, are less likely to utilize treatment services, and incur significantly fewer health care costs than patients not attending AA (Humphreys and Moos 2001; Humphreys and Moos 1996).\n\nQuality of Life\n\nPersons who develop alcohol or other drug dependence often report that they sought help because they became \"sick and tired of being sick and tired.\" Improvement in the quality of life (QOL) has been an overlooked aspect of treatment outcome and recovery from alcohol and other drug dependence, and may play a vital role in sustaining abstinence (Laudet, Becker, and White 2009). Research shows that this desire for an improved quality of life may become a reality for many.\n\nTo study stress and QOL as a function of length of sobriety, 353 recovering persons in New York City were evaluated. Social support, spirituality, life meaning, religiousness, and Twelve Step involvement significantly buffered the participants from stress and also enhanced their QOL. Stress levels significantly decreased as time in recovery increased, and life satisfaction was also found to increase over time. General social support and recovery support, spirituality, life meaning, and Twelve Step attendance significantly enhanced the QOL and recovery, and were significantly and positively associated with sober time, suggesting that social support, spirituality, religious\/spiritual activities, and life meaning increase over time (Laudet, Morgen, and White 2006).\n\nThe finding that QOL increases and that stress decreases as sobriety progresses can give hope for a better future to persons in early recovery who are struggling to stay sober and to move forward one day at a time. While there is already overwhelming empirical evidence that Twelve Step involvement is effective in helping members achieve abstinence, these findings suggest the benefits of AA involvement extend to life satisfaction. The importance of social and recovery support in buffering stress and enhancing QOL also underscores the need for recovering persons to establish a social network of other recovering persons who can provide encouragement, acceptance, and a sense of belonging (Laudet, Morgen, and White 2006).\n\nTo study the transformative effect of AA involvement (Zemansky 2005), a study of 164 AA members (100 of whom had been sober ten or more years) was conducted. Several positive associations were found, including a relationship between AA involvement and gratitude, between using an AA sponsor and spirituality, and between working all Twelve Steps and having a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life. The AA members in this survey scored significantly higher on measures of optimism, gratitude, spirituality, and subjective well-being than did reference groups of normal nonclinical adults. These results provide measurable evidence of a positive transformation that occurs within AA.\n\nOther benefits from AA involvement include increased self-efficacy, improved social support, decreased levels of anxiety and depression, and improved coping skills (Humphreys 2003).\n\nCoerced AA Attendance\n\nTrials randomizing coerced patients, such as those convicted of DWI, to either AA alone or treatment plus AA suggest better drinking outcomes and retention with treatment plus AA (Walsh et al. 1991; Brandsma, Maultby, and Welsh 1980).\n\nWomen\n\nWomen have consistently made up roughly one-third of AA membership (Timko 2008). Research on previously untreated problem drinkers has found that women generally function at a lower level and experience greater stress and problems related to resources and ability to cope. Interestingly, when compared with men who had similar levels of impaired functioning, stress, and alcohol-related problems at treatment entry, women have been found to have better resources, coping skills, and abstinence rates than men did at one- and eight-year follow-ups. Longer durations of treatment and AA attendance were associated with greater use of approach coping (directly confronting the problem) and less use of drinking to cope during the first year following treatment. A longer duration of AA participation during the eight years of follow-up was also associated with increases in the resources of friends and adaptive coping skills (Timko, Finney, and Moos 2005).\n\nPopulation-Based Studies\n\nSeveral studies have examined the positive effects of AA on large populations. The impact of alcohol consumption and AA membership rates on homicide and suicide rates in Ontario between 1968 and 1991 were examined by Mann et al. (2006a; 2006b). For the total population and for males, homicide rates were significantly and positively related to total alcohol consumption, and negatively related to AA membership rates. Total alcohol consumption was also significantly and positively related to total and female suicide rates, and AA membership rates were negatively associated with total and female suicide rates. The authors conclude that the beneficial effects of AA involvement are observable even at the population level.\n\nResearch on the relationship between cirrhosis mortality rates, alcohol consumption, and AA membership rates in Ontario between 1968 and 1989 (Mann et al. 2005) found that higher levels of AA membership were associated with lower rates of mortality from cirrhosis. These results were consistent with those of a similar study published in 1993 (Smart and Mann) that examined the relationship between treatment and AA membership, and recent declines in the hospitalization and death from cirrhosis in Ontario from 1975 to 1986 and in the U.S. from 1979 to 1987. They found that increased treatment levels and AA membership accounted for all of the reductions in cirrhosis deaths and hospital admissions in Ontario, and all of the deaths and about 40% of the hospital admissions in the U.S.\n\n# Clinician Facilitation of AA Attendance and Involvement\n\nDropout and sporadic attendance of AA are much more common than regular, longer-term involvement, and only 25\u201330% of those who initially attend AA continue for an extended period (Pettinati et al. 1982). Many persons initially comply with the recommendation for frequent meeting attendance during early recovery, but most do not remain engaged in the program over time (Caldwell and Cutter 1998). AA attendance is also much less likely to happen if not initiated during treatment (Owen et al. 2003).\n\nResearchers have found that perhaps the most effective way to increase the rates of affiliation and long-term involvement in AA is to ensure that alcoholic patients are introduced to AA and initially attend AA while they are still in treatment (Owen et al. 2003). Many persons in early recovery may initially attend AA meetings with the intention of using AA in their recovery, but may be unable to accept or put to use various aspects of the AA program or fellowship. Professional assistance can play a key role in helping such persons who experience difficulty in understanding or embracing elements of AA.\n\nBeyond establishing the commitment to abstinence, professionals may need to help individuals overcome barriers to emotional intimacy, develop social and communication skills, and define and explore spiritual aspects of life. Such activities can serve both counseling goals and the connection with AA (Caldwell and Cutter 1998). Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) clients are especially likely to benefit from such an approach, since they may mistakenly assume that AA is a religious program due to the references to a Higher Power and God in the Twelve Step model, and choose to avoid AA since many religious institutions denounce or condemn homosexuality (SCCMHA 2007).\n\nIn general, professionals who work with alcoholic clients should do everything they can to help their clients come away with a positive feeling about AA. This can include preparing clients realistically for what (and whom) they will encounter in AA, explaining the nature of the support, and helping them know how to ask for that support. Several Twelve Step facilitation approaches are now available for the purpose of successfully bridging the transition into successful AA affiliation. These include the group format MAAEZ intervention (Kaskutas et al. 2009), the individual format TSF intervention from Project MATCH (Nowinski, Baker, and Carroll 1992), and the Intensive Referral approach (Timko and Debenedetti 2007; Kaskutas et al. 2009).\n\nThe MAAEZ intervention (Kaskutas et al. 2009) is an approach that aims to overcome resistance to Twelve Step group involvement through several means. These include changing the participants' attitude toward the members who attend AA, NA, or Cocaine Anonymous (CA); addressing the perceived social desirability of AA, NA, or CA involvement; and increasing participants' ability to control and manage their Twelve Step meeting experiences, choice of people they affiliate with, and interpretation of the Twelve Step philosophy.\n\nMAAEZ consists of six weekly ninety-minute sessions delivered in a group format by counselors who are currently involved in AA, NA, or CA. The main points of each session, take-home messages, and homework assignments are outlined on a two-sided sheet given to participants. Two MAAEZ sessions are conducted weekly: the introductory session (for new clients and clients who have completed the core sessions), and one of the four core sessions (for continuing clients) (Kaskutas et al. 2009).\n\nDuring the introductory session, new clients discuss their previous AA, NA, or CA experience. After completing the four core sessions, clients return to the introductory session as graduates so that they can experience the benefits of assisting others (Zemore 2007; Zemore and Kaskutas 2004; Zemore, Kaskutas, and Ammon 2004).\n\nThe focus of the four core MAAEZ sessions are \"Spirituality,\" \"Principles Not Personalities,\" \"Sponsorship,\" and \"Living Sober.\" \"Spirituality\" provides a broad range of spirituality definitions, many of which do not include religious references, followed by a homework assignment to talk to someone with more sobriety than the client after a meeting. \"Principles Not Personalities\" addresses myths about AA, different types of meetings, and meeting etiquette. The homework assignment for this session is to ask a fellow attendee at an AA meeting for his or her phone number and to speak with that person before the next MAAEZ session. \"Sponsorship\" describes the sponsor function and guidelines for sponsor selection, and includes role-playing to practice asking for a sponsor and to overcome rejection. The homework assignment is to get a temporary sponsor. In \"Living Sober,\" tools for staying sober are addressed and include relapse triggers, service work, and avoiding \"slippery\" people, places, and things. The homework assignment for this session is to socialize with someone in AA with more sobriety than the client (Kaskutas et al. 2009).\n\nResearch has found that MAAEZ participation has resulted in higher overall abstinence rates, and higher abstinence rates in important subgroups such as unmarried persons; those with more severe psychiatric problems; atheists, agnostics, and persons unsure of their religious beliefs; clients with previous treatment experience; and those with more prior AA exposure. Abstinence rates increased significantly with each additional MAAEZ session. MAAEZ represents an evidence-based intervention that is easily implemented in existing treatment programs (Kaskutas et al. 2009).\n\n# Other Self-Help and Twelve Step Recovery Groups\n\nAA's sole ownership of alcoholism self-help was challenged in the mid-1970s and the 1980s with the emergence of new alcoholism self-help organizations with a secular or dual-diagnosis focus (White 2003).\n\nSecular Recovery Support Groups\n\nSecular recovery support groups (with their founding dates) include Women for Sobriety (WFS, 1975), Secular Sobriety Groups (later renamed Secular Organization for Sobriety\u2014Save Our Selves) (SOS, 1985), Rational Recovery (RR, 1986), Men for Sobriety (MFS, 1988), Moderation Management (MM, 1994), SMART Recovery (1994), and LifeRing Secular Recovery (LSR, 1999) (White 2003).\n\nGroups with a secular orientation differ from AA on several dimensions, including\n\n * meeting locations in homes and religiously neutral sites;\n * lack of reference to religious deities;\n * discouragement of labels, such as alcoholic and addict;\n * emphasis on personal empowerment and self-reliance;\n * openness to crosstalk during meetings (direct feedback and advice between members);\n * absence of formal sponsorship;\n * endorsement of the concept of complete recovery and time-limited involvement (rather than indefinite participation); and\n * use of nonrecovering volunteer professionals to facilitate and speak at meetings (White and Nicolaus 2005; White, Kurtz, and Sanders 2006).\n\nAnother fundamental difference is that while spiritual-based recovery programs such as AA emphasize wisdom (emphasis on experience, search for meaning, freedom rooted in the acceptance of limitation, self-transcendence by connection to a greater whole, strength flowing from limitation), secular recovery programs emphasize knowledge (emphasis on scientific evidence, an assertion of control, self-mastery through knowledge of self and knowledge of one's problem, and strength from personal competence) (White and Kurtz 2006). Little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of these programs (WSASHO 2003; Humphreys et al. 2004).\n\nA few of the more widely attended secular self-help groups for persons who desire abstinence from alcohol problems are described below:\n\nSecular Organization for Sobriety (SOS)\n\nSecular Organization for Sobriety (SOS) emphasizes rational scientific knowledge over spiritual orientation and growth, and believes that abstinence can be achieved through support from the group and by making sobriety a priority (Humphreys et al. 2004; WSASHO 2003). The therapeutic processes, along with the organizational principles and language of SOS, are very similar to those of AA, and SOS encourages honest sharing, association with other recovering alcoholics, and a focused \"Sobriety Priority\" of not drinking \"no matter what.\" Although the exact means used to achieve sobriety are largely left up to the individual to decide, members are encouraged to use the experience of those SOS members who have attained sobriety (Kelly and Yeterian 2008).\n\nSMART Recovery\n\nSMART Recovery is a program based on cognitive-behavioral theory that views alcoholism as a maladaptive behavior instead of a disease. The objective of SMART Recovery is for members to utilize scientifically validated cognitive-behavioral techniques to enhance their motivation to abstain, ability to cope with cravings, capacity to identify and change irrational thinking, and judgment to balance immediate gratification and enduring satisfactions (Humphreys et al. 2004; WSASHO 2003). SMART Recovery meetings have a cognitive-behavioral educational orientation and include open discussions. The appropriate use of prescribed medications and the use of psychological treatments are explicitly advocated. SMART Recovery draws on evidence-based practices and \"evolves as scientific knowledge evolves\" (Kelly and Yeterian 2008).\n\nWomen for Sobriety\n\nWomen for Sobriety (WFS) uses a positive, feminist approach to help female alcoholics recover through a program that emphasizes the importance of all-female groups to facilitate self-discovery, improve self-esteem, and foster emotional and spiritual growth (Humphreys et al. 2004; WSASHO 2003). A survey of 600 members of WFS (Kaskutas 1994) found the following reasons for attending WFS: support and nurturance (54%), a safe environment (26%), sharing about women's issues (42%), its positive emphasis (38%), and focus on self-esteem (39%). Among those surveyed, women who did not attend AA identified the following reasons: feeling as though they never fit in at AA (20%), finding AA too negative (18%), disliking the \"drunkalogs\" and their focus on the past (14%), and feeling that AA is geared to men's needs (15%).\n\nRational Recovery\n\nRational Recovery (RR) was founded in 1986 by former alcoholic Jack Trimpey, a licensed clinical social worker practicing in California. RR claims to have made self-help groups for alcoholics seeking abstinence obsolete through a technique called the addictive voice recognition technique (AVRT). RR is not technically a self-help group but is well known, and once consisted of an extensive recovery group network that offered a cognitive-behavioral self-help approach along with an undeveloped version of AVRT. The organization split into RR and SMART Recovery following internal conflict, and RR now operates solely through the Internet, by mail, and through literature. The goal of RR is abstinence, which is achievable by recognizing and confronting the internal addictive voice. Thus, RR espouses an explicitly cognitive approach similar to the rational emotive therapy developed by Albert Ellis (Kelly and Yeterian 2008).\n\nRecovery Support Groups for Dual-Diagnosed Persons\n\nAlthough AA has special meetings intended for members with a co-occurring psychiatric illness, other fellowships have emerged that specifically address the needs of persons in dual recovery, most notably Double Trouble in Recovery, Dual Recovery Anonymous, and Dual Diagnosis Anonymous. These groups provide members with an opportunity to discuss both substance abuse and mental health issues, including the use of medications, in an accepting and psychologically safe environment (Laudet 2008; Hazelden 1993).\n\nDouble Trouble in Recovery (DTR)\n\nDTR was formed in New York State in 1989 and currently has more than 200 groups that meet in fourteen states, with the largest number in New York and growing memberships in Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico, and New Jersey. New DTR groups are started by consumers and professionals. DTR developed as a grassroots initiative and functions today with minimal involvement from the professional community. Groups meet in psychosocial clubs; supportive mental health residential programs; day-treatment programs for mental health, substance abuse, and dual diagnosis; and hospital inpatient units and community-based organizations. All DTR groups are led by recovering individuals (Vogel et al. 1998).\n\nDTR meetings follow a traditional Twelve Step format, including group member introductions, a speaker sharing his or her experience, and group discussion and sharing by all attendees. Meetings typically last sixty to ninety minutes (NREPP 2007). The DTR program uses the same Twelve Steps as does AA, with modifications made only to Steps One and Twelve (www.doubletroubleinrecovery.org):\n\nStep One: We admitted we were powerless over mental disorders and substance abuse\u2014that our lives had become unmanageable.\n\nStep Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other dually diagnosed people, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.\n\nA member survey found that the primary problem substances among DTR members were cocaine and alcohol, with the most prevalent psychiatric diagnoses being schizophrenia (43%), bipolar disorder (25%), and unipolar (major) depression (26%) (Laudet et al. 2000; Laudet 2008). A study that examined the impact of DTR involvement on substance use, adherence to psychiatric medication, and attendance of conventional Twelve Step meetings followed persons who participated in DTR for six months, and compared their outcomes with a similar group of persons who did not participate in DTR. The researchers found that DTR participants reported fewer days of alcohol or other drug use during the past ninety days, and at a six-month follow-up had better psychiatric medication adherence and more frequent traditional Twelve Step attendance than non-DTR participants (Magura et al. 2008).\n\nDual Recovery Anonymous (DRA)\n\nDRA was formed in 1989 in Kansas City, and in 1993 the Hazelden Foundation began distributing DRA educational recovery material, which greatly contributed to the growth of the organization (Laudet 2008). DRA currently holds meetings in most states in the U.S. as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Iceland (Laudet 2008), and new meetings are in the start-up process in Mexico, the Philippines, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Spain, and the Slovak Republic (www.draonline.org).\n\nDRA is a Twelve Step self-help program that is based on the principles of the Twelve Steps and the experiences of men and women in recovery with a dual diagnosis. The DRA program assists its members in recovery from both chemical dependency and emotional or psychiatric illness by focusing on relapse prevention and actively improving the quality of life. By providing a community of mutual support, members learn to avoid the risks that lead back to alcohol and other drug use, and to reduce the symptoms of emotional or psychiatric illness (www.draonline.org).\n\nDRA defines its criteria for membership in the Second Tradition, which states that \"DRA has two requirements for membership: a desire to stop using alcohol and other intoxicating drugs, and a desire to manage our emotional or psychiatric illness in a healthy and constructive way.\" This leaves the option of joining to the individual if after reading the Second Tradition, the person feels he or she meets both requirements (www.draonline.org).\n\nSimilar to DTR, the DRA program uses the same Twelve Steps as does AA, with modifications made only to Steps One and Twelve (www.draonline.org):\n\nStep One: We admitted we were powerless over our dual illness of chemical dependency and emotional or psychiatric illness\u2014 that our lives had become unmanageable.\n\nStep Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others who experience dual disorders and to practice these principles in all our affairs.\n\nDual Diagnosis Anonymous (DDA)\n\nDual Diagnosis Anonymous (DDA) was conceived in 1996 in Southern California from the awareness that many people suffering from addiction to alcohol or other drugs also suffer from some form of major mental illness, and vice versa. Concurrent substance abuse and mental illness is referred to as dual diagnosis. DDA states that addressing both conditions is essential, rather than focusing on one or the other. For persons who are dually diagnosed, DDA believes it essential to go beyond the social model recovery philosophy that tends to claim that successful substance abuse treatment results in a cessation of mental illness symptoms, and to likewise go beyond the medical model clinical philosophy that claims successful treatment of mental illness necessarily leads to a cessation of substance abuse. In essence, DDA offers a support group with a philosophical platform that blends the social model of recovery with the clinical philosophy of the medical model, and emphasizes the Twelve Steps of Recovery (DDA 1996).\n\nIn addition to a philosophy tailored for persons who are dually diagnosed, DDA provides a supportive accepting environment for persons whose mental illness symptoms may result in the perception of symptomatic differences between alcoholics and addicts and the dual diagnoses at conventional Twelve Step meetings. DDA recognized issues encountered by dually diagnosed alcoholics and addicts that present obstacles to traditional Twelve Step program attendance, such as symptom-driven disruptive behaviors during meetings, feelings of alienation, heightened levels of fear, anxiety and\/or paranoia in group settings, and stigmatization of psychotropic medication use among some traditional Twelve Step members, and seeks to provide an alternative support group (DDA 1996).\n\n# THE TWELVE STEPS OF DDA (BASED ON THE TWELVE STEPS OF AA)\n\n 1. We admitted we were powerless over our dual diagnosis, and that our lives had become unmanageable.\n 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.\n 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.\n 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.\n 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.\n 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.\n 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.\n 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.\n 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.\n 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.\n 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.\n 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others who still suffer from the effects of dual diagnosis, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.\n\nTHE (ADDITIONAL) FIVE STEPS OF DDA\n\n 1. We admitted that we had a mental illness, in addition to our substance abuse, and we accepted our dual diagnosis.\n 2. We became willing to accept help for both of these diseases.\n 3. We have understood the importance of medication, clinical interventions and therapies, and we have accepted the need for sobriety from alcohol and abstinence from all non-prescribed drugs in our program.\n 4. We came to believe that when our own efforts were combined with the help of others in the fellowship of DDA, and God, as we understood Him, we would develop healthy drug and alcohol free life styles.\n 5. We continued to follow the DDA Recovery Program of the Twelve Steps plus Five and we maintained healthy drug and alcohol free lifestyles, and helped others.\n\nHow DDA Meetings Work\n\nMeetings of DDA are very much like traditional Twelve Step meetings. Although there is no formal leader during meetings, DDA has found it helpful and encourages the presence of an experienced DDA member or trained professional who understands Twelve Step programs and can gently redirect the meeting if necessary to keep it focused and on track (DDA 1996).\n\nSelf-Help Group Membership in the U.S.\n\nAddiction professionals and representatives of alternative recovery self-help groups ask, sometimes resentfully, why AA represents the standard by which all other recovery support programs are measured. AA has attained this status by virtue of its size (measured by total membership and number of groups), the scope of its international dispersion, the range of its adaptation to address other problems, its influence on professionally directed addiction treatment, the quantity and increasing quality of AA-related scientific research, and AA's growing visibility as a cultural institution. AA has also earned this status by its longevity and survival, raising the question of why AA survived and thrived when its predecessors collapsed or were diverted from their recovery-focused missions (White 2010).\n\nTable 6.2 shows an estimate of attendance at self-help groups in the U.S., with AA at the top in numbers.\n\nTable 6.2\n\n# Estimated Alcoholism Self-Help Group Membership in the U.S.\n\nModeration Management:\n\nWho It Is and Is Not Intended For\n\nModeration Management (MM) is the only self-help organization to offer its members the goal of achieving moderate drinking, which the organization defines as not more than three drinks per day or nine drinks per week for women, and not more than four drinks per day or fourteen drinks per week for men (Kelly and Yeterian 2008).\n\nFounded in 1993, MM operates under the premise that problem drinking, unlike alcohol dependence, is a learned behavioral habit that can be modified and controlled (WSASHO 2003). The rationale for MM is that an organization with the explicit goal of moderate drinking would attract nondependent problem drinkers who were not interested in abstinence-only programs such as AA or professionally operated Twelve Step treatment programs. MM generated controversy during the 1990s over the wrongful perception that it was attempting to teach alcoholics how to control their drinking (Humphreys 2003).\n\nA survey of 177 MM members was performed to help researchers understand the background of persons who join MM (Humphreys and Klaw 2001). Overall, MM attracted women, younger drinkers, and nondependent problem drinkers. Roughly 15% of the survey respondents indicated moderate to severe alcohol dependence. Thus, the majority of MM members have low-severity alcohol problems, high social stability, and little interest in abstinence-oriented interventions.\n\nDespite a minority of MM members for whom MM offers an insufficient intervention, MM offers a valuable service for the following reasons: (1) some alcohol-dependent persons change their drinking goals from moderation to abstinence after becoming engaged in a supportive setting; (2) most MM members would not seek help for their drinking in abstinence-oriented programs; (3) there are many times more nondependent drinkers with alcohol problems than there are drinkers who are alcohol dependent, and these nondependent drinkers underuse existing resources to seek help for their problem drinking (Humphreys 2003). An optimal development in the future of MM would be to implement a more stringent set of norms and procedures for recognizing and advising participants whose alcohol problems are too severe for MM to address (Humphreys 2003).\n\n# Twelve Step Facilitation and Project MATCH\n\nTwelve Step facilitation (TSF) is a formalized treatment approach composed of elements of AA and Twelve Step programs that can be offered on an inpatient or outpatient basis (Galanter 2006). The goal of TSF is to introduce and involve patients in AA, the rationale being that Twelve Step-based treatment and involvement are as effective as more heavily researched psychosocial approaches, and that changes in health care reimbursement in the U.S. have reduced access to treatment, treatment duration, and treatment intensity (Longabaugh et al. 2005; Humphreys 1999). TSF involves patients with the first five Steps of AA, promotes AA attendance and involvement, and teaches the AA concept of alcoholism.\n\nIt was long observed and understood that no single treatment approach worked best for all alcoholic patients, and that different treatment approaches might be more effective for certain types of patients (Institute of Medicine 1990; Del Boca and Mattson 1994). The concept of patient matching refers to selecting the most effective treatment for a particular type of patient, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism initiated a study, Project MATCH, to investigate the optimal treatment matching of alcoholic patients. Project MATCH was designed as a large-scale, multi-site, scientifically rigorous study, the results of which were projected to have important implications for clinical practice (Project MATCH Research Group 1993; Hazelden June 2010).\n\nProject MATCH randomly assigned 952 outpatients and 774 aftercare patients to one of three treatment approaches and followed these patients over several years. The three treatment approaches were\n\n 1. cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT),\n 2. Twelve Step facilitation (TSF), and\n 3. motivational enhancement therapy (MET).\n\nOverall, clients with more severe alcohol problems did better at a three-year follow-up than clients with lower severity. Patients with higher anger levels had better outcomes with MET than with the other two therapies. At months 37\u201339 another match appeared: clients who had a social network that supported their drinking before they received treatment had better outcomes with TSF than MET, partially because of the higher AA involvement of TSF clients (Project MATCH Research Group 1998; Hazelden June 2010).\n\nOne year after treatment, patients in all three treatment groups reported significant reductions in drinking. Differences across treatment groups were not significant, although TSF showed a slight advantage (Project MATCH Research Group 1997). Three years after treatment, however, a significant difference emerged between the three treatment groups. Patients receiving the Twelve Step-based TSF had significantly higher abstinence rates than those in the other two treatment approaches, with 36% of TSF clients remaining abstinent versus 27% of MET and 24% of CBT clients (Project MATCH Research Group 1998).\n\nProject MATCH remains the largest behavioral intervention trial conducted on alcoholism. The overall implication of Project MATCH findings is that all three treatment approaches are effective in the treatment of alcoholism: TSF, CBT, and MET (Project MATCH Research Group 1997). The fact that few patient-treatment matches resulted in modestly improved treatment outcomes suggests that a major overhaul of current treatment approaches based on patient characteristics is unnecessary (Hazelden June 2010).\n\nSince AA dropout rate is high, a sub-study of Project MATCH explored what types of patients were more likely to continue their involvement with AA. The researchers found that greater alcohol problem severity predicted greater AA attendance, and opposite to prediction, clients with less severe alcohol impairment were more than twice as likely to discontinue AA attendance after treatment. They concluded that when sustained AA attendance is desired, evaluating the severity of pretreatment alcohol problems may be useful for identifying potential AA dropout after TSF treatment (Tonigan, Bogenschutz, and Miller 2006).\n\n# CHAPTER 7\n\n# Professional Treatment of Alcoholism\n\nNew advances in the understanding of the brain biology of alcohol dependence has revolutionized the field of addiction science. These advances have led to the identification of several brain chemical systems that are vital in causing and maintaining alcoholism (Volpicelli 2001). Different brain transmitter systems are believed to underlie the various behavioral components of alcohol dependence such as craving, preoccupation with, and obsession with drinking; the motivation to drink; and loss of control. The idea behind pharmacotherapy for alcoholism is to manipulate these brain chemical systems in such a way as to reduce the symptoms that increase the risk of relapse, or if relapse occurs, to minimize relapse severity by blocking the pleasurable effects of alcohol.\n\nThere is nothing inherent in the Twelve Step philosophy that contradicts the use of medications (as long as they are free of abuse liability) for the purpose of achieving or maintaining abstinence, or for the treatment of psychiatric conditions or disorders. An interesting side note to history occurred during the 1960s, when one of the pioneers of the use of methadone maintenance to treat heroin addiction, Dr. Vincent Dole, served as a trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous and became friends with Bill Wilson. Dole recalled a conversation he had with Bill Wilson (Dole 1991), in which Wilson expressed his concern over alcoholics who could not achieve sobriety despite repeated attempts through AA:\n\nAt the last trustee meeting (of AA) that we (Vincent Dole and Bill Wilson) both attended, he (Bill Wilson) spoke to me of his deep concern for the alcoholics who are not reached by AA, and for those who enter and drop out and never return. Always the good shepherd, he was thinking about the many lost sheep who are lost in the dark world of alcoholism. He suggested that in my future research I should look for an analogue of methadone, a medication that would relieve the alcoholic's sometimes irresistible craving and enable him to progress in AA toward social and emotional recovery, following the Twelve Steps.\n\nThis anecdote indicates that the founder of AA was open to and encouraging of the concept of developing a medication that could be used by alcoholics struggling to achieve sobriety, that would bridge the gap from very early abstinence to stable integration and recovery in AA by blocking alcohol cravings and the obsession to drink.\n\n# Medications Are Never Intended as Sole Treatment\n\nOccasionally, sensational headlines in the media exclaiming \"A Pill to Cure Alcoholism\" (U.S. News and World Report 2008) grab the attention of the public and generate controversy and misunderstanding over the intent of medication use for alcoholism. Concerns are often voiced over whether pharmaceutical companies are trying to make AA obsolete.\n\nSuch concern is understandable but completely unwarranted. Drug therapy for alcoholism is never intended to replace Twelve Step or psychosocial therapy involvement. Instead, medications are used with persons in early sobriety, usually in treatment, to complement the other treatment approaches and help the alcoholic achieve treatment objectives sooner.\n\nThe goal of medication is to reduce the intensity of the ongoing cravings for alcohol and reduce the frequency of relapse and the amount of alcohol consumed if a relapse occurs. In this way, medication use actually increases the ability of the patient to remain engaged in Twelve Step involvement and\/or therapy during the critical early period of sobriety when relapse is most likely (Weiss and Kueppenbender 2006).\n\nAn additional point is that none of the medications that are either approved by the FDA or that are used \"off-label\" to treat alcohol dependence have abuse potential. Also, the FDA approves medications to be used in alcohol dependence only with the strictly worded stipulation that these medications are not intended as sole therapy for alcoholism, and must only be prescribed to patients who are receiving psychosocial therapy (NASADAD 2001).\n\nAnd finally, numerous trials have found an interactive effect between pharmacotherapy and psychosocial therapy, in that the combination of the two produces better results than either one used alone (O'Malley et al. 1992; Anton et al. 1999). This makes sense, because the benefits of pharmacotherapy for alcoholism are only attainable with persistent patient compliance and motivation, both of which can be addressed through professional interventions that enhance patient motivation for sobriety and medication compliance (Volpicelli 2001).\n\n# FDA-Approved Medications and Pharmacological Interventions for Alcohol Dependence\n\nA number of FDA-approved medications have been tested to serve as pharmacological intervention for alcohol dependence. Below and on the pages that follow, a list of them appears.\n\nDisulfiram (Antabuse)\n\nDisulfiram was approved by the FDA in 1951 as a treatment of alcoholism. Disulfiram acts by creating a toxic reaction when alcohol is consumed, which is achieved through interference with the normal breakdown of alcohol in the liver. Disulfiram blocks the initial breakdown product of alcohol to increase its concentration, and it is this buildup that causes the extremely unpleasant reaction when alcohol is ingested (West et al. 1999). Disulfiram is referred to as aversion therapy because of the aversive state that follows drinking, which often includes a throbbing headache, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia (racing heart), hypotension, respiratory depression, and cardiovascular collapse in severe cases (Parantainen 1983).\n\nDisulfiram can reduce drinking by inducing a fear of a toxic reaction; however, there is no evidence of abstinence enhancement, and patient compliance is essential for drinking reduction. Patients taking disulfiram must also avoid taking over-the-counter drugs that contain alcohol (some contain as much as 40%) (West et al. 1999). This now-obsolete approach to pharmacotherapy for alcoholism has been replaced by an emphasis on drugs that target the brain chemical systems involved in alcoholism.\n\nNaltrexone (ReVia)\n\nNaltrexone is an opioid receptor blocker that is FDA approved for the treatment of alcohol dependence. Naltrexone may reduce drinking frequency, amount of alcohol consumed, and the relapse rate, and appears to blunt the emotional response to alcohol. Studies enrolling both alcohol-dependent and social drinkers have found that naltrexone reduced the euphoria from alcohol (Volpicelli et al. 1995). Instead, drinkers felt sluggish instead of stimulated from drinking (Swift and Pettinati 2005). They drank less often and consumed less alcohol when they did drink regardless of their racial, ethnic, and economic differences and the varying levels of behavioral treatments received (Volpicelli et al. 1992; O'Malley et al. 1992).\n\nOther studies have found that patients who returned to drinking refrained for a longer period of time and delayed their first episode of heavy drinking when naltrexone was taken; they also drank less often and were less likely to relapse to heavy drinking (O'Malley et. al. 1995; NASADAD 2001). Side effects may include nausea, dizziness, and headache. Some patients benefit from naltrexone, but its efficacy has only been demonstrated as an adjunct to psychosocial therapy.\n\nA long-acting formulation of naltrexone (Vivitrex) has been approved for use in the U.S. This extended-release version, which releases the drug over the course of a month from a single injection, was developed in an effort to minimize the risk of poor compliance and fluctuating blood levels that can occur with the oral version of naltrexone. Compared with a placebo (an inactive sugar pill), patients receiving long-acting naltrexone have demonstrated significant reductions in heavy drinking. In addition, patients entering therapy with the goal of abstinence, as well as patients who intended to reduce but not to quit drinking, equally benefited from this drug (Garbutt et al. 2005).\n\nAcamprosate (Campral)\n\nAcamprosate is another drug that is FDA approved for the treatment of alcohol dependence, and has been available in Europe since 1989, where it has been used to treat alcohol dependence in many countries (Mason and Goodman 1997).\n\nUnlike other pharmacotherapies used with alcoholism, acamprosate acts on the brain to restore the disrupted neurochemistry that is the consequence of alcohol dependence. Acamprosate appears to act by regulating NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) pathways in the brain, which restore the normal activity of glutamate signaling that is altered by chronic alcohol abuse (Mason and Heyser 2010b, 2010a).\n\nAs discussed in a previous section, chronic alcohol abuse forces several brain chemical systems to dramatically alter their function as they attempt to adapt to the constant alcohol presence. When alcohol is withdrawn, the altered function persists in the absence of alcohol. This disruption, as it occurs in the two brain chemical systems of NMDA and GABA, contribute to the ongoing craving, insomnia, anxiety, and restlessness for alcohol that are experienced by some alcoholics in early sobriety. Acamprosate is not used to treat acute alcohol withdrawal, but instead acts to normalize NMDA function and thus reduces craving and many of the symptoms associated with post-acute withdrawal from alcohol (SAMHSA 2005).\n\nResearch involving alcohol-dependent patients has found that acamprosate increases the rates of total abstinence and the percent of days abstinent, and delays the amount of time to an initial relapse (Kranzler and Gage 2008). Higher doses of acamprosate significantly increase the proportion of patients who remained abstinent for six and twelve months, and significantly reduced alcohol cravings during the first three months of sobriety (Paille et al. 1995).\n\nThere is no evidence that acamprosate interacts with alcohol, alcohol-based medications, or medications used to treat mental illness such as anti-depressants (Durbin, Hulot, and Chabac 1996). And since acamprosate is not significantly metabolized in the liver, patients with liver disease can safely take the drug (Wilde and Wagstaff 1997; NASADAD 2001). Possible side effects include diarrhea, dizziness, and itching (West et al. 1999).\n\nNaltrexone and Acamprosate Combination Therapy\n\nA potentially promising approach to the treatment of alcoholism involves combining naltrexone and acamprosate. However, the results of this combination have been mixed. One trial found this combination more effective than a placebo and acamprosate alone, but not significantly better than naltrexone alone in preventing relapse (Kranzler et al. 2006), while another study failed to find any added benefit from combining the drugs compared with using each drug alone (Anton et al. 2006).\n\nOther Issues with FDA-Approved Medications\n\nThe effectiveness of medications for alcoholism is highly dependent on patient compliance, which is often poor in alcoholic patients. The extended-release form of naltrexone promises to minimize compliance issues, and advances in drug delivery approaches such as injectable and extended-release versions may improve patient outcomes (Swift 2007).\n\nIt is likely that the effectiveness of drug therapies will improve through greater knowledge of the disease of alcohol dependence, reliable identification of treatment-responsive patients, identifying the predictors of medication response, and approaches that improve medication adherence (Garbutt 2009).\n\n# Medications Used Off-Label for Alcohol Dependence (Drugs Already Approved for Other Conditions)\n\nAlcohol use, and intense cravings for alcohol, releases opioid molecules in the brain, which in turn cause dopamine release. Drugs that block these opioid receptors, including naltrexone, were first investigated to see if blocking this effect would reduce drinking and the craving to drink (Krahn 2009). In addition, the findings that severe alcoholics exhibited lower serotonin levels than nonalcoholics, and that deficient serotonin was associated with impulsive behavior, anxiety, and stress, led researchers to investigate a wide variety of drugs acting on brain serotonin systems for the treatment of alcoholism (Kenna, McGeary, and Swift 2004). The two receptors are discussed below.\n\nDrugs Acting on Opioid Receptors\n\nNalmefene is an opiate blocker that is similar in structure and action to naltrexone, but has the advantage of being easier on the liver to metabolize (NIAAA 2000). In a twelve-week study of alcohol-dependent patients, those given nalmefene were 2.4 times less likely to relapse to heavy drinking than patients who received a placebo. Patients had high medication compliance rates and experienced no adverse side effects (Mason et al. 1999). This drug may serve as a good alternative to naltrexone in patients who do not respond to or are intolerant of naltrexone (NASADAD 2001).\n\nDrugs Acting on Serotonin Receptors\n\nAlcoholics who consume large quantities of alcohol exhibit lower serotonin levels relative to nonalcoholics. Impulsive use of alcohol is associated with low serotonin levels. Deficient serotonin is associated with anxiety and some alcoholics drink to self-medicate their anxiety and stress. Alcohol can stimulate serotonin release in the brain, leading researchers to investigate drugs that act on serotonin as a treatment of alcoholism (Kenna, McGeary, and Swift 2004).\n\nStudies using SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) in non-depressed alcoholics have produced inconsistent results. Even in depressed alcoholics, antidepressants in general have not led to significant reductions in alcohol use. Buspirone hydrochloride (Buspar) is a serotonin 1A partial agonist (binds to and activates a receptor, but less than to a full agonist) that is FDA approved for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. When controlling for pretreatment anxiety, buspirone was found no more effective than a placebo in reducing drinking in alcoholic patients. Ritanserin, another drug acting on serotonin, failed to demonstrate effectiveness in relapse prevention in alcohol dependence (Kenna 2010).\n\nOn the other hand, promising results have been published on drinking outcomes in alcohol-dependent patients given ondansetron (Zofran), a serotonin-3 receptor antagonist (binds to and blocks the activity of a receptor) (Kenna 2010). The most responsive patients to ondansetron have been type B alcoholics (those with early-onset alcoholism), who have been found to drink significantly less alcohol when given modest doses of ondansetron. This early-onset subtype of alcoholism is believed to be mediated by greater serotonin dysfunction, explaining the much greater treatment response (Kenna, McGeary, and Swift 2004).\n\nAnticonvulsant Agents\n\nSeveral drugs originally developed to treat seizures act, in part, by increasing the amount of GABA in the brain, with some drugs in this class also reducing the amount of glutamate. This pharmacological action was thought to have the potential of reducing the symptoms of ongoing protracted or motivational withdrawal experienced by many alcoholics in earlier recovery (Krahn 2009).\n\nSeveral antiseizure drugs have been studied as possible therapeutic agents in the treatment of alcoholism. These agents have a common mechanism of action (modulation of NMDA and enhancement of GABA neurotransmission), which, in addition to their mood-stabilizing properties when used in the treatment of bipolar disorder, have made them attractive targets of investigation in alcoholism (Croissant et al. 2006).\n\nTopiramate is an anticonvulsant drug that is also FDA approved for the treatment of migraine headaches, and is the most widely used anticonvulsant in the treatment of alcohol dependence (De Sousa 2010). Topiramate in clinical trials has demonstrated safety and effectiveness in decreasing craving and withdrawal symptoms, reducing the number of drinks per day and total days of alcohol consumption, reducing liver enzyme markers of heavy drinking (Kranzler et al. 2006; Johnson et al. 2007), and increasing the quality of life of alcohol-dependent patients. While the manufacturer of topiramate will not pursue FDA approval for alcohol dependence, the drug will soon be available as a generic drug, making it more affordable for a greater proportion of the public (Kenna et al. 2009).\n\nOxcarbazepine is a derivative of the antiseizure drug carbamazepine that offers the advantage of being eliminated by the kidneys instead of being metabolized by the liver. A small pilot study comparing oxcarbaze-pine to acamprosate found comparable efficacy on several measures related to drinking outcome, which included the amount of time to first relapse and drinks per drinking day. Although the study was not large enough to detect significant differences, preliminary safety and efficacy data on this drug merit larger, more definitive trials in the future (Croissant et al. 2006).\n\nThe effectiveness of gabapentin (Neurontin) in reducing symptoms of post-acute alcohol withdrawal was examined by Mason et al. (2009). The researchers found that compared with alcohol-dependent participants who received a placebo, those who received gabapentin showed substantial improvements in sleep quality and significant reductions in craving strength, intent to drink, craving intensity triggered by alcohol-related cues, and emotional disturbance. Side effects were minor and short-lived. Although additional research needs to confirm these results, gabapentin seems to be helpful for alcoholics in early recovery who experience ongoing problems with sleep difficulties, irritability, and craving for alcohol.\n\nThe results of baclofen treatment of alcohol dependence have been mixed, with two studies showing reductions in withdrawal-related anxiety, alcohol craving, and improved abstinence, while another study found no advantage (Leggio, Garbutt, and Addolorato 2010).\n\nVarenicline (Chantix)\n\nSeveral factors suggested that Varenicline, an FDA-approved drug for nicotine addiction, may be helpful in treating alcoholism. These include high rates of co-occurring alcohol and nicotine dependence, the finding that nicotine increases alcohol intake, and that drugs that block (antagonize) nicotine receptors reduce alcohol ingestion (Chatterjee and Bartlett 2010). Varenicline (Chantix) was evaluated in twenty heavy nondependent drinkers who were also daily smokers (McKee et al. 2009). The researchers found that varenicline significantly reduced the pleasurable effects of alcohol, craving for alcohol, and alcohol ingestion; was well-tolerated; and did not adversely interact with alcohol. They concluded that varenicline should be further investigated as a potential treatment for alcohol use disorders.\n\nNeuroleptics\n\nBecause brain dopamine systems are believed to play an important role in alcohol dependence, drugs that alter dopamine function, such as aripiprazole, may have the potential to reduce craving and relapse.\n\nAripiprazole is a third-generation atypical (class of drugs developed to treat the same conditions as first-generation antipsychotic drugs but with fewer side effects) antipsychotic drug that has shown some positive, but inconsistent, results in alcoholic patients. Aripiprazole may be especially helpful for alcoholics with intense craving and problems with impulsivity (Vergne and Anton 2010).\n\n# Experimental Drugs (Drugs Being Investigated but Not Yet Approved for Any Condition)\n\nEndocannabinoid Receptor Antagonists (blockers)\n\nResearch in animals has suggested that a specific type of receptor, cannabinoid CB(1), plays a role in influencing alcohol-related behaviors, and that blocking the activity of this receptor might have beneficial effects in alcoholics.\n\nAlthough initially promising in preclinical trials, all research involving cannabinoid CB(1) receptor antagonists such as rimonabant has been halted due to the occurrence of adverse psychiatric symptoms in some participants (Maccioni, Colombo, and Carai 2010).\n\nCorticotropin-Releasing Hormone Receptor 1 (CRFI) Antagonists\n\nThe findings that elevated brain levels of CRF are associated with an exaggerated response to stress, and that the brain overproduces CRF during alcohol dependence and into abstinence, has led researchers to identify a drug that can block CRF.\n\nAs described in the previous section, alcohol dependence induces long-term neuroadaptation resulting in a persistent negative emotional state, which in turn perpetuates alcohol use for symptom relief. A key mechanism in this process involves the progressive increase in CRF signaling (hormone produced in response to stress) within the amygdala (brain region involved in the processing and memory of intense emotional experiences). Early results with drugs that block CRF have shown reductions in excessive emotionality, alcohol use, and stress-induced relapse, making the CRF system an enticing target for drug development in the treatment of alcoholism (Heilig and Koob 2007).\n\nAgents that block CRF are available, but are not able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, limiting their effectiveness. However, small molecules that approximate the effects of CRF blocking agents are able to reach the brain CRF system, and considerable research effort is being made to develop these compounds (Richardson et al. 2008).\n\nAyahuasca\n\nThe long-term study by scientists of native tribes living in the Amazon Basin in South America revealed a pattern of diminished alcohol use over time among natives ingesting ayahuasca.\n\nDerived from plant sources, ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage used by native tribes in the Amazon Basin for medicinal and sacramental purposes. The active compounds in ayahuasca are DMT (N,N-dimethyl-tryptamine) and b-carboline alkaloids. Long-term indigenous users have been the subject of intensive scientific observation. Many of the Amazonian inhabitants studied had lengthy histories of alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, and other maladaptive behaviors that vanished with repeated long-term ayahuasca use. These findings, coupled with the observation that long-term use of this compound results in stable modulation of brain serotonin systems via increased serotonin transporter density, has stimulated interest in this substance as an alcoholism treatment (McKenna 2004). Although the data collected so far from native South American users is fascinating, formidable regulatory obstacles exist in the U.S. before clinical trials can be implemented.\n\nAcetyl-L-carnitine\n\nReducing relapse is a major focus of alcoholism researchers. Craving for alcohol and negative emotional states greatly contribute to relapse, and Martinotti et al. (2010) evaluated the potential of the nutritional supplement acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) to reduce alcohol cravings among detoxified alcohol-dependent patients who were troubled by the inability to experience pleasure (termed anhedonia). Anhedonia is believed to reflect abnormal function of brain dopamine systems. The researchers found that compared with a placebo, patients given ALC remained abstinent longer, experienced fewer cravings for alcohol, and had greater reductions in anhedonia. The same group of scientists performed a subsequent trial where they compared the effects of ALC at 1 or 3 grams per day (given intravenously the first ten days, then orally the next eighty days) with a placebo for ninety days in detoxified alcohol-dependent patients with prominent symptoms of anhedonia and sadness. Intravenous ALC accelerated the reduction in anhedonia, with no further reductions occurring in the oral phase of the trial. The group given a placebo experienced a modest decline in anhedonia over the first thirty days of the trial, and then a plateau. Patients receiving both doses of ALC experienced significant reductions in anhedonia and sadness compared with those receiving a placebo. Furthermore, ALC was free of side effects (Martinotti et al. 2011).\n\nN-acetyl cysteine\n\nDysfunction in brain glutamate systems has been linked to alcohol and other drug dependence and to behavioral addictions. N-acetyl cysteine is an anti-oxidant amino acid that reduces the release of glutamate and helps restore normal glutamate activity to the nucleus accumbens, which is believed to account for its effectiveness in reducing or blocking compulsive behaviors (Grant, Odlaug, and Kim 2009).\n\nN-acetyl cysteine has been found to be effective in the treatment of several impulse-control disorders and addictions, including pathological gambling (Grant, Kim, and Odlaug 2007), compulsive hair pulling (trichotillomania) (Grant, Odlaug, and Kim 2009), compulsive skin picking (Grant, unpublished data), compulsive grooming (Odlaug and Grant 2007), and cocaine dependence (LaRowe et al. 2007; Mardikian et al. 2007).\n\nAlthough research on N-acetyl cysteine treatment of alcohol dependence has not yet been published, a study evaluating the effectiveness of N-acetyl cysteine in reducing craving and alcohol use in alcoholic-dependent men was just completed, and the results should be published sometime in 2011 (www.clinicaltrials.gov). Additionally, Jon Grant and colleagues at the University of Minnesota believe that combining naltrexone with N-acetyl cysteine may offer a greater reduction in drinking urges than either agent alone, since they act on different brain pathways that may complement each other (Grant, Odlaug, and Kim 2010). N-acetylcysteine is available in health-food stores, is very inexpensive, and has very few side effects (Grant, Odlaug, and Kim 2009).\n\n# Medical Device Treatment\n\nAs discussed earlier, the symptoms and the persistent vulnerability to relapse in alcohol dependence are the result of alterations that occur in entire brain neuron pathways. A new generation of medical device therapies has been developed to treat severe cases of neurological and psychiatric disorders that have failed to respond to conventional treatment (Ressler and Mayberg 2007).\n\nThese devices use what is called neurostimulation as the mode of intervention. Neurostimulation involves the precise targeted delivery of energy into key areas of the brain, with the goal of stimulating dormant or under-active neuron pathways and structures, or slowing neuron pathways and structures that are overactive, to produce measurable change in regional brain activity, behavior, and symptoms. Various forms of neurostimulation therapy have been successful in treating severe cases of Parkinson's disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, severe major depression, and seizure disorders (Berlim, Neto, and Turecki 2009), and are now being investigated as a therapy for alcohol dependence.\n\nDeep Brain Stimulation\n\nThe process of deep brain stimulation (DBS) involves neurosurgery to implant stimulating electrodes inside the brain that target a specific brain region, and is similar in concept to that of a heart pacemaker.\n\nA case report was published (Kuhn et al. 2007) that described DBS treatment of a patient with a severe anxiety disorder that remained unresponsive to numerous treatments. The patient was also chronically alcohol dependent. The anxiety disorder was the intended therapeutic target, and DBS of the nucleus accumbens did not lead to meaningful reductions in anxiety symptoms. However, an unexpected effect was a rapid and dramatic reduction in alcohol use that persisted one year later, with the patient describing an almost complete absence of the desire to drink during the year of DBS treatment. Liver functions, which were severely abnormal before DBS, became normal after the first year of treatment.\n\nAnother report of the effects of DBS used to treat alcoholism found that cravings for alcohol and alcohol consumption were greatly reduced in three long-term, treatment-refractory alcohol-dependent individuals who underwent DBS of the nucleus accumbens; two were abstinent, and a third had markedly reduced drinking occurrences after one year (Heinze et al. 2009; M\u00fcller et al. 2009). Although these results are very compelling, DBS is associated with the potential of severe complications, and the small number of patients and brief follow-up periods reported in the published research do not yet provide the basis for broader use of DBS with severe alcohol dependence (Carter and Hall 2011).\n\nTranscranial Magnetic Stimulation\n\nTranscranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, is a method of brain stimulation in which magnetic fields are used to induce electric currents in the cerebral cortex to stimulate the release of neurotransmitters. Treatment involves the delivery of a magnetic pulse to the brain through a hand-held stimulating coil applied directly to the head of the patient (Berlim, Neto, and Turecki 2009). The potential of TMS to reduce cravings was studied in a group of forty-five alcohol-dependent patients, who received either active or sham TMS over a region of the brain thought to play a key role in the perpetuation of alcohol addiction (the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). By evaluating the participants throughout the first thirty days following TMS, the authors found that active TMS produced a significant anticraving effect, and concluded that TMS combined with anticraving medication may offer an effective strategy to reduce craving and relapse in early sobriety (Mishra et al. 2010).\n\n# Insomnia in Early Recovery\n\nInsomnia causes difficulty in falling or staying asleep, and is a problem experienced by many persons in recovery, especially during the initial weeks and months. Insomnia not only robs people of a much-needed full night of sleep, but it is associated with irritability, depressed mood, and an increased risk of relapse. The only drugs effective for short-term treatment of insomnia\u2014Restoril, Halcyon, and Ambien\u2014are likely to be abused by persons with a history of alcohol or other drug dependence and are thus unsafe to use in early recovery. Other medications used for insomnia, such as melatonin and trazodone, are ineffective in recovering alcoholics with serious and persistent insomnia (Mahowald, pers. comm.; Krahn 2009).\n\nHowever, several recent studies have found that very low doses of an older antidepressant, Doxepin, are very effective in treating insomnia. The effective insomnia dose is a fraction of the dose used to treat depression, and doses of 3 mg and 6 mg before bed have substantially improved the duration and quality of sleep, without residual sedation the next day (Krystal et al. 2010; Roth et al. 2010; Weber et al. 2010).\n\nStudies lasting twelve weeks found no evidence of tolerance, rebound insomnia, or discontinuation symptoms when the medication Doxepin was stopped (Owen 2009). Doxepin is free of risk for persons in recovery from addiction and may represent a breakthrough in the safe and effective management of insomnia (Mahowald, pers. comm.).\n\nNote:\n\nPharmacological-based therapies for alcohol dependence are used as a supplement to Twelve Step involvement or psychosocial therapy, and are used to target specific symptoms of alcoholism that make it difficult for the person to achieve or maintain abstinence. Several drugs have been shown to be helpful in reducing the overpowering urge to drink. A couple of drugs have also shown the ability to limit the severity of relapse, if drinking is resumed, by removing some of the pleasurable effects of alcohol. Other drugs may be helpful in reducing the anxiety, agitation, irritability, and insomnia that are often encountered in early sobriety. None of the drugs used in treating alcohol dependence have a risk of being abused themselves, and their effectiveness is highly dependent on patient adherence. These drugs are not used as stand-alone treatment. There is nearly universal recognition that medications will never substitute or replace AA involvement or psychological therapy.\n\nPharmacogenetics\u2014Matching Pharmacotherapy to Patient\n\nPharmacogenetics (also referred to as pharmacogenomics) refers to the study of how genetic makeup influences the response to medications (Centre for Genetics Education 2007). Pharmacogenetics in alcoholism treatment begins with identifying the alcoholism subtype of a patient. Since alcoholism subtypes have a genetic basis, patients within each subtype share similar fundamental characteristics with other patients of the same subtype, including the response to medications. Thus, pharmacogenetics involves the matching of a patient with the most compatible treatment approach based on what is known of the genetic makeup of the patient (Leggio et al. 2009). A growing body of research is validating the effectiveness of this subtype-treatment matching approach (Bogenschutz, Tonigan, and Pettinati 2009).\n\nIn the past decade, scientists have become much more sophisticated in understanding why certain medications work for some alcoholic patients and not for others. What they are finding is that certain subtypes of alcoholics\u2014those who share common genetic features with other members of the subtype\u2014are substantially more likely to respond to naltrexone and other medications than other subtypes (O'Brien 2005). As discussed, relative to type A alcoholics, type B alcoholics are characterized by greater alcoholism severity, earlier onset of problem drinking and disease progression, more prominent family history of alcoholism, childhood risk factors such as conduct disorder, and greater frequency of co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders. Type B alcoholics have been found to substantially benefit from naltrexone therapy, while the beneficial effects of naltrexone have been very minimal in type A alcoholics (Bogenschutz, Tonigan, and Pettinati 2009).\n\nIn addition to studies on naltrexone response, additional evidence supports the type-A-versus-type-B distinction (Babor et al. 1992) in determining the strength of response to other pharmacologic treatments for alcoholism. Researchers have repeatedly found that early-onset type B alcoholics have substantially better responses to ondansetron than do later-onset type A alcoholics (Roache et al. 2008).\n\nDifferent medication response between type A and type B alcoholics has also been demonstrated with quetiapine, with type B alcoholics showing substantially reduced drinking and reduced craving for alcohol, and type A alcoholics obtaining no significant benefit in drinking reduction (Kampman et al. 2007). A study compared the response to olanzapine between two different groups of alcoholics\u2014those with a specific genetic variation and those without it. During the twelve-week study, participants with the genetic variation experienced reductions in craving and alcohol use, which was not found in the comparison group (Hutchison et al. 2006).\n\nNote:\n\nPharmacogenomics refers to the process by which alcoholic patients of a given genetic subtype are matched with the optimum treatment. Advances in the understanding of how genetic variations influence the response to treatment have allowed researchers to more accurately treat alcoholics, and treatment response has been found to differ substantially between subtypes of alcoholics.\n\n# Psychosocial Therapies\n\nCognitive, cognitive-behavioral, and behavioral therapies\u2014which make up the mainstay of psychosocial therapies for alcohol dependence\u2014 originated in the early 1970s with the emergence of social learning theory. Later in that decade, the first studies were published that showed improved drinking outcomes. Cognitive and behavioral therapies were introduced to alcoholism treatment because they were believed to offer an advantage over Twelve Step approaches by addressing not only the drinking but also the cognitive and behavioral coping-skill deficits observed in alcoholic patients (Morgenstern and Longabaugh 2000).\n\nTraditionally, many alcoholism treatment providers have been recovering alcoholics themselves. With little formal training or familiarity with research-grounded treatment approaches, their counseling approaches were based on what worked for them. Addiction researchers believed that psychosocial treatments such as cognitive and behavioral therapy had the potential to improve patient outcomes compared with the Twelve Step approaches offered by most treatment centers. Unlike the Twelve Step model, they were empirically validated (Marinelli-Casey, Domier, and Rawson 2002). However, this controversy was at least partially resolved by the results of Project MATCH. In addition, the large amount of scientific support of AA effectiveness has only been recently published.\n\nThe Twelve Step approach and psychosocial treatments are often compatible. For example, a cognitive-behavioral therapist does little that an AA sponsor would be likely to object to. Other than word choice, there is little difference between advising a recovering person to beware of people, places, or things that may be \"slippery places\" and telling a patient to avoid relapse \"cues and triggers\" (Forman, Humphreys, and Tonigan 2003).\n\nCognitive-Behavioral Therapy\n\nCognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) integrates behavioral theory, cognitive social learning theory, and cognitive therapy, and is primarily derived from social learning theory, which views excessive drinking as functionally connected to problems and situations in the person's life. CBT views alcohol dependence as a maladaptive way of coping. Since coping-skill deficits are presumed to underlie problem drinking, CBT is also referred to as Coping Skills training (McCaul and Petry 2003).\n\nCBT is concerned with both the triggers and consequences of drinking, with the primary focus on helping the client acquire new intra- and interpersonal skills that reduce relapse risk, maintain abstinence, and promote self-efficacy (Kadden 2001). The core elements of CBT include\n\n * functional analysis, which identifies the precursors and consequences of drinking behavior;\n * coping skills training; and\n * relapse prevention, which identifies high-risk relapse situations and how to cope with them, addresses the thought process surrounding relapse, and builds self-efficacy (Longabaugh and Morgenstern 1999).\n\nCBT can serve either as primary therapy or as an adjunct to other therapies or a Twelve Step program, and has been shown to be helpful in assisting clients to deal more effectively with feelings, situations, and behaviors related to problem drinking. CBT can be used at any point during the treatment process when exploration of inaccurate or self-defeating thinking is needed (Humphreys 1999; AHCPR 1999).\n\nCBT is the most widely studied psychosocial therapy for alcoholism, and has been consistently ranked as one of the most effective psychosocial therapies with this population (Kadden 2001). CBT has been consistently found to be superior to minimal or no treatment, but the results are inconsistent when compared with other active treatments using random assignment.\n\nIn the definitive Project MATCH (the landmark study that compared the drinking outcomes of alcoholics assigned to CBT, motivational enhancement therapy, or Twelve Step facilitation), CBT was no more effective than motivational enhancement therapy or Twelve Step facilitation therapy when drinking was evaluated one year after treatment completion (Project MATCH Research Group 1997b, 1997a), although CBT may result in delayed positive effects that emerge after formal completion of treatment (McCaul and Petry 2003).\n\nCBT may be more effective than group therapy for clients with significant sociopathy, psychopathology, and drinking urges. Other clients more likely to benefit from CBT include those with an external locus of control and higher anxiety levels (Longabaugh and Morgenstern 1999).\n\nNote:\n\nCBT is more effective than no treatment and is similar to other psychosocial therapies in reducing drinking. CBT may be most helpful in clients with anxiety and other psychiatric conditions.\n\nRelapse Prevention\n\nRelapse Prevention (RP) is a variant of CBT\/coping skills training that contains elements of several treatment approaches to provide training of specific coping skills to help identify and prevent high-risk situations associated with relapse (Witkiewitz and Marlatt 2004). The RP approach was developed by analyzing the thoughts, feelings, and events that took place before relapse in seventy male alcoholics following inpatient treatment (Marlatt and Gordon 1985). An intriguing aspect of RP involves the analysis of apparently irrelevant decisions, defined as decisions made by the alcoholic patient without the awareness of placing his or her sobriety at risk. An example might involve a patient taking a shortcut that involves walking past his or her favorite bar (Witkiewitz and Marlatt 2004).\n\nRP can be used as a stand-alone treatment or as an aftercare program to sustain gains achieved during the initial treatment. Coping skills training is the cornerstone of RP, which teaches clients the following strategies (NREPP 2008):\n\n * Understand relapse as a process\n * Identify and cope effectively with high-risk situations such as negative emotional states, interpersonal conflict, and social pressure\n * Cope with urges and cravings\n * Implement damage control procedures during a lapse to minimize negative consequences\n * Stay engaged in treatment even after a relapse\n * Learn how to create a more balanced lifestyle\n\nCoping skills training strategies include both cognitive and behavioral techniques. Cognitive techniques provide clients with ways to reframe the habit-changing process as a learning experience with errors and setbacks expected as mastery develops. Behavioral techniques include the use of lifestyle modifications such as meditation, exercise, and spiritual practices to strengthen a client's overall coping capacity (NREPP 2008).\n\nThe research yields mixed results on RP, with this approach being found more effective than minimal or no treatment and comparable to alternative treatments such as interpersonal therapy or supportive therapy (Witkiewitz and Marlatt 2004). There is some evidence that RP is more helpful in increasing psychosocial functioning than in decreasing substance use, and that RP can help sustain abstinence following completion of a formal treatment program, although this effect diminishes over time (Kadden 2001).\n\nNegative emotions are identified by the RP approach as a primary relapse precursor, although it is unclear whether the negative emotions are the cause of relapse or a symptom of lifestyle dysfunction. However, this finding has been consistent enough to warrant the inclusion of skills training for coping with negative emotions in several modalities of psychosocial therapy for alcoholism.\n\nOther refinements have involved addressing patient trait and personality factors, social and interpersonal factors, environmental factors, and past events as potential relapse triggers (Cooney et al. 1997; Monti and Rohsenow 1999).\n\nNote:\n\nRP is comparable to other psychosocial therapies in reducing drinking. The particular focus on negative emotions as a relapse risk is particularly useful, and has been incorporated into other therapy approaches.\n\nBehavioral Therapies\n\nBehavioral therapies for alcoholism are based on the premise that alcohol use is a conditioned (learned) behavior reinforced by the positive effects of alcohol, and that this same learning process can be used to change the behavior (Monti and Rohsenow 1999). Therefore, to decrease alcohol use, reinforcement from alcohol is decreased while reinforcement from alternate sources is increased.\n\nTreatment entails a behavioral assessment and functional analysis to establish how and when drinking occurs and what learning-based interventions to use, and to provide opportunities to practice the new behavior in real-world situations (Kadden 2001). Behavioral therapy approaches depart from CBT through the emphasis on external triggers and consequences that impact behavior, with limited emphasis on the internal process of thoughts and attitudes (Kadden 2001). In contrast, cognitive-behavioral approaches focus on the thoughts and feelings that precipitate, maintain, or change behavior, although behavioral approaches are used to promote behavior change (Litt et al. 2003). Behavioral therapy may not be suitable for patients with severe maladaptive beliefs and attitudes, for whom a cognitive-based approach is more appropriate. Following are discussions of major behavioral therapies.\n\nCue Exposure Therapy\n\nCue exposure therapy (CET) is based on the principle that neutral stimuli preceding drinking can become paired with drinking, and in time evoke conditioned responses that can trigger drinking. CET aims to help the alcoholic cope with urges and other reactions directly induced by the sight and smell of alcohol through systematic exposure, with the goal of extinguishing the triggered responses and encouraging the patient to substitute behavior consistent with recovery to the presence of these cues (Rohsenow, Monti, and Abrams 1995).\n\nThe research on CET is mixed, in part because alcohol-related cue exposure has not been found to be as powerful a trigger as predicted. Additionally, efforts to increase the impact of cue exposure procedures have been inconsistent, and there is a lack of agreement on which elicited cue responses are the best predictors of subsequent drinking (Kadden 2001). Research has shown that recipients of CET have reported fewer urges to drink in simulated high-risk situations and an increased use of alternative coping responses at one-year follow-up (McCaul and Petry 2003). Other studies have reported that CET reduced drinking severity but did not reduce the frequency of alcohol relapse (Kadden 2001). CET has successfully been used with naltrexone to reduce drinking urges, total drinking days, and drinks per drinking day (McCaul and Petry 2003). Issues that have complicated the clinical application of CET include spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalizability, and rapid reinstatement of conditioned responses (Kadden 2001).\n\nContingency Management\n\nIn contrast to CET, where the focus is on drinking precursors, contingency management (CM) is concerned with events that follow drinking. CM is grounded in operant conditioning theory, which states that drinking is maintained by reinforcing physiological and social effects (AHCPR 1999). CM strives to weaken or eliminate the reinforcement of drinking by encouraging alternate, desired behaviors, often through the use of tokens (surrogate currency that can \"purchase\" desired items) or vouchers (a piece of paper that can be exchanged for goods and services), and through withholding reinforcement or enacting punishment for undesired behavior (Kadden 2001; Higgins and Petry 1999).\n\nAn issue in using CM approaches with alcoholics is the difficulty in verifying the occurrence of the behavior (in this case abstinence) before rewarding it. Alcohol use cannot be detected more than twelve hours following consumption by serum, blood, or breath analysis. Another issue with CM approaches is the tendency toward relapse after the discontinuation of reward contingencies (Higgins and Petry 1999). However, CM is a feasible approach with alcoholic patients. Variable and fixed-ratio reinforcement schedules have gained client acceptance and are more cost-effective. A more effective use of CM involves shifting from vouchers to rewards in the community as the client prepares to leave treatment (Higgins et al. 1994).\n\nA variant of CM is the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA). Although based on operant conditioning theory, CRA borrows from social skills training, behavioral marital therapy, behavior contracting, stress management training, and social\/recreational counseling. Disulfiram has also been used as a component of CRA (Miller, Meyers, and Hiller-Sturmhofel 1999).\n\nIn CRA, the patient's environment is rearranged by the therapist with the goal of making drinking less reinforcing than abstinence. In addition to vouchers and tokens for goods and services, reinforcers competing with drinking can also include recreational activities and a reorganization of the daily life of the drinker (McCaul and Petry 2003). Although assembling and managing community resources can be an imposing barrier to implementing CRA, several well-designed studies have shown that the social and lifestyle changes enacted by CRA can translate into improved drinking outcomes, more consistent employment, and greater social stability compared to standard treatment (Miller, Meyers, and Hiller-Sturmhofel 1999).\n\nBehavioral Marital\/Family Therapy\n\nBehavioral marital therapy (BMT) is based on social learning theory and the family systems model, and is the most widely studied marital therapy in alcoholism treatment. BMT is most helpful in clients whose families contribute to or enable substance abuse, and assumes a reciprocal relationship between relationship functioning and alcohol use. The focus of BMT is on improving communication, problem solving, interactional behavior, and social support (McCaul and Petry 2003).\n\nAreas where BMT is most useful include addressing expectations of change within the family, encouraging new client behavior, education on how the family system works, eliciting family member strengths, examining the meaning of substance abuse within the family (AHCPR 1999), and reinforcing abstinence. Relapse prevention is also a component of BMT. A variation is to individually treat the spouse or partner of the alcoholic to motivate the drinker to accept treatment (O'Farrell and Fals-Stewart 2001).\n\nBMT is based on the assumptions that\n\n 1. intimate partners can reward abstinence, and\n 2. reducing relationship distress lowers the risk of relapse.\n\nThe program components include a recovery or sobriety contract between the partners and therapist, activities and assignments designed to increase positive feelings, shared activities and constructive communication, and relapse prevention planning (NREPP 2008).\n\nCompared with individual therapy, BMT is associated with improved relationship functioning and decreased alcohol consumption in several studies with eighteen- to twenty-four-month follow-ups, as well as reduced domestic violence and reduced treatment attrition (O'Farrell, Choquette, and Cutter 1998). The most dramatic reductions in husband-on-wife violence have occurred in couples where the husband remained abstinent. Additionally, BMT is more cost-effective than individual or group therapy in that it has been shown to reduce hospital and jail costs incurred by the alcoholic, and BMT is associated with reductions in emotional problems in the children of the couple (O'Farrell and Fals-Stewart 2003).\n\nA shortened version of BMT, Brief Relationship Therapy, produced drinking outcomes and couples adjustment comparable to BMT at twelve-month follow-up (Fals-Stewart et al. 2005). An obvious limitation of BMT is the necessity for a cooperative spouse or partner, and most research on BMT has employed homogenous populations with little psychiatric comorbidity.\n\nNonetheless, BMT has consistently demonstrated treatment-specific effects such as reduction in family problems (McCaul and Petry 2003). Despite supportive empirical validation indicating the important role of behavioral therapy involving the spouse or partner and the alcoholic, BMT has not been widely implemented because of the complexity of addressing the psychopathology in two individuals, whose interactions may be destructive and chaotic (Kadden 2001).\n\nNote:\n\nThe effectiveness of behavioral therapies in reducing drinking is mixed. While cue exposure therapy and contingency management may lead to short-lived reductions in drinking, CRA can facilitate reduced drinking and improved vocational and social functioning; while BMT can reduce alcohol use and domestic violence over an extended period.\n\nMotivational-Enhancement Interventions\n\nMotivational-enhancement interventions are based on the Transtheoretical Stages of Change Theory (Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross 1992), which states that clients pass through a series of stages of thought, planning, and action in the process of behavior change.\n\nThe stages of readiness to change are the following:\n\n * Precontemplation: The patient is ambivalent about change, not concerned with substance abuse or changing behavior.\n * Contemplation of change: There is intention of change in the future.\n * Preparation: There is intention of change in the near future, with some concrete steps taken in this direction.\n * Action: Patient has made observable behavior changes, which may not last if earlier stages are not addressed.\n * Maintenance: The behavior changes have persisted for several months.\n * Termination: The behavior changes are long-term and stable, relapse is unlikely (DiClemente, Bellino, and Neavins 1999).\n\nMotivational interviewing (MI) is a goal-directed, client-centered counseling approach intended to facilitate behavioral change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence. The assumption in MI is that ambivalent attitudes or lack of resolve is the primary obstacle to behavioral change, so that the examination and resolution of ambivalence becomes the key goal. MI has been applied to a wide range of problem behaviors related to alcohol and substance abuse as well as health promotion, medical treatment adherence, and mental health issues. Although many variations in technique exist, the MI counseling style generally includes the following elements (NREPP 2007):\n\n * Establishing rapport with the client and listening reflectively\n * Asking open-ended questions to explore the client's own motivations for change\n * Affirming the client's change-related statements and efforts\n * Eliciting recognition of the gap between current behavior and desired life goals\n * Asking permission before providing information or advice\n * Responding to resistance without direct confrontation\n * Encouraging the client's self-efficacy for change\n * Developing an action plan to which the client is willing to commit\n\nAdaptations of the MI counseling approach include a brief intervention for college-age youth visiting hospital emergency rooms after an alcohol-related event; a brief intervention for adult patients with histories of heavy drinking presenting to primary medical care settings for routine care; and a brief intervention for cocaine and heroin users presenting to urban walkin medical clinics. Community-based substance abuse treatment clinics have also incorporated the MI style approach for the intake process to improve treatment retention (NREPP 2007).\n\nMotivational enhancement therapy (MET) is an adaptation of MI that includes one or more client feedback sessions in which normative feedback is presented and discussed in an explicitly nonconfrontational manner. MET uses an empathic but directive approach in which the therapist provides feedback intended to strengthen and consolidate the client's commitment to change and promote a sense of self-efficacy. MET aims to elicit intrinsic motivation to change substance abuse behavior by resolving client ambivalence, evoking self-motivational statements and commitment to change, and rolling with resistance (responding in a neutral way to the client's resistance to change rather than contradicting or correcting the client) (NREPP 2007).\n\nMotivational enhancement interventions are not a form of psychosocial therapy per se, but instead are used to resolve client ambivalence, promote commitment to change, and set goals. The goal of motivational enhancement interventions is to improve treatment retention, treatment outcome, and client willingness to address the substance use problem.\n\nBrief Interventions\n\nUnlike traditional alcoholism treatment, which focuses on helping people who are alcohol dependent to achieve abstinence, brief interventions\u2014or short, one-on-one counseling sessions\u2014are ideally suited for people who drink in ways that are harmful or risky but who have not developed alcohol dependence. Also unlike traditional alcoholism treatment, brief interventions can be delivered in a matter of minutes and require minimal follow-up (NIAAA 2005).\n\nThe goals of brief interventions are also different from alcoholism treatment. Brief interventions generally strive to moderate a person's alcohol use to sensible levels and to eliminate hazardous drinking practices such as binge drinking, although abstinence may be encouraged if appropriate. Research also shows that problems associated with drinking begin at much lower levels of alcohol use than previously thought, making brief interventions a potentially useful approach for people engaged in a variety of problem drinking behaviors (Moyer and Finney 2004\/2005).\n\nThus, the rationale for reducing drinking or changing patterns of alcohol use is explained through data demonstrating a reduction in negative outcomes (medical problems, injuries, domestic violence, motor vehicle crashes, arrests, or damage to a developing fetus) for nondependent drinkers (NIAAA 2005).\n\nBrief interventions typically consist of one to four short counseling sessions with a trained interventionist such as a physician, psychologist, or social worker. Persons who receive brief interventions while being treated for other conditions have consistently shown greater reductions in alcohol use than comparable groups not receiving an intervention. People seeking treatment specifically for alcohol abuse appear to reduce their alcohol use about the same amount whether receiving one to four sessions or five or more sessions, suggesting that brief interventions can be effective in reducing drinking among people who do not have severe drinking problems requiring more intensive treatment (NIAAA 2005).\n\nThe appropriate intervention is influenced by factors such as the severity of the alcohol problem, the use of other drugs, or the co-occurrence of a medical or psychiatric problem. The choice of intervention is also based on the clinical setting, the clinician's skills and interest, and time constraints. A brief intervention usually includes personalized feedback and counseling based on patient risk for harmful drinking. Often, simply providing this feedback is enough to encourage those at risk to reduce their alcohol intake (Moyer and Finney 2004\/2005).\n\nSuccessful brief interventions share several elements that motivate the problem drinker to change his or her drinking, including an emphasis on personal responsibility for change, clear advice on change, a menu of alternative change options, empathy, and transmitting a sense of empowerment and optimism to the client (Bien, Miller, and Tonigan 1993).\n\nBrief interventions can be successfully performed on problem drinkers in a variety of settings, including primary care, the emergency room, prenatal care, the criminal justice setting, and the college campus (NIAAA 2005). Brief interventions have consistently been found effective in reducing alcohol consumption or achieving treatment referral of problem drinkers. Among persons who are problem drinkers but not alcoholic, brief interventions are more effective than no counseling, and often as effective as more extensive treatment. Another benefit is increased effectiveness of subsequent treatment (Bien, Miller, and Tonigan 1993). Research shows that these interventions appear to be cost-effective (Moyer and Finney 2004\/2005), but it should be emphasized that the long-term effectiveness of brief interventions may be limited (NIAAA 2004\/2005)\n\nNote:\n\nBrief interventions are not intended to help alcohol-dependent clients achieve abstinence, but instead are used with nondependent problem drinkers to reduce or prevent harm associated with their level of alcohol use. Brief interventions are effective in helping problem drinkers cut down or quit drinking, but the effect may not be long-lasting. Heavy alcohol abusers and problem drinkers with multiple consequences from drinking may not respond to this approach.\n\nOther Psychosocial Approaches\n\nConfrontational Counseling\n\nThe use of confrontation in alcohol- and drug-dependent clients has a long tradition, and confrontation is used to break down the psychological defenses in order to overcome denial (SCCMHA 2007). Confrontational counseling approaches emerged through a confluence of cultural factors in U.S. history that predated the development of methods for reliably evaluating the effects of such treatment. Confrontational communication approaches varied from frank feedback to profanity-laden indictments, screamed denunciations of character, challenges and ultimatums, intense argumentation, ridicule, and purposeful humiliation. Confrontation marked a dramatic break from earlier therapeutic traditions that were guided by the importance of neutral exploration, empathy, compassionate support, and positive regard for clients. Originally practiced within voluntary peer-based communities, confrontational approaches soon extended to authority-based professional relationships where the potential for abuse and harm was greatly increased.\n\nFour decades of research have not found a single clinical trial showing the effectiveness of confrontational counseling, whereas a number have documented harmful effects, particularly with more vulnerable populations. There are now numerous evidence-based alternatives to confrontational counseling, and clinical studies show that effective substance abuse counselors are those who practice with an empathic, supportive style. It is time to accept that the harsh confrontational practices of the past are ineffective, potentially harmful, and professionally inappropriate (White and Miller 2007).\n\nPsychodynamic Therapies\n\nPsychodynamic therapies for alcoholism focus on several interpsychic processes, including the subconscious processes that drive client behavior, to facilitate change in drinking. The goals of psychodynamic therapy are increased self-awareness and identification of how the past influences the present behavior (Kaufman 1994). However, cure from alcoholism and other substance addiction does not come through psychodynamic insight.\n\nIn a prospective study of Harvard men (Vaillant 1995), twenty-six alcoholics received a total of 5,000 hours of psychotherapy, which is an average of 200 hours for each man. Only one man recovered from alcoholism while in psychotherapy (Vaillant 2005). The few studies reporting positive outcomes were conducted in institutions excelling in psychotherapy, by highly trained psychiatrists and psychologists, and in patients with more severe psychopathology. Thus, even if the research revealed consistent positive results, such an approach is unlikely to be cost-effective (Kaufman 1994).\n\nHealth Realization\n\nHealth Realization (HR) addresses the nature of thought and how it influences experience. Students of HR are taught that they can change how they react to their circumstances by becoming aware that they are creating their own experience as they respond to their thoughts, and that problems stemming from thoughts can be countered by teaching the person to connect to his or her innate health and inner wisdom. With HR, all psychological phenomena are viewed as the manifestations of three operative principles (Pransky 2006; Mills and Spittle 2003; Mills 1995):\n\n * Mind as the universal energy common to all life, and the source of innate health and well-being\n * Consciousness as the ability to become aware\n * Thought as the power to think and create one's experience of reality\n\nAccording to the HR model, reality and circumstances are experienced through the continuous filter of one's thoughts, and this filter is what makes perception appear to be the truth. When thinking is changed, reality and one's reaction to events and circumstances change with it.\n\nAccording to HR, a person's ability to control thoughts is limited, and counselors using HR encourage their clients to consider the premise that reality at any point in time is determined by the process of thought. HR views alcoholism as a response to a lack of a sense of self-efficacy, and not the result of disease. It believes that alcoholism and alcohol abuse can be overcome by showing the client that the negative and stressful emotions which compel the addictive use of alcohol are the self-generated products of their own thoughts. HR asserts that these thoughts can be self-quieted to provide a pathway to well-being that is not reliant on external circumstances (Pransky 2006; Mills and Spittle 2003; Mills 1995).\n\nPublished results of investigations into the effectiveness of HR in treating alcoholism are very limited. A single study comparing the effectiveness of HR with the Twelve Step approach among women in a residential substance abuse treatment program suggests comparable reductions between the two approaches in substance use and criminal justice involvement, and improvements in psychological health (Banerjee et al. 2007).\n\nThere is scant evidence that psychodynamic therapy alone has any lasting effect on reducing drinking in alcohol-dependent patients. Additional studies on Health Realization show some positive results are needed to support its use with alcohol-dependent clients.\n\n# The Treatment Needs of Older Adults\n\nOlder adults with alcohol and other drug problems have specific medical, cognitive, and emotional treatment needs. Those who began drinking early in life are typically in worse health than later-onset drinkers and nondependent peers, have greater difficulty withdrawing from substances, require longer detoxification stays, and exhibit more severe emotional problems (Kraemer, Mayo-Smith, and Calkins 1997; Schonfeld and Dupree 1991). Compared to younger adults, older adults are at increased risk for cognitive and functional impairment during withdrawal (Kraemer, Mayo-Smith, and Calkins 1997). In addition, many older adults identify depression, grief, loneliness, and social pressure as common precursors to their drinking (Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\nA variety of treatment approaches work well for older adults, from brief interventions for at-risk drinkers to inpatient programs for those who are alcohol dependent (Blow and Barry 2000). Several treatment facilities around the country have designed elder-specific programming which includes a slower pace, accommodations for medical and ambulatory problems, supportive rather than confrontational approaches, and focus on specific issues such as grief, loneliness, boredom, and retirement (Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\nResearch data show older adults tend to do well in age-specific programming (Blow and Barry 2000; Kashner et al. 1992). One study of men found that those who were randomly assigned to receive age-specific programming were three times more likely to report abstinence at six months and two times more likely to report abstinence at twelve months compared to peers who received treatment as usual in a mixed-age setting (Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\nFactors found to improve outcomes among older adults include lower pre-treatment alcohol consumption levels, having a social group that disapproves of drinking, and seeking help from mental health professionals (Moos, Brennan, and Moos 1991). Treatment for alcohol problems and regular AA participation are also associated with abstinence among older adults (Chermack et al. 1996). One study found no relationship between age of onset and inpatient treatment outcomes (Blow and Barry 2000; Hazelden Dec. 2001).\n\nNote:\n\nOlder adults benefit from the same treatment approaches as younger adults, but also need a tailored programming approach that addresses issues such as medical and pharmacological concerns; grief, loneliness, and retirement; and potential impairment in cognition and ability to live independently. The pace should also be slower, confrontation should be avoided, and support should be increased.\n\n# Treatment Outcome and Prognosis\n\nThis section looks at the history of research in the addiction field, its outcomes, and its prognosis for treatment success. The history of testing treatment programs and collecting data to validate outcomes is long and continues to lead the industry toward more effective treatment models.\n\nThe History of Treatment Outcome Reporting\n\nThe reporting of addiction treatment outcomes has a long, problem-filled history. The first addiction treatment outcome study was conducted in 1874 by Dr. Joseph Turner, founder of the New York State Inebriate Asylum. Subsequent studies, some involving thousands of treated patients (Chamberlain 1891; Crothers 1893), became commonplace in the nineteenth century. The percentages of claimed cures declined as studies improved their methods, but honest reporting of these outcomes conflicted with business interests as new competitors (private addiction cure institutes, private sanatoria, and bottled home cures) entered the field claiming 90\u2013100% cure rates.\n\nThe addictions treatment field in the late nineteenth century was plagued by the inherent conflict between the need for objective data to advance scientific knowledge and improve treatment protocols and the need to claim high success rates to market services and raise funds. More than a century later, discrepancies remain between addiction treatment outcomes reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals and the outcomes claimed by treatment industry representatives, especially those of particular treatment programs (White and Godley 2005).\n\nEven today, it's not difficult to encounter treatment centers or addiction recovery programs that use deceptive promotion in their marketing approach. An obvious example of deception is when treatment centers promise a cure. Other examples of false and deceptive marketing include the use of these terms: guaranteed, not a disease, and AA doesn't work (BFICP 2007).\n\nClaims of success rates of 50\u201370% and higher for specific programs are not uncommon when these figures are communicated by treatment program representatives. The Internet is filled with treatment claims of 70\u2013100% success rates\u2014rates that far exceed those reported at scientific conferences and in the scientific literature.\n\nFor example, a 2001 review of the largest and most scientifically rigorous treatment studies published up to that point (Miller, Walters, and Bennett 2001) reported an average one-year continuous abstinence rate of 24%.\n\nThere are several possible reasons for this discrepancy. Treatment outcomes do vary among different patient subpopulations and addiction treatment programs, and even across addiction counselors (Wilbourne and Miller 2003; McLellan et al. 1988). And some programs simply have superior treatment services and more highly competent professionals delivering care, clients with better prognoses for recovery, or a combination of these factors. However, the main reason for these discrepancies is probably the quality of the study methods and procedures used to report patient outcome (White and Godley 2005).\n\nWhat Is Successful Recovery?\n\nThe definition of recovery has changed over time from a focus on what has been removed to what has been added to one's life. AA co-founder Bill Wilson coined the phrase \"emotional sobriety\" to describe a state of emotional health that far exceeds the achievement of not drinking, which he defined as \"real maturity... in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows and with God\" (Wilson 1958; White and Kurtz 2006).\n\nBecause severe and chronic alcohol abuse impacts many areas of life functioning, recovery from such a problem should be measured across multiple domains of recovery, including the relationship with the drug of choice and other substance(s), physical health, psychological and emotional health, family and relationship health, and lifestyle health (White 1996). Thus, the goal of recovery can be referred to as global health (White and Kurtz 2006), and recovery from alcohol or other drug problems can be defined as \"a process of change through which an individual achieves abstinence and improved health, wellness, and quality of life\" (CSAT 2007).\n\nA group of experts in the field of addictions met at the Betty Ford Center in order to further define successful recovery from alcoholism and substance dependence. The group's conclusions were published in 2007 (BFICP 2007) and include the following:\n\nRecovery from substance dependence is a voluntarily maintained lifestyle characterized by these elements:\n\n * Sobriety\u2014Abstinence from alcohol and all other nonprescribed drugs (including nicotine, although this is controversial)\n * Personal health\u2014Improved quality of personal life reflected by physical health, psychological health, and spirituality\n * Citizenship\u2014Improved quality of social functioning and independent living\n\nOther conclusions made by the panel of experts are as follows:\n\n * Recovery is not simply abstinence from alcohol or other drugs.\n * Personal health and citizenship are often achieved and maintained through peer support groups such as AA and practices consistent with the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.\n * Alcohol-dependent persons who take acamprosate or naltrexone as prescribed to reduce cravings for alcohol, but are abstinent from alcohol and all other nonprescribed drugs, meet the consensus definition of sobriety.\n\nRegarding timeframes of sobriety, the panel concluded the following:\n\n * Early sobriety = one month to one year\n * Sustained sobriety = one to five years\n * Stable sobriety = five years or more\n\nAn important point to make is that although many people recovering from alcohol and other drug dependence experience an improvement in many areas of life functioning with continued sobriety, early recovery can be marked by ongoing and substantial impairments in many life areas. Substantial levels of depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, guilt, and impaired social functioning can challenge one's recovery (White and Kurtz 2006). There are also patterns of \"high-bottom\" recovery among people who got sober before they suffered severe losses related to their alcohol use, and patterns of \"low-bottom\" recovery achieved by persons who endured the advanced stages of addiction and experienced severe personal and social disintegration and anguish before achieving stable recovery (\"High Bottom\" 1949; White and Kurtz 2006).\n\nThe Process Leading to Relapse\n\nJust as the definition of successful recovery has been clarified over the last several decades, counselors working with recovering alcohol- and other drug-addicted clients have long observed a pattern of thinking and behavior that seems to ultimately lead to a relapse. This pattern was clarified and defined by Terence Gorski and Merlene Miller in 1982 as an unfolding eleven-step process. The eleven steps composing the relapse process include the following (Gorski and Miller 1982):\n\n 1. Change in Attitude\u2014Participating in a recovery program becomes viewed as unimportant, and is accompanied by a return to \"stinking thinking,\" or unhealthy or addictive thinking. The person begins to slide in his or her effort at working a program of recovery, and may begin to feel something is wrong but can't identify the exact cause.\n 2. Elevated Stress\u2014Stress levels increase, due to either a major change in circumstances or just little things that keep building up. There is a risk of overreacting to these situations, and the development of mood swings or exaggerated positive or negative feelings represents a potentially serious concern.\n 3. Reactivation of Denial\u2014This is not denial over having an alcohol or other drug problem, but denial over being affected by the stress. The person may try to convince him- or herself that everything is okay. Fear and worry appear, which may be dismissed, and the person stops sharing those feelings with others.\n 4. Recurrence of Post-acute Withdrawal Symptoms\u2014Anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, and memory loss can return during times of stress, and are dangerous because of the temptation to self-medicate with alcohol or other drugs.\n 5. Behavior Change\u2014The person changes his or her daily routine developed in early sobriety that helped replace addictive behaviors with healthy alternatives, and begins to avoid situations that might require an honest evaluation of their behavior. Poor judgment and problems from impulsive behavior may begin occurring.\n 6. Social Breakdown\u2014Discomfort around others may begin, with avoidance of sober friends and support group meetings leading to social isolation.\n 7. Loss of Structure\u2014The daily routine or schedule developed in early sobriety is now abandoned, and is replaced by sleeping late, ignoring personal hygiene, or skipping meals. Constructive planning stops, and overreaction occurs when plans don't work out.\n 8. Loss of Judgment\u2014The person begins to have trouble making decisions, or makes unhealthy decisions, and may experience difficulty in managing thoughts and emotions. Thinking clearly may become difficult, confusion occurs easily, and the person may feel overwhelmed for no apparent reason, unable to relax, or easily annoyed and angered.\n 9. Loss of Control\u2014Irrational decisions are made, which seem impossible to interrupt or alter. Supportive persons are cut off, and the person begins thinking of returning to social drinking or recreational drug use and controlling it. The person may begin to believe there is no hope and loses confidence in his or her ability to manage life.\n 10. Loss of Options\u2014The person begins to limit available options as he or she stops attendance of all AA meetings and appointments with addiction professionals, and discontinues any medication treatments. The person may feel loneliness, frustration, anger, resentment, and tension, or feel helpless and desperate. He or she may conclude there are only three ways out: insanity, suicide, or self-medication with alcohol or other drugs.\n 11. Relapse\u2014Social or short-term alcohol or other drug use is attempted, but the results are disappointing and shame and guilt are immediately experienced. Loss of control over alcohol or other drug use spirals further out of control, causing increasing problems with relationships, employment, money, and mental and physical health.\n\nThe validity of this model of relapse is supported by the results of a study published in 2000 by Miller and Harris. In their study, thirty-seven questions that paralleled the steps toward relapse, as described above, were included in a test. The test was then given to alcoholic patients every two months throughout the first year of treatment completion. The authors found that a high score on this test was a strong predictor of relapse to drinking. Among the individual test items, the ones with the highest association with the total score, and therefore with risk of relapse, included the following:\n\n * I have many problems in my life.\n * I feel blue, down, listless, or depressed.\n * I have trouble concentrating and prefer to dream about how things could be.\n * Things don't work out well for me.\n * I feel confused.\n * I get irritated or annoyed with my friends.\n * I feel angry or frustrated.\n * I feel trapped and stuck, like there is no way out.\n * I have long periods of serious depression.\n * I feel like things are so bad that I might as well drink.\n * I feel sorry for myself.\n * I feel angry at the world in general.\n\nTaken together, these test items reflect a general demoralization, depression, anxiety, and anger, and a feeling that life lacks purpose (Miller and Harris 2000).\n\nAnother interesting finding came from evaluating the test items that were most associated with a low overall score, and therefore with the lowest risk of relapse. The attributes represented by these test items included a sense of meaning in life, honesty, hope, low levels of emotional negativity, stable eating and sleeping patterns, clear thinking, absence of self-pity, and a sense of peace and stability. Alcoholics Anonymous has the viewpoint that more than just abstinence is required for sobriety, and from this perspective, low scores on this scale may be viewed as a measure of the quality of sobriety (Miller and Harris 2000).\n\nNote:\n\nSuccessful recovery involves more than just abstinence from alcohol and other drugs of abuse. It also involves improving one's emotional well-being, relationships and family health, and lifestyle health. The use of medication to reduce alcohol cravings such as naltrexone or acamprosate is not a contradiction to successful recovery, if the person has achieved abstinence and an improved quality of life.\n\n# What Does the Research Show on Treatment Outcome?\n\nTreatment has helped thousands of people obtain long-term abstinence and improved quality of life. A review of alcoholism treatment outcome studies arrived at three major conclusions:\n\n 1. The remission (persons no longer meeting the DSM-IV criteria for a substance use disorder following treatment) average is about one-third of those treated.\n 2. Substance use (measured by days of use and quantity used) decreased by an average of 87% following treatment.\n 3. Substance-related problems decreased by an average of 60% following treatment (Miller, Walters, and Bennett 2001).\n\nSome patients do not attain total abstinence but achieve partial recovery, which means that they have fewer alcohol-related problems, improvement in health and social functioning, and significant reductions in the costs and hazards they pose to the larger community (Zweben 1996). These are important findings because patients not achieving total abstinence following treatment have traditionally been discounted, with treatment being regarded as ineffective or failed (Miller, Walters, and Bennett 2001).\n\nMany studies (Hoffmann and Harrison 1991; Higgins et al. 1991; Hoffmann, Harrison, and Belille 1983) show a strong correlation between high abstinence rates and compliance with aftercare and\/or participation in AA. These results help confirm that addiction needs to be treated as a chronic illness through long-term involvement in a recovery program such as AA.\n\nMcLellan et al. (1993) and other researchers (Institute of Medicine 1990; Gerstein and Harwood 1990; Morgenstern and McCrady 1992) have found significant differences in outcomes between different types of treatment programs, with the better six-month outcomes related to greater quantity and range of services delivered. Patient factors such as more severe substance dependence, poorer social and economic supports, and worse psychiatric problems are generally related to poorer outcomes after treatment (Institute of Medicine 1990; Gerstein and Harwood 1990; Hazelden June 1998).\n\nMorgenstern and McCrady (1992) have studied the processes that promote good outcomes, and point to the trend of integrating behavioral treatment with traditional Twelve Step treatment. In traditional Twelve Step alcohol and other drug treatment, greater commitment to AA and belief in a Higher Power have been shown to predict reduced severity of relapse among those who do relapse (Morgenstern et al. 1996; Hazelden June 1998).\n\nA review of cost-benefit, or cost-offset, studies of addiction treatment by Langenbucher et al. (1993) found that treatment is not a costly add-on to health care, but instead is an important cost-saving component. Other cost-benefit analyses support this conclusion (Holder and Hallan 1986; Jones and Vischi 1979; Finigan 1996), including one that found for each dollar invested in treatment in California, taxpayers saved $7 in reduced health and social costs (Gerstein and Johnson 1994; Hazelden June 1998).\n\nNote:\n\nAlthough treatment is effective in helping some patients achieve abstinence, abstinence rates are significantly higher among those who become involved in AA and\/or aftercare following treatment. Some patients even benefit from treatment without achieving complete abstinence. Alcoholism treatment saves taxpayer money in the long run. The importance of long-term involvement in a recovery program following treatment reflects the chronic, relapsing nature of alcohol dependence.\n\n# Patient Outcomes of Minnesota Model Treatment\n\nEarlier efforts by Hazelden to evaluate patient outcomes consisted of data obtained from Hazelden alumni. One example was the results that were published by Laundergan in 1982. This study attempted to evaluate the outcome of 3,638 patients discharged during the mid-1970s. Only 52% of patients were reachable twelve months after treatment; of these, 50% reported continuous abstinence in the year following treatment, and 17.6% reported improved status. Another study of 1,531 patients published in 1985 (Gilmore 1985) found that 89% reported either abstinence or reduced alcohol use one year after treatment. And Higgins et al. (1991) found that among 1,655 patients, 66% reported being abstinent at both the six-month and one-year follow-ups (Slaymaker and Sheehan 2008).\n\nThese studies were helpful, but the conclusions drawn from their results were limited by problems with the nature of the study design. Refining the research methods used by earlier investigators, Stinchfield and Owen (1998) prospectively followed a group of 1,083 Hazelden patients at one, six, and twelve months following treatment, and used friends or relatives to verify the information given them by the subjects. At one year following treatment, 53% of this patient group reported continuous abstinence and an additional 35% reported substantially reduced alcohol and other drug use (Slaymaker and Sheehan 2008).\n\nAdditional studies became published with the increasingly widespread use of the Minnesota Model across the U.S. Hoffman and Harrison (1991) evaluated the outcomes of more than 3,000 patients entering Minnesota Model programs across the country during the mid-1980s. They found that roughly two-thirds reported abstinence in the year following treatment. The response rates were low, which led the authors to estimate that the actual one-year abstinence rate was 40%.\n\nA study published in 1993 by McLellan et al. obtained high response rates (94%) and included urine and breath tests for verification. Of the 198 alcohol- and\/or cocaine-dependent men who completed a Twelve Step inpatient or outpatient program, 59% were abstinent from alcohol and 84% were abstinent from drugs at six-month follow-up. Psychosocial functioning was also improved from pre- to post-testing (Slaymaker and Sheehan 2008).\n\nNote:\n\nEvaluation of the Minnesota Model has found abstinence rates around 50% one year after treatment, with many more patients reducing their level of drinking and\/or other drug use. Several issues make it difficult to obtain accurate figures of treatment outcome. These include how to report the treatment outcomes of patients who are unable to be reached, and the reliance on patient self-report without independent verification.\n\nSpecific treatment approaches and treatment centers for alcoholism have a long history of inflating their reported success rates, and any treatment that is promoted as a cure is using deceptive advertising. There are many differences in treatment outcome. These stem from differences in the level of skill of staff, the treatment approach used, and the makeup of the population being treated.\n\n# CHAPTER 8\n\n# Meditation and Recovery from Alcoholism\n\nStanislav Grof, a world-renowned psychiatrist and one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology, stated that addiction is a manifestation of a profound spiritual yearning, the \"thirst for wholeness.\" Many people develop alcohol or other drug addictions in order to escape the pain of this unfulfilled desire and to fill the emptiness. Essentially, the real need of alcoholics and addicts is for wholeness, healing of the wounded psyche, and transcendence (Grof and Grof 1993).\n\nMeditation has the potential to fulfill this need for the recovering alcohol- or other drug-dependent person. Mindfulness meditation in particular can provide the means to live more fully in the present, act with deliberation instead of reacting on impulse, and to develop a more inclusive universal awareness and a greater connection with the God of one's understanding. The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous realized the importance of meditation, along with prayer, and included both practices in their program of recovery.\n\n# Background\n\nThe word meditation is derived from the Latin meditari, which means \"to engage in contemplation or reflection\" (Ospina et al. 2007), and meditation has been a spiritual and healing practice in some regions of the world for more than 5,000 years (Walters 2002). Many spiritual and religious traditions incorporate meditative practices as a key access point to the Divine (Linehan 1993; Appel and Kim-Appel 2009).\n\nFor example, there are many practices within Christianity that represent forms of meditation or mindfulness. Christian meditation is often expressed in the form of prayer. Monastic customs often seek a turn inward and involve practices of intense prayer, rosary, and adoration of the Eucharist. The Eastern Orthodoxy tradition of the hesychast, involving the practice of focusing one's attention on an individual object, represents a direct form of meditation or mindfulness. Philokalia is considered a form of meditation of the heart, which leads toward theosis, the goal of which is to ignore the senses and achieve an inner stillness (Hierotheos 1998). Similar to Christianity, Judaism encompasses several meditative practices. In the Tannach (the Hebrew Bible), meditation was a key practice of the prophets (Ribner 1998). Kabbalah is also inherently a meditative field of religious or mystical study.\n\nLikewise, meditation is an important element of Islam and Muslim mystical traditions, especially Sufism. The Muslim prophet Muhammad reportedly spent long periods in contemplation and meditation, and during one such period received revelations that formed the Holy Qur'an (Nigosian 2004). Islamic meditation includes the concepts of tafakkur and tadabbur, which literally mean \"reflection upon the universe\" (Appel and Kim-Appel 2009).\n\nMany contemplative religious and spiritual traditions speak of loving-kindness as the wish of happiness for others, and of compassion as the wish to relieve others' suffering. To cultivate these qualities, practitioners in a number of traditions have developed specific meditative practices that are believed essential in counteracting self-centered tendencies so that selfless altruistic behaviors might arise more frequently and spontaneously than selfish interests. These techniques include concentration exercises that train attention, behavioral training such as the practice of generosity, cognitive strategies that include reflection on the fleeting nature of the self, and empathic strategies such as shifting perspectives from self-oriented to other-oriented, or the visualization of the suffering of others (Gethin 1998; Nuchols 2006; Lutz et al. 2008).\n\nThe beneficial effects of meditation in helping alcoholics achieve sobriety first became known to the public with the publication of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book) in 1939. The practice of meditation, along with prayer, was considered so important to recovery from alcoholism by the founders of AA that it was incorporated into Step Eleven of the Twelve Steps, which reads: \"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.\"\n\nOne of the reasons that meditation is an appealing element of a recovery program relates to the motivation to use alcohol or other drugs by persons with chronic anxiety, upsetting trauma memories, and other psychiatric conditions. Termed self-medication, alcohol and other drugs are used to reduce symptoms and distress, which reflect the power of negative reinforcement as a motivation for substance abuse. From this perspective, meditation may serve as a useful alternative to alcohol use by producing some of the same positive benefits such as tension relief and relaxation (Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nMeditation and mindfulness may also serve as an intervention for alcohol or other drug cravings. The heightened state of present-focused awareness may counteract the conditioned automatic response to use alcohol during the experience of cravings and urges. With practice, meditative awareness may become a learned response to the urge itself, serving to pause and delay the impulse to act on the urge. Meditation can cultivate a greater understanding of the transience of all experience and an acceptance of one's current condition, including tension or craving. This is contrary to the thinking of a person in an addicted state, where there is often an inability to accept impermanence and a desire to alter one's current experience (Marlatt 1994; Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nThe greater capacity for awareness and acceptance of one's immediate experience that comes with meditation may also reduce the risk for relapse in several ways. Some consider alcohol abuse as a form of experiential avoidance, or the unwillingness to remain in contact with one's experience (Hayes et al. 1996), a trait shared with other forms of psychiatric illness (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 1999). Meditation can counter this experiential avoidance by encouraging the direct, nonjudgmental, moment-to-moment contact with one's experiences, without attempting to alter, manipulate, or judge the experience (Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nTwo broad categories of meditation practices have been used with alcohol- and substance-abusing patients: relaxation or mantra meditation (Transcendental Meditation and Relaxation Response), and mindfulness meditation (vipassana, Zen Buddhist meditation, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention) (Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nThese meditative techniques can also be grouped according to the dominant attentional style, with relaxation\/mantra meditations using a more concentrative method and mindfulness meditations using a more diffuse approach (Dakwar and Levin 2009). Although elements of Hindu and Buddhist meditation practices have been removed from their broader spiritual context and adapted for clinical use, persons in recovery from alcohol or other drug dependence are likely to achieve greater benefit when meditation is accompanied by the traditional spiritual component (Dakwar and Levin 2009).\n\n# Relaxation and Mantra Meditations\n\nTwo forms of meditation discussed briefly here provide a more traditional mantra approach to meditation practices.\n\nTranscendental Meditation\n\nTranscendental Meditation (TM) is a technique derived from the Vedic tradition of India that was described in the writings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the nature of transcendental consciousness. TM strives to achieve a meditative state in which the repetition of a mantra no longer consciously occurs and instead the mind is quiet and without thought. During the practice of TM, the ordinary thinking process is said to be transcended (or gone beyond) as the awareness gradually settles down and is eventually freed of all mental content, remaining silently awake within itself, and producing a state of restful alertness. These periods, referred to as pure consciousness or transcendental consciousness, are said to be characterized by the experience of perfect stillness, rest, stability, and order, and by a complete absence of mental boundaries (Alexander 1994; Farrow and Hebert 1982; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nThe TM meditation state is achieved by the repetition of a mantra. The mantra is a meaningless sound, typically a spiritual word derived from Hindu philosophy, and the meditator silently repeats the mantra during two twenty-minute periods daily with eyes closed. If the practitioner becomes distracted by thoughts or feelings during the meditation period, instruction is given to gently return one's attention to the mantra (Marlatt and Chawla 2007). No breath control procedures are used.\n\nRelaxation Response Meditation\n\nSympathetic nervous system hyperactivity is associated with the fight-or-flight response that accompanies stress, and includes elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate. The relaxation response (RR) refers to the self-induced calming of sympathetic nervous system activity. This response was believed to be common to many ancient meditation practices, which were integrated into a single technique with RR meditation. With RR, the individual is instructed to assume a comfortable position, close the eyes, and relax the muscles beginning at the feet and progressing upward to the scalp. Once relaxation is achieved, the meditator is instructed to breathe through the nose, focus on the breath, and to inhale and exhale while silently saying the word one with each exhalation. Should distracting thoughts occur, an attempt is made to ignore them and focus on the mantra; thus, the mantra is linked with the breath. Similar to TM, this repetition of a sound, word, or phrase is considered essential to RR meditation. When the practice is completed, the meditator sits quietly for several minutes with eyes closed and then with eyes open (Benson 1983; Keable 1985; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\n# Mindfulness Meditations\n\nMindfulness approaches are not considered relaxation or mood management techniques, and differ from mantra or relaxation meditation in several ways. Although a focus on breath or bodily sensations is common to both, mindfulness meditation in contrast to mantra meditations teaches an attitude of acceptance toward the distracting thoughts and emotions that may emerge when one is still.\n\nEven when the experience is unpleasant, one is taught to observe or investigate the experience instead of using avoidance or suppression to dispel it. The attitude of acceptance of an intense or unpleasant emotion or thought does not mean a passive resignation, but instead refers to being fully present and not preoccupied when such an event occurs. The process of mindfulness meditation involves the interplay of focusing on an object, acknowledging and accepting distraction, and gently returning the attention to breathing. In this process, the person learns not to take emotions and thoughts literally as facts but instead as transient mental events. In this way, mindfulness meditation transforms how one relates to dysfunctional thoughts and negative or unpleasant emotions instead of changing or eliminating the uncomfortable state. This type of responding has been referred to as taking a decentered perspective and as cognitive distancing (Breslin, Zack, and McMain 2002; Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 1999; Teasdale, Segal, and Williams 1995).\n\nMany persons recovering from alcohol use disorders attempt to suppress cravings, which can paradoxically serve to increase intrusive, automatic alcohol-related thoughts (Palfai et al. 1997), dysphoria, and physiological stress (Wenzlaff and Wegner 2000). Larimer, Palmer, and Marlatt (1999) observed that mindfulness involves the acceptance of the present moment, whereas addiction involves the repeated desire to avoid the present moment, which contributes to the urge to use.\n\nAn example of how mindfulness meditation can be used to prevent relapse is referred to as urge surfing (Marlatt 2002). In this procedure, the meditator is taught to visualize the intense craving as an ocean wave that begins as a small wavelet and gradually increases in magnitude to culminate as a large cresting wave.\n\nWith instruction to become aware of one's breath as a surfboard, the client is given the goal of surfing the urge by allowing it to first rise up and decline without being wiped out by giving in to the urge. Clients are taught that most urges are conditioned learned responses that are triggered by environmental cues and emotional reactivity. Similar to an ocean wave, the conditioned response grows in intensity until it reaches a peak level of craving. By successfully surfing the urge, the addictive conditioning is weakened and self-efficacy and acceptance is developed and strengthened. This process is consistent with the approach of relapse prevention therapy, which emphasizes the importance of developing alternative coping strategies (Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nMindfulness has been described as a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experience, and as a combination of the self-regulation of attention with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance toward one's experiences. Mindfulness meditation is the core practice of vipassana meditation, and various meditation techniques originating in Buddhist spiritual practices have been developed to evoke mindfulness.\n\nOnce learned, mindfulness increases the chances that activities or events will expand the perspective and understanding of oneself. In a state of mindfulness, thoughts and feelings are observed on par with objects of sensory awareness, and by breaking the pattern of reacting in an automatic, habitual way, mindfulness allows one to develop a response to situations that is reflective and not impulsive (Bishop et al. 2004; Salmon et al. 2004; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nOver the last two decades, mindfulness has gained wide acceptance in the mental health and addiction recovery fields, and is being used to help treat stress, anxiety, depression, and personality disorders (Kabat-Zinn et al. 1992; Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 1999; Fields 2009). For instance, Marsha Linehan (1993) integrates mindfulness practices in her Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for the treatment of borderline personality disorder.\n\nHere are the core features of mindfulness meditation (Fields 2009):\n\n * Develops a broader awareness of the present moment\n * Develops a curious, nonjudgmental acceptance of one's moment-to-moment experiences\n * Develops an awareness of the transient nature of internal experience, allows one to let go of the need to control what comes next\n * Frees one from rigid attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors, and reduces reactivity\n * Cultivates the ability to let go of a desired outcome to more easily tolerate pain, without the need to avoid or fix it\n\nFollowing are four meditative practices briefly discussed.\n\nVipassana\n\nVipassana, or insight meditation, is the oldest of the Buddhist meditation techniques that also include Zen (Soto and Rinzai schools) and Tibetan Tantra, and is believed to be the form of meditation practiced by Gautama the Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. The Pali term vipassana is not directly translatable to English, but roughly means \"looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct, and piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing\" (Gunaratana 1993; Ahir 1999; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nBuddhist teachings, referred to as dharma, make several references to addiction, and offer considerable insight into the basic nature of addiction, what contributes to the development of addictive behavior, and how meditation can be used as a method of transcending a wide variety of addiction problems (Marlatt 2002).\n\nBuddhism describes addiction as being a false refuge\u2014a delusional place where alcohol or other drugs are used in an attempt to hide and escape from being present and aware. Buddhism also describes addiction in the context of grasping, resisting, and delusions. The grasping describes the craving, obsession, and compulsion to use alcohol or other drugs, and the accompanying addiction-related behaviors. Buddhist literature describes addiction as a problem related to ego-attachment, and emphasizes craving or grasping as the major motivational dynamic (Fields 2009).\n\nGrasping is described in the three Cs in the functional definition of alcohol and other drug addiction\u2014compulsion and obsession, inability to control, and continued use despite negative consequences. Resisting represents the pushing away, the isolation, the shutting down of normal human pleasures and displeasures, and the withdrawal from connection with others. Resistance is demonstrated through denial and delusion, and rejecting advice, help, and direction from others. The delusion component of addiction relates to how addicts deceive themselves from accepting suffering as part of their lives. In contrast, Buddhism strives to help the meditator become more aware and present by overcoming his or her deceptions (Fields 2009).\n\nThe goal of vipassana is the understanding of the three characteristics of nature, which are impermanence (anicca), sufferings (dhuka), and nonexistence (anatta). Vipassana meditation helps its practitioners to become more highly attuned to their emotional states, to increase their awareness of the flow of their life experience, and to become more sensitive and more receptive to their perceptions and thoughts without becoming caught up in them. Vipassana meditation also teaches practitioners how to scrutinize their perceptual processes, to watch thoughts arise, and to react with calm detachment and clarity. This reduces impulsive reaction, and increases the capacity of deliberate action (Gunaratana 1993; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nThe cultivation of several attitudes is expected of practitioners of vipassana meditation. These are (1) don't expect anything; (2) don't strain; (3) don't rush; (4) observe experience mindfully, that is, don't cling to or reject anything; (5) loosen up and relax; (6) accept all experiences that you have; (7) be gentle with yourself and accept who you are; (8) question everything; (9) view all problems as challenges; (10) avoid deliberation; and (11) focus on similarities rather than differences (Gunaratana 1993; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nThe practice of vipassana meditation involves being in a seated position when focusing on the breath; otherwise, no specific posture is required and the meditator may sit, stand, walk, or lie down. Although practitioners of vipassana meditation were traditionally taught to not change a static position until the meditation has ended, Western teachers often allow students to move, though mindfully, to avoid discomfort from being in the same position for too long. The eyes are closed (Gunaratana 1993; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nThere are four focal points of attention and awareness during vipassana meditation: body, emotions and feelings, thoughts, and mental processes. By focusing attention on the breath, novices attain a degree of shallow concentration, which differs from the deep absorption or pure concentration with mantra meditations. The focus of attention gradually shifts to the rims of the nostrils, to the feeling of the breath going in and out. When attention wanders from the breath, the meditator brings it back and anchors it there. The meditator notices the feeling of inhaling and exhaling and ignores the details of the experience. The movement of the abdominal wall while inhaling and exhaling may also be used as a focus of attention (Gunaratana 1993; Ahir 1999; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nThe body scan is the primary technique for focusing on bodily sensations. Beginning with the top of the head, the practitioner observes the sensations as if for the first time, and then scans the scalp, the back of the head, and the face. When visualizations of the body distract the meditator, the thoughts are simply directed back to the sensations. The focus of attention is moved continuously over the body, moving down the neck, to the shoulders, arms, hands, trunk, legs, and feet. Throughout the entire scan, an attitude of nonanticipation and acceptance is maintained (Glickman 2002; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nMindfulness can be practiced during any activity and practitioners are encouraged to practice being mindful and fully aware during other activities such as walking, stretching, and eating (Ahir 1999).\n\nMany practitioners have described vipassana meditation as a profound religious practice; however, no particular spiritual or philosophical system is required for involvement in vipassana meditation (Gunaratana 1993).\n\nZen Buddhist Meditation\n\nZen Buddhist meditation, also called Zazen, is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that uses meditation techniques originating in India several thousand years ago that were introduced to Japan from China in 1191 A.D. (Sogen 2001). Zen Buddhist meditation is typically divided into the Rinzai and Soto schools. A fundamental aspect of the practice of Zen is harmony of the body, breath, and mind, and physical preparation for the practice of Zen meditation traditionally involves eating nutritious food in modest portions (Sogen 2001; Kit 2001; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nPosture is greatly emphasized in Zen meditation, with traditional forms performed while seated on a cushion in either the full-lotus or half-lotus position. Breathing is active, and after the practitioner has learned to focus on breath by counting, counting is omitted and meditators practice shikantaza, which means \"nothing but precisely sitting.\" Through practice, the frequency of breathing is reduced to around three to six breaths per minute, and the frequency of breathing is counted by either counting the cycles of inhalation and exhalation, inhalations only, or exhalations only. Attention can also be focused on a koan, which is a specific riddle that is unsolvable by logical analysis. Some koans have become famous in the West, such as, \"What is the sound of one hand clapping?\"\n\nHowever, most beginners often silently repeat the sound \"mu\" while counting. Many additional koans can be introduced over several years as the meditator becomes more skilled. The silent repetition allows the meditator to become fully absorbed in the koan, and an essential aspect of the meditation is the concentration of the mind on the counting or on the koan, and not on respiration itself. The meditator sits, aware only of the present moment, and no attempt is made to direct or focus the mind on a single idea or experience (Thomson 2000; Sogen 2001; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nAt a spiritual level, Zen is considered the constant participation of all beings in the reality of each being, with the meditation based on the compassionate desire to save all living beings by means of calming the mind. This belief is not essential to practice, and only the wish to save all sentient beings and the strength to be disciplined in practice are necessary (Thomson 2000; Sogen 2001; Ospina et al. 2007).\n\nMindfulness-Based Stress Reduction\n\nMindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a standardized meditation program created in 1979 out of the desire to integrate Buddhist mindfulness meditation with contemporary clinical and psychological practice. The foundation of MBSR is the cultivation of mindfulness, and the mindfulness component includes a sitting meditation, a body scan, and Hathayoga. Patients are also taught diaphragmatic breathing, coping strategies and assertiveness, and receive education on stress (Greene 2004).\n\nThe foundation for the practice of MBSR is the cultivation of seven attitudes:\n\n 1. Nonjudgment\u2014becoming an impartial witness to your own experience\n 2. Patience\u2014allowing one's experiences to unfold in their own time\n 3. Beginner's mind\u2014a willingness to see everything as if for the first time\n 4. Trust\u2014in one's own intuition and authority, and being oneself\n 5. Nonstriving\u2014having no goal other than meditation itself\n 6. Acceptance\u2014of things as they actually are in the present moment\n 7. Free thinking\u2014not censoring one's thoughts and allowing them to come and go\n\nA high level of motivation and perseverance is considered essential to developing a strong meditation practice and a high degree of mindfulness. These attitudes are cultivated consciously during each meditation session. As with other mindfulness practices, whenever attention wanders from the breath, the practitioner will simply notice the distracting thought and then let it go as attention is returned to the breath. This process is repeated each time that attention wanders from the breath. In informal practice, practitioners are reminded to become mindful of their breath to help induce a state of physical relaxation, emotional calm, and insight (KabatZinn 1990; Chiesa and Serretti 2009).\n\nThe body scan is the first formal mindfulness technique that meditators do for a prolonged period, and is practiced intensively for the first four weeks of the program. Body scanning involves lying on the back and moving the mind through the different regions of the body, starting with the toes of the left foot and moving slowly upwards to the top of the head. Scanning is done in silence and stillness (Kabat-Zinn 1990).\n\nThe second formal meditation technique used in the MBSR program is mindful Hatha yoga. This consists of slow and gentle stretching and strengthening exercises, along with mindfulness of breathing and of the sensations that arise as the practitioner assumes various postures (KabatZinn 1990).\n\nDuring sitting meditation, the attention is focused on the inhalation and exhalation of the breath or on the rising and falling of the abdomen. When the mind becomes distracted by other thoughts, the attention is gently but firmly returned to the breath or abdomen. During the body scan, attention is focused on the bodily sensations. When the mind wanders, attention is brought back to the part of the body that was the focus of awareness (Kabat-Zinn 1990).\n\nMindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention\n\nMindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) is an eight-week mind-body approach created specifically for people recovering from substance abuse and addiction that merges G. Alan Marlatt's Relapse Prevention Therapy with Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Marlatt, Bowen, and Chawla 2010). MBRP is offered only to persons with at least thirty days of sobriety. Each class teaches mindfulness meditation, yoga, or chi gong, along with cognitive-behavioral strategies, to maintain and reinforce sobriety. Participants are expected to perform daily home practice throughout the eight-week period. The philosophy of MBRP is based on the qualities of authenticity, unconditional acceptance, empathy, humor, and present-moment experience, through which both teacher and student experience the group process and are changed as a result.\n\nThe MBRP program is structured according to the following parameters:\n\nSession 1: | Automatic Pilot and Craving \n---|--- \nTheme: | Introduce the idea of automatic pilot \nSession 2: | Triggers, Thoughts, Emotions, and Cravings \nTheme: | Observe thoughts, see how they affect emotions and \n| behavior \nSession 3: | Mindfulness in Everyday Life \nTheme: | Increase awareness during everyday activities \nSession 4: | Staying Present and Aware in High-Risk Situations \n---|--- \nTheme: | Recognize temptations to seek and use alcohol or \n| other drugs \nSession 5: | Balancing Acceptance and Change \nTheme: | Accept our experience, acting with awareness \nSession 6: | Thoughts Are Not Facts \nTheme: | Experience thoughts as merely thoughts, even when \n| they feel like the truth \nSession 7: | How Can I Best Take Care of Myself? \nTheme: | Build support networks and coping cards \nSession 8: | Balanced Living and Using What Has Been Learned \nTheme: | Balance and the ability to manage different aspects \n| of one's life\n\n# How Meditation Works\n\nA growing body of neuroscience research is showing that meditation produces changes in the function and structure of brain regions that are directly related to the positive benefits reported by practitioners. Some studies have used brain imaging technologies to compare the brains of persons actively meditating with those of persons who were nonmeditators, while other studies compared the brains of persons who were long-term meditators with those of either meditation novices or nonmeditators. The brain imaging research typically used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Most of this research used mindfulness meditation techniques. None of these brain imaging studies enrolled alcoholic-dependent participants. However, it seems reasonable that the same changes in brain structure and function, and the corresponding positive changes in thinking, emotion, and perception reported by the nonalcoholics, apply to recovering alcoholics as well. Studies reporting the results of meditation in recovering alcoholic patients will be discussed last.\n\nChanges in Brain Function\n\nSeveral studies have examined the short-term effects of meditation by looking at changes in brain function in persons actively meditating. These studies found that meditation produced changes in brain function associated with the following areas of thought, emotion, behavior, and perception:\n\nImpulsivity\n\nImpulsivity has been defined as the \"decreased sensitivity to negative consequences of behavior; rapid, unplanned reactions to stimuli before complete processing of information; and a disregard for long-term consequences\" (Moeller et al. 2001). As discussed earlier, impulsiveness is often a component of alcohol and other drug dependence, and can both precede and result from the development of addiction. The interface between impulsivity and emotion is a particularly important concern with alcohol- and other drug-dependent persons, and can manifest as emotional reactivity and poor emotional regulation (the capacity to control emotional experiences) (Stratton 2006). The area of the brain referred to as the prefrontal cortex has been called the supervisory management system of the brain, and impulsivity is a reflection of functional impairment in the prefrontal cortex.\n\nMindfulness has been described as \"a way to pay attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally\" (Kabat-Zinn 1992).\n\nAs mindfulness is cultivated, it displaces impulsive thought and behavior through the ability to maintain attention on the present moment, and with the qualities of acceptance, openness, and curiosity (Stratton 2006).\n\nMeditation has been found to enhance the blood flow, and thus to increase the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, thalamus, and cingulate gyrus. Together, these brain areas are responsible for impulse control, thinking and planning, emotion, and goal-directed concentration and planning (Holzel et al. 2007; Lazar et al. 2000; Hamer 2004).\n\nEmotional Regulation and Distress Reduction\n\nEmotional regulation is also called affect regulation and emotional self-regulation. It is a term used (1) to describe one's ability to calm oneself when emotionally upset, (2) to control one's thought reactions to an unsettling event, and (3) to control or inhibit emotion-based behavior.\n\nEmotional dysregulation describes an individual who does not respond to a person, place, thing, or event in a manner that would generally be considered within the normal range of emotions. Examples of poor emotional regulation\/emotional dysregulation include rage over a broken fingernail, screaming or breaking something when frustrated, or frantically clinging to a romantic partner over the thought of being alone. The capacity for emotional regulation, as well as impulse control, is also strongly influenced by the integrity of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex not only puts the brakes on the impulse to act on intense emotion, but also projects pathways of neurons into the more primitive brain regions that produce the intense emotions of anger and fear. These neurons serve to dampen the intensity of emotions so they are not experienced as overpowering.\n\nThe use of meditation to reduce emotional distress is consistent with the concept of mindfulness meditation that involves a letting go of upsetting emotional or mental thought content (Baer et al. 2006). Training in mindfulness meditation can disrupt the ingrained, maladaptive, and automatic emotional reactions to situations. Davidson and colleagues (2003) found a significant increase in the activation of the left-sided anterior frontal lobe during meditation, which they concluded was the basis for the significant decreases in anxiety and increases in positive emotion that were observed in their study and by other investigators (Kabat-Zinn et al. 1992; Miller, Fletcher, and Kabat-Zinn 1995; Teasdale et al. 2000; Teasdale, Segal, and Williams 1995; Beauchamp-Turner and Levinson 1992).\n\nTranscendence\n\nWhile meditation increases blood flow to activate some areas of the brain, other areas of the brain are slowed down and exhibit a reduced blood flow during brain imaging. One such area is the called the posterior superior parietal lobe. This region is referred to as the orientation association area, and also functions to allow a person to distinguish between the self and the nonself. Through the slowing of activity in this brain region through meditation, the effect is the inability to distinguish between the self and the nonself (Hamer 2004), which can be understood by the descriptions of meditators of having a spiritual experience\u2014\"I feel at one with the universe\" and \"I feel a part of everything around me.\" Both descriptions reflect a loss of self and self-transcendence.\n\nPractitioners of meditation also report a greater ability to \"stay out of their heads.\" Many psychiatric conditions, and psychological distress in general, are associated with a heightened degree of self-focused attention and self-obsession. Evidence suggests that through activation of the prefrontal cortex, meditation helps to relieve the person of self-obsession by achieving a more balanced attention between self and others (Siegel 2007; Appel and Kim-Appel 2009).\n\nChanges in Brain Structure\n\nOther research on meditation has investigated the long-term positive effects by examining potential changes in brain structure.\n\nUntil recently, the prevailing belief was that many brain functions were hard-wired in specific, localized regions that were unchangeable from early childhood. It was believed that brain dysfunction was not reversible and that incidents of brain recovery were rare and unexplainable events. Recent neuroscience research has demonstrated the capacity of neurons and neuron pathways in the brain to change their connections and behavior in response to new information or experience and, as a result, to reorganize in order to restore or improve brain function.\n\nThis ability of the brain to change in structure as the result of experience is termed neuroplasticity (Buonomano and Merzenich 1998). The results of recent research have also demonstrated that structural changes are possible through the repeated short-term activation of specific brain regions that comes with long-term involvement in meditation (Holzel et al. 2008).\n\nMeditation improves emotional regulation and decreases emotional distress by shifting the focus of attention in terms of how the mind is used to channel the flow of energy and information through various brain circuits. By disengaging from old, habitual, and ingrained patterns of activity in the brain, new neuron pathways and brain regions that were formerly underactive and lacked normal function now become activated, while other neuron pathways and brain regions that were overactive become quieted. Essentially, the long-term practice of meditation can remap key areas of the brain, and it is this mechanism that accounts for the positive changes in emotion, thinking, behavior, and perspective that are reported by regular practitioners. With repeated practice over time, the temporary state that is induced by meditation transforms into an ingrained trait; this change from state to trait is reflected by the short-term changes in brain function that ultimately become changes in brain structure (Siegel 2007).\n\nPositive changes in brain structure with long-term meditation were reported by Holzel et al. (2008), who found enhanced concentrations of neurons that compose the right hippocampus, right anterior insula, left inferior temporal gyrus, and medial orbitofrontal cortex. Collectively, the enhanced function in these brain regions is associated with a heightened capacity to\n\n * control and modify emotional response,\n * control and modify attentional and emotional processes and emotional memory,\n * alter one's response to situations that provoke a learned fear response,\n * control and modify learned emotional responses, and\n * reduce the likelihood of being overwhelmed by negative emotions (Holzel et al. 2008).\n\nThe amygdala is the brain region that is involved in the fear response and the processing of threat in one's environment. It triggers other brain areas to induce a physiological and cognitive response to real or perceived threat; in persons with a history of experiences such as trauma, the amygdala will often generate an intense fear response when there is little or no actual threat (Nuchols 2006).\n\nCreswell and colleagues (2007) found that regular mindfulness meditation led to a state they referred to as dispositional mindfulness. They found that this state of dispositional mindfulness was strongly associated with enhanced activation of the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the amygdala. Creswell et al. state that this represents a common brain pathway that links the repeated practice of mindfulness meditation with the substantial reductions in negative and distressing emotion, mood disturbance, and physical symptoms of stress that have been found in numerous studies with different patient populations.\n\nThey also suggest that this enhancement in prefrontal cortex activity and suppression of amygdala activity account for the ability of frequent meditators to alter their emotional and behavioral responses to a wide variety of situations encountered in their daily lives (Creswell et al. 2007). Similar results were found in a study by Chiesa involving long-term vipassana meditation (2010); greater enhancement of prefrontal lobe structures in long-term meditators led to the ability to dampen and suppress the responses of fear and emotional arousal originating from the amygdala. Consistent with these reports were the findings of Lazar et al. (2005) that long-term meditators possessed a thicker prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula than novice meditators.\n\nIn summary, regular meditation may be associated with structural changes in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive, and emotional processing.\n\n# Research Involving Alcoholics\n\nEarlier research evaluating the effects of meditation on alcohol use primarily focused on preventive effects with nondependent drinkers, and found that long-term TM practice led to a reduction or cessation of drinking (Shafil, Lavely, and Jaffe 1975; Monahan 1977). More recently, Bowen et al. (2009) published the results of 168 patients in treatment for alcohol or other drug dependence who were assigned to either eight weeks of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) or conventional treatment (control group). Four months after completion of the trial, patients receiving MBRP had significantly lower rates of relapse, significantly briefer durations of relapse when it did occur, significantly fewer cravings, significant improvements in emotion regulation skills, and significant increases in mindfulness relative to those assigned to the control treatment. The decreased craving in the MBRP group was partially explained by changes in judgment and acceptance during the course of MBRP treatment. Based on results of this study, the authors describe the following effects of mindfulness meditation on alcohol- and other drug-dependent patients:\n\nImmediate Effects\n\n * Lowers heart rate\n * Lowers blood pressure\n * Activates the soothing relaxation response\n * Dampens the fight-or-flight stress response\n * Activates sensory awareness and the control of attention\n\nLong-Term Effects\n\n * Dampens reactivity to stress\n * Increases positive emotions\n * Enhances self-regulation\n * Increases ability to pause before acting\n * Enhances ability to feel empathy for others\n * Increases insight and self-awareness\n * Modulates fear\n * Increases capacity to make moral choices\n\nRecovering alcoholics tend to cope with drinking urges by attempting to suppress the cravings. Although this approach may work in the short run, the process can actually perpetuate and intensify these cravings by driving them within the cognitive unconscious. This coping response can ultimately worsen the cravings by amplifying the reactivity to people, places, and things associated with alcohol and drinking. Mindfulness training may serve to undo this process.\n\nDuring the gradual practice of mindfulness, one learns to work with negative emotions in the context of metacognition, a term that refers to a level of thinking that involves active control over the process of thinking. This use of metacognition results in a marked decrease in emotional reactivity to difficult thoughts, such as cravings for alcohol, and in improved self-regulation in the face of stressors, such as alcohol-related cues. Through mindfulness training, alcohol cravings are attended to in a nonreactive, nonjudgmental manner, and since the need to suppress the urge to drink is removed, the cravings are more likely to be extinguished over time instead of intensifying as a result of suppression (Garland et al. 2010).\n\nA ten-week course of mindfulness training was found to reduce stress and alcohol thought suppression in abstinent alcoholics attempting to maintain their sobriety. Mindfulness training also led to a significant reduction in psychiatric symptoms. Garland et al. (2010) concluded from their study that mindfulness meditation training appears to target several of the key mechanisms involved in alcohol dependence, including the cognitive, affective, and physiological mechanisms that underlie the vulnerability to stress-induced relapse.\n\nA participant in the Garland et al. (2010) study described how mindfulness training helped her after she completed the training in the study and graduated from formal treatment. She describes how mindfulness training helped her not become overwhelmed by the rejection she encountered during the job-hunting process following treatment, and helped her cope with alcohol cravings when she became emotionally stressed after obtaining a job in an alcohol-serving restaurant:\n\nI had to practice it [mindfulness] every day, when I went out looking for a job, and being rejected, because of my not working in two years, using the techniques that were being taught to me, in my everyday life... I use it every day... and it [mindfulness] played a very big part when I had to deal with some customers [who] were drinking... it played a big part in helping me get through it. I had to go outside and breathe. Well, by me using it every day, breathing, taking time to sit down and think about what I'm going to do before I react, not reacting on impulse. I was very self-destructive, and if something got in my way, I would hide behind the alcohol and the drugs to get past it, and so now instead of doing that, I take whatever time I need to sit down and collect my thoughts, and not stay in my head... (Garland et al. 2010).\n\nBowen et al. (2007) studied the outcome of an intensive ten-day course of vipassana meditation that enrolled alcohol- or other drug-dependent inmates in a correctional setting. The researchers found that compared with standard chemical dependency services offered in the prison, mindfulness training led to greater reductions in post-release substance use, substance-related problems, and psychiatric symptoms. Additional research involving mindfulness-based interventions with substance abusers have found significant reductions in distress, negative emotion, physiological markers of stress such as cortisol, and substance use (Marcus, Fine, and Kouzekanani 2001; Marcus, Fine, and Moeller 2003; Zgierska et al. 2009). Although the size of these studies were small and patients were followed for relatively brief periods of time, the collective evidence suggests that mindfulness interventions may reduce the risk of stress-related relapse and alcohol abuse (Garland et al. 2010).\n\n# Mindfulness Meditation and Post-traumatic Stress\n\nMany alcoholics have histories of trauma. Persons who have experienced emotional trauma may develop negative coping strategies to feel less overwhelmed. They may abuse alcohol or other drugs, or engage in distracting behaviors, dissociation, or denial. Although these coping strategies may temporarily reduce emotional distress, they ultimately serve to block recovery. Mindfulness meditation has direct relevance to recovery from trauma. Because mindfulness involves acceptance of the present without judgment, it can be immensely helpful to alcoholics in denial of past trauma. Mindfulness is a learnable set of skills that can be a useful component of trauma therapy for both the therapist and the client, and can be a helpful approach for a client processing traumatic material (Marlatt and Chawla 2007).\n\nPost-traumatic growth (PTG) is a term that has been used to describe the positive outcomes with recovery from emotional trauma. PTG is defined as positive changes within a person determined by the gradual shaping of a new reality as a person processes the trauma disrupting one's world view and integrates the experience (Tedeschi and Calhoun 2004).\n\nPTG can manifest as a greater appreciation for life, greater meaning in one's interpersonal relationships, and an increased sense of personal strength (Tedeschi and Calhoun 2004).\n\nCertain aspects of mindfulness, such as observation and contact with the present moment, may be beneficial in facilitating PTG. Focusing on spiritual issues may also help trauma survivors achieve greater PTG. Spirituality in the context of PTG can simply refer to a greater sense of universal presence, an increased commitment to one's religion, a clearer understanding of one's spiritual or religious beliefs, a sense of being connected to something greater than was possible before the trauma, or a spiritual quest to seek answers to the existential questions that were evoked by the event (Tedeschi, Park, and Calhoun 1998).\n\nMeditation may be productive with a client who is receptive to exploring spiritual growth by promoting in the client an understanding of how the traumatic experience may have led to a broader connection with forces larger than oneself (Chopko and Schwartz 2009).\n\nAvoidance is not only one of the central components of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but is also related to the worsening of symptoms and is implicated in the relationship between PTSD and alcohol or other drug abuse. Mindfulness meditation is an approach that opposes the habitual coping strategies of escape and avoidance. Simpson et al. (2007) found that intensive mindfulness-based meditation was well tolerated and accepted by persons with PTSD symptoms, and that mindfulness may provide a reasonable treatment alternative for persons who are diagnosed with both PTSD and a substance use disorder. Another study employing eight weeks of mindfulness training in a group of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse found that depressive symptoms and the PTSD symptoms of avoidance and\/or numbing were substantially reduced (Kimbrough et al. 2010).\n\n# CHAPTER 9\n\n# Trends in the Treatment of Alcoholism\n\nAlthough large surveys have found that treatment was a necessary first step for as many as 50% of persons with more severe alcohol and other drug addiction in achieving sustained recovery (Cunningham 1999; Cunningham 2000), these figures do not reflect the shortcomings in the current treatment system (White and Sanders 2006). A major criticism is that treatment of alcoholism uses an acute care model for a condition that is now increasingly regarded as a chronic illness.\n\n# Shortcomings of the Current Acute Care Model of Alcohol Treatment\n\nToday, most addiction professionals recognize alcohol and other drug dependence as a chronic disease. However, modern treatment approaches alcoholism as if it were an acute illness. The current acute care treatment to alcoholism generally consists of serial episodes of brief, intensive, high-cost care combined with a brief follow-up or aftercare with the expectation of sustained recovery or even cure (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003). Several factors contribute to the widespread use of this approach that has dramatically shortened both inpatient and outpatient treatment. These factors include\n\n * the professionalization of treatment services;\n * escalating medical and health care costs; and, most importantly,\n * the emergence of an aggressive system of managed behavioral health care.\n\nEven addiction treatment approaches that traditionally have used a long-term approach, such as methadone maintenance, have been restructured to conform to the short-term, acute care paradigm (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n\nMost alcohol and other drug dependence treatment programs use an acute care model of treatment. It is characterized by the following elements:\n\n * Services are delivered in a sequential and uniform series of activities\u2014typically, screening, admission, assessment, treatment, discharge, and sometimes brief aftercare followed by termination of the provider relationship.\n * Services occur over a brief period of time, often as a function of a pre-arranged, time-limited insurance payment.\n * The message conveyed to the client and his or her family is that permanent remission can now be achieved by completing the treatment program.\n * Relapse and re-admission to treatment are often viewed as a shortcoming of the client.\n\nGeorge Vaillant was one of the first researchers to dispute the effectiveness of the acute care model. With data from his 1983 long-term study of alcoholism and recovery, he challenged three primary assumptions about alcoholism treatment as it was and is currently practiced: (1) alcoholism can be effectively treated with a single episode of acute care, (2) relapse following treatment is a failure, and (3) multiple relapses following multiple acute treatment stays may indicate the patient is untreatable (Vaillant, 1983; White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n\nA landmark paper published in 2000 by McLellan and colleagues presented the most thorough and convincing argument up to that time of the concept of addiction as a chronic disease. In the paper, McLellan highlighted several factors that have resulted in a push away from an acute care model and toward a chronic disease (recovery management) model (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003). Other supportive research in the field of addiction treatment has included the following:\n\n 1. There is a growing recognition that managing severe and persistent alcohol and other drug problems with single or serial episodes of acute treatment is clinically ineffective and represents an inefficient or even wasteful use of individual, family, and community resources. A single, acute intervention is rarely sufficient to initiate stable and enduring recovery in those with severe and persistent alcohol and other drug problems. Multiple treatment episodes should be considered as incremental steps in the developmental process of recovery. The steps should not be viewed as failures but instead as treatment episodes that may have cumulative positive effects (Hser et al. 1997).\n 2. Alcohol and other drug dependence is often chronic and relapsing in nature (Simpson, Joe, and Lehman 1986). It has much in common with other chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension (O'Brien and McLellan 1996) (see chapter 6). The approaches used in managing these chronic diseases should be adapted for the treatment of alcohol and other drug dependence (Lewis 1993; McLellan et al. 2000; White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n 3. The same managed care system that has slashed reimbursement for inpatient treatment and shifted the focus to one of cost-containment has spawned a new grassroots recovery advocacy (consumer) movement. These movements are developing a deeper understanding of the long-term addiction recovery process and how indigenous community resources may support this time-enduring process (White 2000) (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n\n# The Recovery Management of Alcohol Dependence\n\nPersons suffering from chronic, incurable disorders require models of intervention that focus on the management rather than the cure of these long-term disorders. Disease management, also called recovery management, provides an alternative to the traditional approach of reacting to life-impairing and life-threatening episodes of chronic disorders with unrelated, serial episodes of acute, high-intensity care. In the absence of a cure, recovery management implies a longer-term vision of influencing the course of a disorder to optimize personal and family health and enhance length and quality of life (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n\nThe shift from regarding addiction as an acute illness to treating it as a chronic condition has required a shift in focus from the pathology of addiction to the nature of long-term addiction recovery (Hser et al. 1997). Some of the core components of a recovery-oriented system of care for severe and persistent alcohol problems include the following (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003):\n\n * There are many pathways to recovery influenced by styles of recovery, sobriety-based support structures, and recovery capital (the inner, interpersonal, and community resources that can be accessed to initiate and maintain recovery) (Granfield and Cloud 1999).\n * The mechanisms and processes that sustain recovery may be different than the factors that initiate recovery (Humphreys, Moos, and Finney 1995).\n * Addiction recovery can be self-directed and incremental in nature (Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross 1992), or recovery can be a sudden, climactic transformation (Miller and C de Baca 2001). Some persons undergo a series of minor incremental steps toward the readiness to change behaviors, eventually culminating in cessation of use or even in moderating their drinking.\n * Recovery from alcohol dependence most often involves a process of developmental change for which stage-appropriate interventions can be designed and delivered (Brown 1985; DiClemente, Carbonari, and Velasquez 1992).\n * Recovery can be professionally-guided, peer-guided, or done alone through efforts such as Internet-based support and information, reading of recovery literature, or listening to audio (Larimer and Kilmer 2000).\n * Styles of recovery vary greatly. They are determined by whether one incorporates addiction or recovery as an element of personal identity and\/or whether one maintains contact with other recovering people as a recovery maintenance activity.\n * Recovery outcomes vary greatly in terms of primary and secondary alcohol or other drug use, and in the broader dimensions of global (cognitive, emotional, family, social, occupational) functioning.\n * Post-treatment outcomes are characterized by subgroups who (1) continue using, (2) sustain abstinence, and (3) vacillate between problematic use, nonproblematic use, and abstinence. The fluid state of addiction or recovery in the third group offers significant opportunities to enhance outcomes with recovery management models of intervention.\n * Long-term, staged recovery considers treatment and support services (e.g., harm reduction, motivational interviewing, pharmacological adjuncts, cognitive-behavioral therapies, mutual-aid groups) not as competing and mutually exclusive approaches but as interventions that can be matched or administered to the same persons at different stages of their addiction or recovery process (White, Boyle, and Loveland 2003).\n\n# A New Approach: A Low-Cost Supportive and Educational Model of Treatment\n\nAt the beginning of this century, the field of alcoholism treatment entered a stage of maturity. This stage now has expanded programs for special populations, increased interest in bridging the gap between research and clinical practice, and moved treatment services into other social systems such as the child welfare system, the criminal justice system, and public health agencies (White 2004). A treatment renewal movement now strives to reintegrate addiction treatment providers back into the communities where they originated, and to integrate treatment into the enduring process of addiction recovery (White 2001b).\n\nThe confluence of several factors has resulted in the creation of low-cost, low-intensity residential treatment programs. Those factors include\n\n * the lack of accessible and affordable treatment in the wake of the widespread elimination of chemical dependency benefits by the insurance industry,\n * the recognition of the shortcomings of traditional inpatient treatment, and\n * the desire among some older members of AA to get back to the basics.\n\nOne such program with these characteristics is The Retreat, located in the Minneapolis suburb of Wayzata. Opened in 1998, The Retreat is a thirty-day program that uses a supportive\/educational model. The program consists of the use of the Twelve Steps and the Big Book of AA to help residents identify the problems associated with their alcohol or other drug dependence and understand the solution to these problems. All groups are run by alumni and volunteers from AA. There are no chemical dependency counselors, nor any nursing, medical, psychiatric, or psychological services. This keeps the cost low and removes the potential clinical influence. Residents are referred to these services in the community if needed. However, the president, program director, and spiritual care advisor are licensed and trained professionals (Curtiss, pers. comm.).\n\nThe Retreat program is consistent with the recognition of the importance of long-term, low-intensity disease and recovery management in the community (see next section). An important component is the integration of residents into community-based recovery resources such as sober living houses (average stay nine to twelve months). In addition, residents are assimilated into community AA meetings, linked with AA sponsors, and integrated into the community of alumni and recovering persons. Also consistent with the long-term recovery management model is the accessibility to readmission for clients who have relapsed. Retreat alumni who have relapsed can be readmitted for thirty days, or for briefer periods of seven to fourteen days, depending on client need and finances (Curtiss, pers. comm.).\n\nThe cost of The Retreat is a fraction of conventional multidisciplinary inpatient or resident treatment. As of 2009, residential programs replicating The Retreat model have been started in Hong Kong and South Dakota, with programs under development in New Zealand, Florida, Nashville, and Hawaii. Additionally, more than ninety sober living residences using The Retreat sober house model have been replicated in the Twin Cities, nationally, and internationally. As of 2009, The Retreat programs have served 7,800 clients (Curtiss, pers. comm.).\n\n# Trends in AA and Self-Help Recovery\n\nDifferences between individual AA meetings were noted from the very beginning when AA started growing (e.g., differences between the original AA groups in Akron and those in New York City). An important trend in the current history of Twelve Step and self-help organizations is the growing varieties of recovery experience (White and Kurtz 2006). The varieties of AA experience are reflected in the diversity of AA meeting formats (for example, open vs. closed meetings, speaker meetings vs. discussion meetings). In addition, AA tends to organize around special populations and special needs, different regions of the country, and differences in the approach of working the AA program.\n\nThe AA meeting list of any medium-sized or larger city reflects this specialization, such as meetings organized by age (young people, old-timers), gender (women-only and men-only), sexual orientation (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), language (Spanish, Polish, no profanity), profession (physicians, lawyers, airline pilots), social status (off-the-books meetings for celebrities and those in high-status positions), relationship status (single, couples), co-occurring problems (psychiatric illness, HIV\/AIDS), and smoking status (nonsmoking), to name just a few.\n\nThere are also differences in AA that transcend particular types of categorical or cultural experience. Significant differences can be found in degree of religious orientation (from efforts to Christianize AA to AA groups for atheists and agnostics), meeting rituals, pre- and post-meeting activities, and basic interpretations of the nature of the AA program (Kurtz and White 2003).\n\nSuch varieties multiply exponentially when one examines the range of adaptations of AA's Twelve Steps to other drug problems (e.g., Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous, Pills Anonymous, Methadone Anonymous) and to co-occurring problems (e.g., Dual Diagnosis Anonymous, Dual Recovery Anonymous, Double Trouble in Recovery) (White, Kurtz, and Sanders 2006). Also significant is that many people are simultaneously participating in two or more recovery support structures\u2014suggesting people are using different groups to meet different recovery support needs (White, Kurtz, and Sanders 2006).\n\nThe explosive growth of AA in the 1970s and 1980s concerned AA old-timers. The addiction treatment industry and criminal justice system were influencing AA (via mandated AA attendance). Old-timers suspected the core of AA's program was somehow being corrupted. This concern led to efforts to define and recapture the historical AA. AA historian Ernest Kurtz (1999) proposed five criteria to distinguish real AA from meetings that had taken on the flavor of treatment groups: (1) AA vocabulary (defects of character, self-inventory, Higher Power) rather than treatment vocabulary; (2) humor and the appreciation of paradox; (3) a story style that \"describes in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now\"; (4) respect for and adherence to AA traditions; and (5) a conviction by those attending meetings that they need rather than want to be there (White and Kurtz 2006).\n\n# Grassroots Recovery Movements\n\nThere are two grassroots movements currently working to make a significant impact in persons attempting to achieve and maintain recovery. They are the recovery advocacy movement and communities of recovery.\n\nThe Recovery Advocacy Movement\n\nIn 1976, fifty-two prominent Americans publicly announced their long-term recovery from alcoholism as part of the National Council of Alcoholism's Operation Understanding. Their coming out was a landmark in the modern history of alcoholism recovery.\n\nIn September 2009, more than 70,000 people in recovery participated in public Rally for Recovery events in cities across the United States\u2014an achievement that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. This new recovery advocacy movement is being led by recovering people and their families and friends, and carries the objective of countering the restigmatization, demedicalization, and recriminalization of alcohol and other drug problems. These grassroots organizations are putting a face and a voice on recovery, pushing pro-recovery policies, and working to expand treatment and recovery support services within local communities (White 2001a; White 2004).\n\nAddiction recovery advocacy organizations generally work to achieve their objectives through four core activities:\n\n 1. Political advocacy for pro-recovery laws and social policies\n 2. Public and professional recovery education\n 3. The provision of nonclinical (peer-based) recovery support services\n 4. Recovery celebration events\n\nThis recovery advocacy movement has grown and is not affiliated with any Twelve Step or any other self-help organization, and financial support comes from recovering people and public and private organizations (White 2006; White and Taylor 2006; White 2007).\n\nAn example of this grassroots-driven recovery advocacy movement is the Minnesota Recovery Connection (MRC), located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The MRC strives to fulfill the needs of persons attempting to achieve and maintain sobriety through four functions:\n\n 1. Linking people seeking recovery to resources and organizations that help foster and sustain long-term recovery\n 2. Providing programs and services that help people achieve and sustain recovery\n 3. Advocating for recovery by rallying the community and putting a positive face on recovery\n 4. Offering service opportunities for those in recovery through involvement in running recovery support programs, providing recovery coaching, and providing telephone recovery support\n\nThe MRC is composed of three salaried program staff including the director, a board of directors, and volunteers (MRC 2010).\n\nCommunities of Recovery\n\nFor almost three centuries, people recovering from severe alcohol and other drug problems have created healing sanctuaries to share their experiences, strength, and hope, and to meet specific needs they faced in initiating and sustaining their recovery journeys. History suggests that when a vacuum of unmet needs reaches critical mass, recovering people, their families, and progressive-minded professionals join forces to become movements that generate new structures of recovery support. That critical mass\u2014spawned in great part by the restigmatization, demedicalization, and recriminalization of addiction in the 1980s and 1990s\u2014has been reached again, and the resulting scope and depth of recovery community-building activities in America is without historical precedent (White 2008).\n\nThe growing cultural and political awakening of individuals and families in recovery is being spurred by several factors:\n\n * Growth and diversification of communities of recovery\n * Emergence of an identity (person in recovery) that unites members of diverse recovery fellowships and those in recovery outside those fellowships\n * Rise of grassroots recovery advocacy movements such as Faces and Voices of Recovery and the Minnesota Recovery Connection\n * International spread of the recovery advocacy movement\n * Rise of recovery community institutions such as sober houses, industries, schools, ministries\/churches, community centers, cafes, and recovery community service organizations and sports teams, as well as new genres of recovery literature, art, music, dance, theatre, and comedy (White 2010)\n\nSeveral aspects of this broader movement include the following (White 2008):\n\na. Growth and diversification of recovery mutual-aid societies (see \"Trends in AA and Self-Help Recovery\")\n\nb. Virtual recovery communities (see following section)\n\nc. Recovery advocacy movement\n\nd. Sober living houses\n\nAs we discussed in a previous chapter, exposure to people, places, and things associated with alcohol or other drug use can place the recovering person at risk of relapse. Sober living houses provide a vital role in facilitating sobriety by allowing the resident to consolidate the progress made in treatment, and to continue to strengthen his or her recovery away from the environment that contributed to or maintained the addiction (Leshner 2001).\n\nSober living houses (SLH) operate with neither professional staff nor a treatment structure and function (Borkman 2008). Unlike residential recovery programs, SLH are financially self-sustained by resident fees and are usually not financed through insurance or public funding. Since they do not offer formal treatment, they are not licensed or monitored by most states or municipalities. This independence from funding sources and licensing bodies allows them to tailor their own model of recovery without external mandates. For example, instead of responding to rigid time lines or funding sources, SLH allow residents to stay as long as they wish. An example of this are the SLH run by the residential program The Retreat, where residents may stay as long as two years (Curtiss, pers. comm.).\n\nMost SLH require that residents engage in some type of recovery program (usually AA meeting attendance) and obtain employment (although some allow residents to attend college). Involvement in management of the facility is especially important for longer-term as a way for them to give back to the community of residents (Polcin and Borkman 2008).\n\nThe growth of the SLH movement was fueled by two factors. The first was the Federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P.L. 100\u2013690), which required states to establish a revolving fund for loans to recovering persons to rent a house to establish a recovery home. The second influence was the accumulation of scientific studies documenting the high rates of continued abstinence within the Oxford Houses, which were founded in 1975 and have grown to more than 1,200 recovery homes in forty-eight states. Self-managed recovery homes are spreading rapidly in the U.S. (Oxford House 2006; Jason et al. 2001; Jason et al. 2006; Malloy and White 2009).\n\ne. Recovery schools\n\nA relatively recent institution in the recovery community is the recovery school. Between 1977 and 2000, collegiate recovery school programs were launched at nine colleges and universities. The first sober high school opened in 1986 in Minnesota as Ecole Nouvelle, which was renamed Sobriety High a few years later. The growth of high school programs specifically for recovering students has quickened. Recovery school programs vary widely but generally combine special recovery support services with an emphasis on academic excellence (White 2008).\n\nf. Recovery industries\n\nThe growth of recovery industries strive to provide assistance and opportunities to persons who have never had legitimate employment or have lost their jobs or careers due to their addiction. Emphasis is placed on helping these persons enter or re-enter the mainstream workforce. A recovery industry is a business that purposely recruits, trains, and employs people in recovery. Such jobs may constitute a permanent employment position or a transitional position that helps a person develop responsible work habits and behaviors, a current work history, and references to obtain employment with mainstream businesses and industries (White 2008).\n\ng. Recovery ministries and churches\n\nSpecial ministries to alcoholics and addicts began in the closing decades of the nineteenth century through religiously sponsored urban rescue missions, and by the creation of rural inebriate colonies. The involvement of churches in the problem of addiction is not new, but this involvement has taken some stunning new turns in recent years. Recent developments in the continuum of involvement include the following:\n\n * Recovery-friendly churches that welcome recovering people but offer no special recovery services\n * Churches spawning new religiously sponsored recovery mutual-aid groups such as Celebrate Recovery and Ladies Victorious\n * Mega-churches adding a recovery pastor to their staff\n * Small churches using lay leaders and volunteers to lead recovery support meetings\n * Church-sponsored, recovery-focused worship services, recovery churches, faith-based recovery colonies, and the growth of non-Christian recovery ministries and support groups (White 2008)\n\nAn example of a recovery church can be found in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with Central Park United Methodist Church, which in 2006 became known as The Recovery Church. The stated mission of the church is \"to provide a spiritual community for people in search of growth, healing, and recovery.\" In addition to holding sermons, a wide range of Twelve Step and other self-help meetings, as well as special events related to recovery, are held in the church (The Recovery Church 2010).\n\nThese new recovery institutions serve as a conduit to Twelve Step programs such as AA by assertively linking people to these resources, and they also augment groups like AA by providing the means for some people unable to achieve abstinence in AA to achieve stable recovery (White 2010).\n\nThe opportunities emerging from this trend are twofold. First, we may well see elevated long-term recovery outcomes for persons with high problem severity\/complexity and low recovery capital. People are now achieving stable recovery whose needs have transcended the time and emotional resources of both sponsors and professional addiction counselors. This achievement is likely to become magnified over time, and will result in aggregate membership growth of recovery mutual-aid societies. Second, the rise of new peer-based recovery support roles also promises, at personal and at systems levels, to reconnect acute addiction treatment to the larger and more enduring process of long-term community-based recovery (White 2010).\n\n# Recovery in the Digital Era\n\nThe computer and Internet, even smart phones and computer tablets, all have the opportunity to provide key recovery services not only for the client but for the general consumer of recovery-related materials and clinicians who need continuing education credits. Each year increases the use of the Internet for recovery for professional services and for the individual in recovery.\n\nProfessional Services\n\nThe use of electronic communication has permeated daily life in the United States. While the use of the telephone for health-related issues is not as new, administering treatment electronically is relatively novel in the United States. Substance abuse treatment through electronic means (also known as e-therapy) is not used widely, but experts predict that its use will increase rapidly during the next several years. E-therapy has the potential to fulfill unmet needs among the general population. In a national survey on substance abuse (SAMHSA 2006), respondents identified that they needed treatment but reported that they did not receive substance abuse treatment because of barriers related to cost (44.4%), stigma (18.5%), and access (21.2%). This lack of access is even worse in some areas of the country where resources for treatment are limited by number of treatment facilities, transportation, and costs (McAuliffe and Dunn 2004; McAuliffe et al. 2003).\n\nE-therapy provides opportunities for populations that would otherwise go without much-needed care. E-therapy can be used by treatment providers throughout the continuum of care to deliver referrals, education, assessment and diagnosis, direct care, aftercare, training, and supervision. Few studies have been performed on the effectiveness of substance abuse services delivered by e-therapy, although this is likely to change soon. Other challenges of e-therapy include the preservation of confidentiality with clients and the digital divide, the term used to describe disparity of access to computers and the Internet in certain groups (CSAT 2009).\n\nTwelve Step and Self-Help\n\nElectronic communication has the potential to transcend many of the traditional barriers to face-to-face meeting participation, including geographical isolation, inconvenience, schedule conflicts, and lack of available transportation or child care. Special populations are more likely to use this medium of Twelve Step contact, such as persons with social anxiety or social phobia, persons with fears regarding physical or psychological safety, and fear of stigma and discrimination. Already apps are available for recovery people with smart phones. Addiction professionals receive continuing education credits online at a plethora of addiction websites. Many non-Twelve Step recovery support groups already have more participants online than those who meet in person, and that day could potentially arrive for AA and NA (White 2010).\n\nThe potential growth of virtual recovery raises many questions about the future of recovery and the future of Twelve Step and other abstinence-based self-help organizations (White 2010):\n\n * How will the online experience for different populations compare to their experience of face-to-face meetings?\n * How quickly will a media that seems particularly well-suited to special populations (e.g., women, status-conscious professionals, adolescents, persons with limited mobility, persons living in remote locations) spread through the mainstream cultures of AA and NA?\n * Can key activities within self-help organizations be performed with little or no face-to-face contact? How will these activities be changed in this process?\n * Will the Internet create a larger climate in which secular and religious alternatives will compete for access to particular groups of AA and NA people?\n * How will regular contact with recovering people from other countries and cultures influence the culture of recovery in the U.S.?\n * What would be the possible role of text messaging-based electronic communications?\n * What areas of unforeseen harms are possible for individuals or groups?\n\nAlthough there is the potential for anticipated and unforeseen risks, they seem overshadowed by the potential of this media to reach large numbers of new people in need of recovery support (White 2010).\n\n# The Science of Recovery\n\nAt this time, addiction neuroscience is perhaps the most dynamic field of scientific investigation today. The quality as well as the quantity of information being generated by addiction research in general is impressive (Goodman 2008). There are two primary ways in which the results of recently published studies on the neuroscience of alcoholism are benefiting addiction professionals and alcoholic patients alike. The first involves the federal investment in a research infrastructure, which is beginning to reap significant rewards in terms of new understandings of the neurobiology of alcohol dependence. This knowledge is beginning to result in the ability to distinguish the genetic variation and underlying disease processes of different alcoholism subtypes, to identify therapeutic targets based on this neurobiology, and to more effectively use currently existing medications (White and McGovern 2003).\n\nThe second benefit involves the significant number of studies published on AA in the past decade. This body of research has confirmed much of the internal AA folklore that has passed as conventional wisdom within the AA organization for decades. Examples of these include the positive effects of regular participation, the value of Step work, sponsorship, reading AA literature, and having a home AA group. Although AA old-timers may read the findings of expensive scientific studies and smugly reflect, \"I could have told them that for the price of a cup of coffee,\" one of the critical functions of science is to confirm or disconfirm the tenets of subjective experience.\n\nScience is revealing important knowledge, such as\n\n * who responds and does not respond to AA,\n * when is the most effective time to participate in AA,\n * what is the best way to link addiction treatment and AA,\n * what is the value of matching individuals to particular fellowships and meetings, and\n * how to reintegrate AA dropouts back into affiliation with AA (White 2010; Kaskutas 2009).\n\nScience is also certain to generate controversies by challenging some of the prevailing beliefs held by some members of self-help organizations. The results of research on the value of medication-assisted recovery is challenging but also softening the negative attitudes held by some AA members about medication (White 2010).\n\n# Other Aspects of Recovery from Alcohol Dependence\n\nSpontaneous Recovery\n\nSpontaneous remission may occur when a problem drinker is confronted with major life events such as graduating from college, achieving employment, getting married, or becoming a parent (Dawson et al. 2006). A wide range of recovery from alcohol dependence is observed in the general population, from partial remission to full abstinence. It also shows that the disease course of alcoholism is not always clear-cut, and that some people appear to recover from alcoholism without any intervention. Others may cycle into and out of dependence throughout their lifetimes despite repeated attempts to achieve sobriety (NIAAA 2006).\n\nAlthough researchers have known for decades that many problem drinkers either quit or greatly reduce their drinking to nonproblem levels without treatment or Twelve Step contact, a more recent review of long-term follow-up studies suggests that only between 14% and 50% of these spontaneous remissions (defined as abstinence or nonproblem drinking) are maintained for six months or longer (Walters 2000).\n\nBecause spontaneous remission may be followed by a high likelihood of relapse, preventive interventions may be indicated to forestall future alcohol problems among individuals who have cut down or quit drinking on their own (Moos and Moos 2006).\n\nA landmark study followed a group of Harvard undergraduates and a group of socially disadvantaged inner city youth for sixty years. In both groups, the predictors of recovery among those who developed alcoholism were different from the predictors related to the development of alcoholism. The essential factors associated with recovery from alcohol dependence included finding rewarding nondrug activities as a substitute for alcohol, compulsory supervision (immediate negative consequences for relapse), new relationships, and involvement in a spiritual program. As AA combines all four of these factors, it was not a surprising finding that the men who achieved stable abstinence attended roughly twenty times as many AA meetings as men who did not.\n\nAnother interesting finding was that the most and the least severe alcoholics appeared to enjoy the best, long-term chance of remission from alcohol. An important finding from this study was that alcohol abuse could persist for decades without remission or progression to alcohol dependence (Vaillant 2003).\n\nLate-Stage Relapse\n\nAs a field, very little is known about the pathways and processes of long-term recovery. Late-stage relapse (LSR) is defined as a lapse or relapse after an extended period of seemingly stable sobriety, typically defined as five years or more. Existing research suggests that the risk of future lifetime relapse declines to below 15% for persons who have achieved five years of continuous sobriety, but those people who do relapse after years of recovery remain a mystery within the worlds of addiction research, addiction treatment, and recovery mutual-aid fellowships (White and Schulstad 2009).\n\n# EPILOGUE\n\nThe quality and abundance of scientific evidence presented here sheds light on the debate surrounding the disease basis of alcoholism, AA effectiveness, and whether medication to assist recovery is appropriate and legitimate. Changes in brain function and structure that may contribute to the development of alcohol dependence and account for changes in thinking, emotion, and behavior with progression into alcoholism are described. These alterations in the brain may persist into abstinence, helping to explain the chronically relapsing nature of alcoholism and forming the basis for defining alcohol dependence as a chronic disease.\n\nFor decades there has existed a degree of mutual antipathy and distrust between medical professionals treating alcoholism and recovering chemical dependency counselors and longtime AA members. Some physicians and psychologists have dismissed the importance of spirituality and the value of AA due to the sparse body of supportive research, while some traditional chemical dependency counselors and long-term AA members have been wary of the medical treatment of alcoholism, and especially of the use of medication to treat the symptoms of alcoholism.\n\nThere is now an abundance of empirical evidence that AA involvement is an effective and accessible means to achieve long-term sobriety. Many people drop out of AA after brief contact, and findings of research that have identified the approaches to AA involvement associated with positive outcomes are discussed. Many persons attempting sobriety through AA or psychological therapy repeatedly relapse due to overpowering urges to drink. Yet medication therapy can effectively and safely reduce alcohol cravings and other forms of psychological distress with early recovery, facilitate AA involvement and forward progress in recovery that were previously unattainable, and play a vitally important role as a short-term adjunct to long-term involvement in AA or other supportive therapies.\n\nBy reviewing and discussing the latest alcoholism research for this book, we sincerely hope to elevate the understanding of alcoholism, to increase awareness of the availability and effectiveness of a range of treatment approaches for alcohol dependence, and, in doing so, to benefit many different readers.\n\nRecovering alcoholics might gain an understanding of the impact of their dependence on decision making and choices, both past and present. Children and the loved ones of alcoholics may gain a greater understanding that the alcoholic's self-centered behavior, unavailability, and neglect of personal needs did not stem in many cases from a conscious disregard for the welfare of self or others but from a progressive fixation on alcohol stemming from his or her dependence, and from the desperation for relief from the emotional state when not drinking. Persons with an early-stage alcohol problem may also benefit from this book, and possibly reconsider the wisdom of continued drinking after reading the discussion on the neurobiology of alcoholism. Physicians working with alcoholic patients can also gain an understanding of available medication therapies; the exact mechanism by which these drugs counteract the disturbances in brain function that generate the distressing symptoms of drinking urges, insomnia, agitation, or anxiety; and the strength of scientific evidence supporting their use.\n\nCompiling relevant information on the vast subject of alcoholism and placing it in one book provides an invaluable reference on the subject for professionals, teachers, students, people in recovery, and anyone with the desire to learn about the nature of alcoholism and its treatment. And perhaps most importantly, we would like to instill hope in the actively alcoholic reader, the family member of an alcoholic, and the general public at large that recovery is possible and that many treatment and recovery approaches are available and effective. In some cases combining different treatment modalities improves patient outcomes, and to some degree, treatment should be tailored to the individual needs of the alcoholic.\n\nGreat advances in the understanding of alcoholism and its treatment have been achieved in recent years, and are described in this book. However, there remains a substantial gap between the need for treatment and the availability of treatment.\n\nCurrent estimates indicate that 23.5 million Americans are addicted to alcohol and\/or drugs, and are in need of treatment. Unfortunately, only one in ten receives the treatment he or she needs, resulting in a treatment gap of more than 20 million Americans.\n\nSimilar to diabetes and high blood pressure, addiction is a chronic disease that can be managed successfully over time with access to proper treatment services, integrated medical care, and ongoing community-based support. In addition to the potentially life-saving benefit of addiction treatment, numerous cost-effectiveness studies have consistently found that every dollar spent on treatment leads to a five- to seven-dollar cost savings to society, mostly accounted for by increased worker productivity and reduced worker absenteeism, and reductions in health care, criminal justice, and social services costs. Unfortunately, society in general and the health care system in particular have been slow to recognize and respond to addiction as a chronic but treatable condition, resulting in millions of Americans with alcohol or other drug addiction unable to access the treatment services they need (Open Society Foundations 2010).\n\nThe greatest contributors to the gap between the need for and access to treatment are the very large number of persons without health insurance, inadequate insurance coverage, and insufficient public funds. For instance, private insurance pays for approximately 37% of general medical costs but only 10% of addiction treatment costs, with government sources paying for 77% of addiction treatment expenses and the rest being paid out-of-pocket and by other private sources. And despite the enormous personal, societal, and economic costs of alcohol and other drug addiction, only 1.3% of all health care spending in 2003 went to alcohol or other drug addiction treatment (Open Society Foundations 2010).\n\nA widely overlooked but essential population in great need of treatment access is inmates residing in correctional settings. The current approach of incarcerating addicted offenders incurs enormous taxpayer burden, does nothing to interrupt the cycle of recidivism and reincarceration, and unnecessarily exposes many addicted inmates who are not otherwise criminals to the abuses of the prison system.\n\nOf the 2.3 million inmates in U.S. prisons, 1.9 million either have a diagnosable substance use disorder or were under the influence of a substance during commission of their crime. In 2005, federal, state, and local governments spent $74 billion on substance abuse-related incarceration, court proceedings, probation, and parole, and only $632 million on prevention and treatment for such offenders. Only 11% of inmates with substance use disorders receive any form of treatment during incarceration, little of which is evidence-based care. Substance-involved offenders are very likely to end up back in prison without treatment (CASA 2010).\n\nSteps can be taken to reduce crime and taxpayer costs by addressing the treatment needs of offenders while holding them accountable for their crimes. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates a savings of $12 in reduced substance-related crime and criminal justice and health care costs for every dollar spent on treatment (CASA 2010). Effective treatment of substance use disorders in inmates is based on recognition that addiction is a chronic disease requiring a disease management approach, and is outlined in the practice guidelines published in 2006 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse titled Principles of Drug Abuse Treatment for Criminal Justice Populations.\n\nIn March 2010, legislation to reform health care was passed, which may greatly expand access to alcohol and other drug addiction treatment. Provisions in the bill may mean that millions of Americans will have insurance coverage for addiction treatment as part of their basic benefit package. This legislation represented a major step forward in making addiction treatment part of a comprehensive approach to integrated health care (Open Society Foundations 2010).\n\nMeasures have been identified that could substantially improve the quality of alcoholism treatment. As with many areas of health care, the field of alcoholism and addiction treatment experiences a significant gap between the scientific validation of new approaches to treatment and actual change in clinical practice. One of the best ways to address this disparity between knowledge and practice entails clinician training in the evidence-based practice of alcoholism and addiction treatment. An important element of clinician training would be to address potential negative attitudes toward implementing new approaches in the care of patients. This may be especially true regarding the use of medications to reduce alcohol craving and the symptoms of post-acute withdrawal.\n\nAdditionally, current figures indicate that fewer than 7% of patients admitted to treatment are referred by a health care provider. Although this figure reflects the failure to integrate addiction screening and treatment into the nation's health care delivery system, it does convey hope that educational and other efforts that target health care providers can potentially increase the rates of assessment and referral to treatment (Open Society Foundations 2010).\n\nThe current body of research on alcoholism is profound. Still, we are in need of more research, specifically investigating the neuroscience of recovery from alcoholism and addiction. This should include the extent of brain pathology and reverses in recovery, factors that influence this recovery, interventions that can facilitate or accelerate the process, and the extent to which specific brain pathologies influence the capacity to achieve recovery (White 2007). A recent study found that recovering alcoholics with six to seven weeks of sobriety showed substantial structural, metabolic, and neuropsychological regeneration compared with the results of their brain scans at treatment admission (Bartsch et al. 2007). This study represents the research focus that is most needed in the near future to fill in many of the missing pieces in the puzzle of alcoholism and recovery.\n\n# REFERENCES\n\nIntroduction\n\nAnthony, J. C., L. A. Warner, and R. C. 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Taylor. 2006. \"A New Recovery Advocacy Movement.\" Accessed Sept. 8, 2010. www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org\/pdf\/White\/a_new_recovery_advocacy_movement.pdf.\n\nZernig, G., A. Saria, M. Kurz, and S. S. O'Malley, eds. 2000. Handbook of Alcoholism. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.\n\nEpilogue\n\nBartsch, A. J., G. Homola, A. Biller, S. M. Smith, H.-G. Weijers, G. A. Wiesbeck, M. Jenkinson, N. De Stefano, L. Solymosi, and M. Bendszus. 2007. \"Manifestations of Early Brain Recovery Associated with Abstinence from Alcoholism.\" Brain 130 (1): 36\u201347.\n\nCASA (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University). 2010. \"Behind Bars II: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population.\" Accessed Feb. 14, 2011. www.casacolumbia.org\/download.aspx?path= \/UploadedFiles\/tw0t55j5.pdf.\n\nNational Institute on Drug Abuse. 2006. Principles of Drug Abuse Treatment for Criminal Justice Populations: A Research-Based Guide. NIH Pub. No. 06\u20135316. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse.\n\nOpen Society Foundations. 2010. \"Defining the Addiction Treatment Gap.\" Accessed Feb. 11, 2011. www.soros.org\/initiatives\/treatmentgap\/articles_publications\/publications\/data-summary-20100916.\n\nWhite, W. L. 2007. \"In Search of the Neurobiology of Addiction Recovery: A Brief Commentary on Science and Stigma.\" Accessed Feb. 15, 2011. www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org\/pdf\/White\/White_neurobiology _2007.pdf. (Also available at www.williamwhitepapers.com.)\n\n# ABOUT THE AUTHORS\n\nMark Edmund Rose, M.A.\n\nhas been extensively involved in the field of addiction for more than fifteen years as a licensed psychologist and addiction researcher. He has authored scientific papers published in peer-reviewed psychiatry and addiction journals, developed and written courses for physicians on addiction, testified in criminal trials as a court-validated expert on addiction, conducted research studies investigating the processes related to addiction and recovery, and performed numerous psychological evaluations of criminal defendants and disability claimants where substance use was an issue. He also co-authored Prescription Painkillers: History, Pharmacology, and Treatment, which was published by Hazelden in 2010.\n\nCheryl J. Cherpitel, Dr.P.H.\n\nis a prominent alcoholism researcher in public health, the associate director of the National Alcohol Research Center, and a senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group (ARG). She currently serves as an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health. She has been appointed to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) National Advisory Council and Initial Review Group of the Clinical and Treatment Subcommittee. As a consultant, she has served the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and the Pan American Health Organization.\n**About Hazelden Publishing**\n\nAs part of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Hazelden Publishing offers both cutting-edge educational resources and inspirational books. Our print and digital works help guide individuals in treatment and recovery, and their loved ones. Professionals who work to prevent and treat addiction also turn to Hazelden Publishing for evidence-based curricula, digital content solutions, and videos for use in schools, treatment programs, correctional programs, and electronic health records systems. We also offer training for implementation of our curricula.\n\nThrough published and digital works, Hazelden Publishing extends the reach of healing and hope to individuals, families, and communities affected by addiction and related issues.\n\nFor more information about Hazelden publications, \nPlease call **800-328-9000** \nOr visit us online at **hazelden.org\/bookstore**\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"_Schism_ examines the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge and traces the influence of Ireland and the London Irish, and most especially that of Laurence Dermott, the Antients' Grand Secretary, in the development of freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century.\n\nThe book demonstrates the relative accessibility of the Antients and contrasts this with the exclusivity of the 'Moderns' \u2013 the original Grand Lodge of England. The Antients instigated what became a six decades long rivalry with the Moderns and pioneered fundamental changes to the social composition of freemasonry, extending formal sociability to the lower middling and working classes and creating one of the first modern friendly societies.\n\n_Schism_ does not stand solely as an academic work but introduces the subject to a wider Masonic and non-Masonic audience and, most particularly, supplements dated historical works. The book contributes to the history of London and the London Irish in the long eighteenth century and examines the social and trade networks of the urban lower middling and working class, subjects that remains substantially unexplored. It also offers a prism through which Britain's calamitous relationship with Ireland can be examined.\n\n_Cover illustration_ \u2013 Antients' Multi Degree Masonic Apron (Painton Cowen) (date unknown); frontispiece \u2013 _Ahiman Rezon,_ frontispiece (1778); copyright \u00a9 UGLE Library & Museum of Freemasonry and used with their kind permission\n\n**Richard Berman** is the author of _Foundations of Modern Freemasonry;_ he holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a Doctorate in History from the University of Exeter. Ric was previously a Senior Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford's Modern European History Research Centre and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He lives with his family in Oxfordshire and is presently researching a book on colonial America.\n\n_Ahiman Rezon,_ frontispiece (1778).\n\n# \nCopyright \u00a9 Ric Berman, 2013, 2014.\n\nPublished in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2014.\n\nSUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS\n\nPO Box 139\n\nEastbourne BN24 9BP, UK\n\n_and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada_\n\nAll rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.\n\n_British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data_\n\nA CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.\n\n_Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data_\n\nBerman, Ric.\n\nSchism : the battle that forged freemasonary \/ Ric Berman.\n\npages cm\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN 978-1-84519-606-6 (h\/b : alk. paper) \u2014\n\nISBN 978-1-84519-607-3 (p\/b : alk. paper)\n\nISBN 978-1-78284-006-0 (e-pub)\n\nISBN 978-1-78284-007-7 (e-mobi)\n\nISBN 978-1-78284-008-4 (e-pdf)\n\n1. Freemasonry\u2014Great Britain\u2014History\u201418th century. I. Title.\n\nHS595.A5B47 2013\n\n366'.1094109033\u2014dc23\n\n2013006825\n\nThis e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to electronic conversion limitations and\/or copyright strictures.\n\n# _Contents_\n\n_List of Tables_\n\n_List of Illustrations_\n\n_Acknowledgements_\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nCHAPTER ONE\n\nLaurence Dermott and Antients Grand Lodge\n\nCHAPTER TWO\n\nAntients Freemasonry and the London Irish\n\nCHAPTER THREE\n\nThe Antients' _General Register_\n\nCHAPTER FOUR\n\nLondon's Magistracy and the London Irish\n\nCHAPTER FIVE\n\nAn Age of Decline \u2013 English Grand Lodge, 1740\u20131751\n\nCHAPTER SIX\n\nMasonic Misrule, Continued\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN\n\nThe King's Arms Lodge\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT\n\nThe Anglo-Irish: Ascendancy and Alienation\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n_List of Abbreviations_\n\n_Appendix Titles_\n\n_Notes & Selected Bibliography_\n\n_Index_\n\n# _List of Tables_\n\n1 'Gentlemen' Members of Antients Freemasonry, 1751\u20135.\n\n2 'Professional' Members of Antients Freemasonry, 1751\u20135.\n\n3 Middling & Lower Middling Occupations among Antients Freemasons, 1751\u20135.\n\n4 The Membership of lodge No. 20 at the Hampshire Hog, Goswell Street, London.\n\n5 The Membership of lodge No. 37 at the Red Cow, Holywell Street, Strand, 1754\u20135.\n\n6 The Membership of lodge No. 6 at the Admiral Vernon, Bishopsgate Without, 1771.\n\n7 The Membership of lodge No. 4, 1769.\n\n8 The Membership of lodge No. 3, 1773.\n\n9 Covent Garden & Drury Lane, 1751\u20135.\n\n10 Seven Dials, St Martin's & St Giles, 1751\u20135.\n\n11 Bloomsbury, Holborn & the Oxford Road, 1751\u20135.\n\n12 The Strand & Temple Bar, 1751\u20135.\n\n13 Spitalfields, 1751\u20135.\n\n14 Shoreditch & Bishopsgate, 1751\u20135.\n\n15 Minories, Ratcliffe Highway and East London to the docks, 1751\u20135.\n\n16 Fleet Street, Gray's Inn and the City of London, 1751\u20135.\n\n17 Southwark & south of the Thames, 1751\u20135.\n\n18 Westminster & the West End of London, 1751\u20135.\n\n19 The First Antients' Lodges, 1751\u20133.\n\n20 Frequency Analysis of Irish Surnames in Criminal Trials at the Old Bailey, 1740\u201390.\n\n21 The Horn Tavern, 1720\u201335.\n\n22 The Rummer Tavern, 1723.\n\n23 The Members of the Horn Tavern lodge Holding Grand Office, 1718\u201335.\n\n24 The Members of the Old King's Arms Holding Grand Office, 1730\u201352.\n\n25 The Members of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange.\n\n# _List of Illustrations_\n\n_Cover illustrations & frontispiece:_ FRONT \u2013 Antients' Multi Degree Masonic Apron (Painton Cowen) (date unknown); BACK \u2013 Antients _Grand Register,_ Black List, extract; John Murray, 4th duke of Atholl (1755\u20131830), oil painting by Thomas R. Beaufort Hinkes (1901); FRONTISPIECE \u2013 _Ahiman Rezon,_ frontispiece (1778).\n\n_Plate section (afterpage 158)_\n\n_1 st Degree Tracing Board_ (date unknown).\n\nAntients _General Register,_ Attendance List, extract.\n\nAntients _General Register,_ Membership List, extract.\n\n'Ceremony of making a Free-Mason'; engraving from _Hiram, or The Grand Master Key_ (1764).\n\nEarly Moderns' Masonic Apron (date unknown).\n\nJohn Senex, _Map of London_ (1720).\n\nWilliam Stewart, 1st earl of Blessington (1709\u20131769); oil painting by Stephen Slaughter (1744).\n\nJohn Murray, 3rd duke of Atholl (1729\u20131774); engraving by unknown artist (undated).\n\nThomas Alexander Erskine, 6th earl of Kelly (1731\u20131781); engraving by Lizars after portrait by Robert Home ( _c_. 1780).\n\nSir Cecil Wray (1734\u20131805); engraving (unknown artist) published by J. Walker of Paternoster Row (1784).\n\nRobert Freke Gould (1836\u20131915); engraving by Chardon-Whitman, Paris (c. 1899).\n\nHenry Sadler (1840\u20131911); cabinet print of a photograph by Burt Sharp, Brighton (1879).\n\n'Sword of State of the Moderns Grand Lodge'; engraving, printed and sold by Bro. Scott of Paternoster Road (undated).\n\n'Reception des Compagnons'; engraving from L. Travenol, _Nouvea Catechisme des Franc-Ma\u00e7on_ (1749).\n\nAll illustrations used in this book are copyright \u00a9 UGLE Library & Museum of Freemasonry and used with their kind permission.\n\n# _Acknowledgements_\n\nMany people have been generous with their time and comments during the final phases of this book and I would like to express particular thanks to Professors Toby Barnard of Oxford University and Roger Burt of Exeter University who both read and commented on a late draft, and to Doctors John Bergin, Petri Mirala and David O'Shaughnessy for their input into individual chapters and appendices. I would also like to thank the two unidentified academic readers who reviewed a pre-publication article based on this work for their encouragement and insight.\n\nThe research undertaken over the past two years required access to a considerable volume of data and I would like to acknowledge the assistance received from Rebecca Hayes, archivist and librarian, at the Library of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in Dublin, and Diane Clements, director, Martin Cherry, librarian, and Susan Snell, archivist, at the Library and Museum of the United Grand Lodge of England at Great Queen Street in London. Thank you for your patience and support.\n\nAccess to primary source material is a crucial component of any academic work and I am grateful to those Masonic lodges who allowed me access to their earliest records and, in particular, the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2; St George's and Corner Stone lodge, No. 5; Enoch lodge, No. 11; and the Old King's Arms lodge, No. 28.\n\nFinally, may I express my gratitude to the Modern European History Research Centre and the History Faculty of the University of Oxford through which I was provided with access to the records and data held at the Bodleian Libraries.\n\nDR RICHARD BERMAN \nFebruary 2013\n_For Sue, Charlotte and Theo_\n\n# _Introduction_\n\nThe first Grand Lodge of Freemasons was established in London in 1717. Ostensibly the product of four founding lodges seeking a structure for their mutual governance, the idea was more probably the creation of a small number of motivated members of the Horn tavern lodge led by Rev. Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, a Huguenot \u00e9migr\u00e9 and Oxford-educated Newtonian scientist, at the time a recently made Fellow of the Royal Society and its curator and demonstrator. Although the new organisation initially sought to exercise influence over no more than those lodges established in the cities of London and Westminster, its remit expanded rapidly and within a few years, the Grand Lodge of England was positioned as a self-professed national governing authority for freemasonry and the principal force behind the movement's development in England and elsewhere.\n\nSeveral factors differentiated English freemasonry from the numerous other clubs and societies then being established in eighteenth century associational Britain. Desaguliers' inner circle included Martin Folkes, later President of the Royal Society; William Cowper, the Clerk to the Parliaments, the administrative head of the Houses of Parliament; Charles Delafaye, the government's chief spymaster and a prominent undersecretary of state; and Charles, 2nd duke of Richmond and Lennox. All were members of the Horn tavern lodge, of which Richmond was Master, and each was eminent in his own right. Crucially, both they and other members of the lodge were exceptionally well connected and within a few years, leading members of the Whig aristocracy and government had been persuaded to join freemasonry, assume its leadership and provide the organisation with political protection and social imprimatur. At the same time, under the joint auspices of Desaguliers and George Payne, another member of the Horn, a new _Constitutions_ was prepared that included a fresh set of Masonic charges and regulations that replaced the mediaeval 'Old Charges' that had previously governed how freemasonry and the lodge was to operate.\n\nPublished in 1723, the _Constitutions_ espoused a lengthy faux history of freemasonry that detailed and lauded the Craft's ancient antecedents, introduced latitudinarianism \u2013 religious tolerance \u2013 as an operative philosophy in Masonic ritual, and adopted an almost democratic approach to freemasonry's internal governance that was at the time in a broader social context virtually unique. The new regulations superimposed an implicit if not explicit Hanoverian agenda onto freemasonry and, among other aspects, revised radically the Masonic oaths to ensure that each freemason was obliged to swear to conform to and respect the law and the magistracy, be a peaceable subject of the Crown and not to become involved in any Jacobite plots or anti-government conspiracies.\n\nIn addition to the patronage of celebrity members of the aristocracy, freemasonry \u2013 and English Grand Lodge in particular \u2013 quickly became identified with numerous luminaries, including a wide range of senior members of the Royal Society and principal figures from other leading professional organisations, including the Royal College of Physicians and the Society of Apothecaries. There was, additionally, a crossover in membership with a number of socially prominent Enlightenment clubs, including the Society of Antiquarians and the Gentleman's Society of Spalding. Even the Crown was involved, with Frederick, Prince of Wales, being initiated in 1737 by Desaguliers at a specially convened lodge at Kew. Notably, many of his Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and other senior courtiers were already members of 'the Craft'. And befitting what was a profoundly pro-establishment organisation that shared and proselytised the Whig philosophy of freedom of religion and respect for property and public order, freemasonry became integrated into the establishment, developing strong ties to the military, the civil service and the magistracy, where senior members included successive chairmen of the Westminster and Middlesex benches and other judicial figures.\n\nBy the late 1720s, in its now reinvented form, English freemasonry had become one of \u2013 if not the \u2013 most attractive yet accessible destinations for the aspirational gentry and middling classes. Grand Lodge and freemasonry's more eminent constituent lodges were led by a parade of noble Grand Masters from John, 2nd duke of Montagu, one of the wealthiest men in England and in 1721 the first nobleman to accept the position of Grand Master, to Thomas Howard, 8th duke of Norfolk, Grand Marshall of England, and Lord Lovell, Sir Robert Walpole's wealthy Norfolk neighbour and a key political ally, the latter two figures becoming Grand Masters in 1730 and 1731, respectively. Freemasonry had been positioned intentionally at the pinnacle of Hanoverian society. And Desaguliers and his colleagues deployed its celebrated and sometimes iconic social connections, Masonic patronage and a well-managed decade long publicity campaign to achieve a preeminent position and cement an enduring alliance with the British establishment.\n\nUnder its new Grand Lodge, freemasonry was directed by a leadership motivated by a powerful desire to safeguard the Hanoverian succession. The constitutional crisis that accompanied William and Mary's Glorious Revolution had led directly to George I succeeding Queen Anne. But the Hanoverian grasp on the British throne was neither absolute nor fully secure, and the latent threat from the Jacobite Pretender, father then son, and their allies in France, Spain and elsewhere, remained a concern and was at the forefront of eighteenth-century politics, at least until the second Jacobite rebellion was crushed in 1745.\n\nThe same if not a greater sense of insecurity and drive for self preservation was present in London's Huguenot community. Over fifty thousand Huguenot refugees had found sanctuary in England having been forced from France by Louis XIV's dragonnades and his revocation of the edict of Nantes, events that followed more than a century of persecution and sometimes genocide by the French state and Catholic church. The majority settled in London and it was not coincidental that they were represented disproportionately within London freemasonry and its leadership, including Desaguliers, Francis Sorrel, Martin Clare and Josias Villeneau. For both the Huguenots and the Whigs, Hanoverian Britain was a bulwark against the naked absolutism of France, Spain and much of continental Europe. And under Desaguliers' influence, the Grand Lodge of England and English freemasonry was in the vanguard of its defence.\n\nBut although political concerns may have shaped eighteenth-century freemasonry and altered Masonic ritual accordingly, its popularity was embedded in a relevance to its membership among the gentry and middling that went beyond Whig politics. In the 1720s and 1730s, the Masonic lodge functioned not only as a relatively exclusive secular fraternal club for the more affluent but, at the same time, many lodges became virtually an extension of Newton's scientific Enlightenment. In addition to offering the well-publicised prospect of convivial and bibulous civil association, lodge meetings would sometimes include talks and lectures and provide a potential opportunity to network with eminent professional men. Scientific lectures were at the time, in Simon Schaffer's characterisation, the 'theatre of the upper classes'. But they also had a utilitarian aspect in an age when the application of science to solve practical commercial problems was integral to the processes of wealth preservation and creation. Natural philosophers, including Desaguliers, described by Larry Stewart as 'arguably the most successful scientific lecturer of the century' and, at the time, by the duke of Chandos, as 'the best mechanic in Europe', were invited to apply their knowledge and were believed to \u2013 indeed, probably could \u2013 offer their clients and audiences a valuable and direct route to personal prosperity. Many were or became celebrities and their presence by association or in person offered kudos in an Enlightenment age where the pursuit of knowledge was a goal in its own right.\n\nWith Desaguliers and his colleagues from the Royal Society at its helm, freemasonry could be regarded as combining education with entertainment, politics with philosophy, and antiquarian (if sometimes faux) Masonic ritual with dining and drinking. And Britain's emergent associational culture provided a receptive growth medium. Within less than two decades, freemasonry had become the largest, best known and most influential of the nation's numerous fraternal clubs and societies. It was a unique organisation and it developed and expanded into what became virtually a mass movement among the aristocracy and middling, with perhaps a fifth becoming members and, in London, possibly more.\n\nThe Grand Lodge of England and variations on English freemasonry were emulated rapidly and widely. In an attempt to copy its cachet, Ireland, Scotland and the Low Countries each established their own Masonic grand lodges. Leading noblemen and politicians were initiated in France, Austria, Sweden, Prussia and Russia; and freemasonry was planted elsewhere, including Spain and Portugal. Outside Europe, the Craft was seeded throughout Britain's growing empire by traders, colonists and the military, with lodges warranted in India, America, Canada and the Caribbean. As a measure of its achievement, the number of lodges within the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of England alone increased from the founding four in 1717 to over sixty in 1725, more than one hundred in 1730 and around two hundred in 1740. Although some lodges failed to survive, by the mid-1730s, freemasonry was present on the eastern seaboard of the Americas, in Boston, New York, Charles Town and Savannah, and in India in Bengal.\n\nBut as its original founders and proselytisers aged and retired or died, circumstances changed and two decades of growth in mainstream English freemasonry came to a halt in the 1740s. Within twenty years of Desaguliers and Folkes having persuaded the 2nd duke of Montagu to accept the position of its first noble Grand Master, bureaucratic incompetency was taking over English Grand Lodge. The organisation became arrogant and self-obsessed. And disaffection grew, becoming so considerable by the end of the decade that around a quarter of London's lodges were expelled or erased from the register, while others seceded or chose to remain independent.\n\nPartly in response, a rival 'Antients' Grand Lodge was formed in London in 1751 at the head of a small group of five predominantly London Irish Masonic lodges. While the original Grand Lodge of England stagnated, the number and membership of Antients lodges in London and provincial England climbed. Expansion was linked in part to the particular circumstances of the Irish immigrant community in London and elsewhere and represented a response both to their social and Masonic alienation and to that of the lower middling and working class more broadly. From the handful of lodges that had been involved in the constitution of the new grand lodge, the number electing to join its orbit rose to thirteen within a year. By 1753, just two years after its launch, there were thirty lodges; and in 1754, a year later, the Antients had close to forty. Within three decades, the figure had risen to over two hundred, with around seventy-five lodges in London, over eighty in the provinces and nearly fifty overseas.\n\nVirtually from its inception, Antients freemasonry's public persona, organisation and administration were shaped principally by one man: Laurence Dermott, an expatriate Irishman who led the organisation as its Grand Secretary and then Deputy Grand Master for over twenty-five years. Dermott dominated the Antients in a similar way to that in which Desaguliers some three decades earlier had influenced the original Grand Lodge of England. The difference was that Dermott's influence was unrivalled and pervasive, and lasted more than a decade longer.\n\nMany of the factors that motivated Dermott and lay behind the success of Antients freemasonry and its new grand lodge were unrelated to those that had set the foundations of the first English Grand Lodge. Unlike the pro-Hanoverian political insecurities and Newtonian science that inspired Desaguliers and the petty gentry and middling others who made up the bulk of the first Grand Lodge and its member lodges, Antients freemasonry was driven initially by the particular circumstances of London's Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s and later mirrored the urbanisation and changing work patterns associated with the emerging industrialisation of Britain. However, it also reflected the aspirations of the lower middling and working class more broadly, in particular their desire to access 'polite society' and attain economic betterment and in this there was a commonality with the aspirational threads that ran through the membership of the original Grand Lodge of England.\n\nBut despite such similarities, Antients freemasonry differed fundamentally from its predecessor lodge in two material respects: first, in terms of its social and economic function; and second, with regard to the composition of its membership. Alongside Masonic ritual, the principal purpose of Antients freemasonry was to provide and promote mutually funded welfare and an accessible social infrastructure for its predominantly lower middling and working-class membership. And as a younger organisation and one that from the late 1750s effectively competed for members, it was important that it should be positively differentiated.\n\nDermott positioned Antients freemasonry to offer disaffected Irish and English masons in London and elsewhere a seemingly superior and more traditional and historically legitimate alternative to that of the original grand lodge, which he pejoratively dismissed as the 'Moderns', a name which stuck to the organisation. He adopted an aggressively satirical approach towards the Moderns, about whom he was scathing, and amused, enticed and flattered rather than sought to dictate to or patronise prospective lodge members. Dermott's technique was effective and combined astute leadership with efficient press management and organisational self-promotion. However, the Antients also championed a strongly utilitarian aspect to lodge membership, a feature borne out by the aspirational nature of many of the lower and middling urban and industrial workers attracted to the organisation. In addition to its purportedly greater historical legitimacy and traditions, Antients freemasonry's superior utility was epitomised in the grant of membership certificates which provided a proto passport that facilitated access to lodges elsewhere in Britain and overseas, and thereby introduced members to a potentially beneficial network that combined social support and work and trading opportunities. In short, Antients freemasonry's success was based on a combination of Dermott's effective and aggressive leadership, and its function as a friendly society and a flexible social and commercial space open to many of those otherwise excluded.\n\nDermott and the Antients were at odds with their more reactive counterparts in the Moderns. Where in the first half of the eighteenth century, English freemasonry had been allied closely to the political and social establishment and their respective elites, in the second half, Antients freemasonry almost served as a repository for those more commonly rejected. Indeed, on occasions, the Antients may have appeared to be almost an anti (English) establishment force. Perhaps supportive of this interpretation, it became especially popular in many of Britain's overseas colonies where resistance to imperial economic imposition and political diktat developed along similar lines to opposition in Ireland, and across America, lodges switched allegiance from the Moderns to ally themselves with the Antients. But despite such a profile, Antients freemasonry also benefited from strong aristocratic connections and its consequential political protection. The earl of Blessington's decision in 1756 to offer his patronage and become its first noble Grand Master reinforced the Antients' standing, as did the later patronage of the 3rd and 4th dukes of Atholl and other well-placed aristocrats. The Antients gained further kudos in 1758, when the Grand Lodge of Ireland switched Masonic allegiance and ceased its fraternal relations with the Moderns to recognise the rival Antients formally as the only legitimate grand lodge in England.\n\nIrish influence and sponsorship, direct and indirect, was a key component in the Antients' long-term success. British mercantilism had alienated and politicised the formerly loyal elite at Irish Grand Lodge and it was a powerful sense of Anglo-Irish patriotism that had motivated Blessington to become the Antients' first noble Grand Master. It is arguable that without his support, and, later, that of the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, Antients freemasonry would not have prospered to the extent that it challenged the Moderns for Masonic supremacy in England and elsewhere.\n\nSuch competition would later spur the Moderns to retaliate and reverse their decline. And after Dermott's death, the two rival grand lodges gradually ceased hostilities and would eventually amalgamate, but only in 1813 and only after the intervention of the British Crown in the form of the duke of Sussex and his brother, the duke of Kent, the younger sons of George III, and after some six decades of internecine acrimony.\n\nHowever, despite being published in the two hundredth anniversary year of the union between the Antients and Moderns, _Schism_ is not concerned with the later reconciliation. It seeks instead to explain and track for the first time the roots of the creation of Antients freemasonry and the Antients Grand Lodge and to examine the Antients membership as a prism through which to explore mid-eighteenth century London working class and lower middling society. Although an arcane dispute over what was the proper or more traditional form of Masonic ritual was (and continues to be) regarded as the key differentiator between the two rival grand lodges, it is contended that this rationale is overly superficial. As was later the case, there was little that could not have been resolved through flexibility and compromise. The real differences between the two organisations lay in the nature of their respective leaders, their members and the reasons they joined.\n\n_Schism_ has not been written to stand solely as an academic work but to introduce and make accessible the subject matter to a wider Masonic and non-Masonic audience and, most particularly, to supplement (I won't say 'replace') the now dated standard works on the subject. It is also an attempt to contribute to the history of London and the London Irish in the long eighteenth century and to confront and examine the trade and social networks that were characteristic of the lower middling and working urban class, a subject that remains substantially unexplored.\n\nDetailed biographical and other background information on a spectrum of influential Irish and English freemasons, including many of the principal Grand Officers in the mid-eighteenth century, is incorporated into the text and appendices in the knowledge that this will be of interest to Masonic researchers and historians. I also hope that it will provide an accessible point of reference that takes note of new and now-accessible primary sources.\n\n_Schism_ 's early chapters describe aspects of the interaction between freemasonry and contemporary eighteenth-century society and outline the axiomatic role of the London Irish and the Irish more widely in shaping both Antients freemasonry and the broader Masonic movement, an influence that has not been recognised fully, if at all. Throughout the period under review, freemasonry was in large measure a social, economic and cultural phenomenon, and to seek to divorce or examine the subject in isolation from such a framework would be to fail properly to comprehend it. _Schism_ begins with an examination of the rejection of Irish freemasons by the original Grand Lodge of England. Where the final chapter suggests how the economic policies imposed by London provided a context for public alienation in Ireland and the politicisation of the elite at the helm of Irish Grand Lodge and other supporters of Antients freemasonry, CHAPTER ONE looks at a more proximate driver behind the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge: the social and economic alienation of the Irish within Britain itself.\n\nThis estrangement was epitomised in many ways by the rejection of the London Irish by English Grand Lodge and its constituent lodges. The first chapter reflects on the growth of Antients freemasonry and on the impact of the leadership and life of Laurence Dermott, the Antients' pivotal Grand Secretary and the author of _Ahiman Rezon,_ their influential and bestselling 'constitution'. An attempt is made to assess Dermott's administration of Antients freemasonry and to reflect on the man himself. To the limited biographical material currently in the public domain is added new information on Dermott's personal life, including his two marriages. The chapter argues that Dermott successfully positioned the Antients as an effective and preferred alternative to the Moderns and substantially created and sustained the long-standing Masonic rivalry between the two grand lodges.\n\nAs the Antients' principal controlling mind, Dermott oversaw a period of three decades of mutual denigration that persisted from the 1750s into the 1780s. Indeed, it was only after his death that the Antients begin to row back on their criticism of the Moderns. The move paved the way for an eventual reconciliation. But criticism was not a one-way channel. The Antients and Dermott were themselves condemned by the Moderns, both at the time and subsequently, and the first chapter explores both the impact and the retaliation it provoked. One response was to seek aristocratic patronage and the section concludes with a brief exploration of the Antients' early Grand Masters.\n\nAs with the Moderns, the social and political position of Antients freemasonry was underscored by aristocratic patronage, and senior and affluent members of the Irish and Scottish aristocracy and gentry successively consented to act as its figurehead. The organisation's standing vis-\u00e0-vis the Moderns was buttressed and enhanced accordingly. William Stewart, 1st earl of Blessington, Grand Master from 1756 until 1760, was followed by leading members of the Scottish aristocracy, most especially the 3rd and 4th dukes of Atholl, who sat simultaneously as Grand Masters of the Antients and as Grand Masters of Scottish Grand Lodge. They were instrumental in obtaining the fraternal recognition of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and, in an act that sidelined and virtually isolated the Moderns, in 1773, the three grand lodges of the Antients, Ireland and Scotland established a mutual pact of Masonic recognition.\n\nIn CHAPTERS TWO, THREE and FOUR, we turn to a granular examination of the Antients' lower middling and working-class members, and to a discussion of the London Irish diaspora, the principal constituency from which Antients freemasonry was initially populated. CHAPTER TWO argues that an endemic failure to look beyond the caricature of the London Irish obscured the view of the ambitious Irish economic migrants beneath and ignored their desire to be assimilated into what might be termed polite or professional society. CHAPTERS THREE and FOUR set out a detailed breakdown of the Antients' primary membership data and examines briefly the London slums within which many lived. The records date from the early 1750s and display the social and occupational characteristics of London's grass roots members of Antients freemasonry.\n\nUnlike many other eighteenth-century clubs and societies, Antients freemasonry was not an 'elitist' organisation. However, there is nonetheless evidence of stratification in its membership, which included the more middling and aspirational, and in acts of Masonic charity and other expenditures we can see a desire of at least some members to be marked out from their peers. Regardless, the data also reveals a high level of social integration on a local basis within London's discrete geographic districts, and a strong commitment to fraternalism and mutuality.\n\nCHAPTER THREE also considers the evolution of the lodge as a friendly society. Contemporary records demonstrate the provision of substantial and probably effective mutual support within the Masonic and wider community, including financial assistance to the ill, unemployed and families of the deceased. Most importantly, the evidence largely dismisses the traditional image of the feckless Irishman and instead speaks to a more complex view that touches on social ambition, self-help and economic aspiration. An examination of the Antients minute books and membership records that have survived substantiates the argument. The analysis concludes that Antients freemasonry should be regarded more as a mutual benefit club than a 'secret society' or 'society with secrets'.\n\nCHAPTER FOUR touches on the key connection between the London magistracy and the London Irish (and other working-class defendants) that came before the bench. It argues that the then archetypical representation of the Irish working class as violent, drunken and feckless, coloured the way in which the London Irish as a whole was treated by the British establishment. This included many of those at the helm of early eighteenth-century English freemasonry \u2013 an organisation whose upper branches were dominated by members of the magistracy. The antipathy that the Irish working class encountered in England was fed by a sensationalist press and reinforced by the magistrates' bench, whose remit was to punish disorder and control those portrayed and perceived as dangerous Jacobites and disaffected papists. The chapter references a number of contemporary court reports from the Middlesex and Westminster Justices' Sessions and transcripts of trials at the Old Bailey. In addition, a first and brief attempt is made to consider the prosecution and sentencing of Irish defendants who were arraigned to appear at the Old Bailey. A selection of trial data from 1740\u201390 is studied, as are statistics relating to prosecution and sentencing in the mid-nineteenth century, the first occasion on which such data was broken down by nationality.\n\nHaving examined certain of the social and economic factors behind the rise of the Antients, the following three chapters look in more detail at those that drove the Irish away from English freemasonry. CHAPTER FIVE details the mid-century decline and decay of the original Grand Lodge of England from its pinnacle of influence in the late 1730s to the relative depths of the late 1740s. It explores the decline through an examination of the Moderns' Grand Officers and their actions in expelling some forty lodges, a quarter of the total, and considers the effect of what was described as a period of 'Masonic misrule' that characterised the 1740s. The issue was recognised at the time and continued to resonate in the observations of prominent Victorian commentators more than a century later.\n\nCHAPTER SIX sets out the little that is known of Fotherley Baker, John Revis and John Jesse, the three key individuals who ran the Grand Lodge of England in the latter part of the 1740s. And CHAPTER SEVEN extends the analysis and turns to the role and position of one of the most prominent and influential of London's lodges, that at the King's Arms in the Strand: known commonly as the 'Old King's Arms' or 'OKA'. We explore its transition from an influential outpost of Enlightenment thought in the 1730s to an elitist dining club in the 1740s, and examine its uniquely close relationship with English Grand Lodge. The OKA was at the heart of the inexpedient changes taking place within the Moderns in the mid-eighteenth century and it reflected and symbolised the influence and transformational effect on London freemasonry of those then at its helm.\n\nFinally, CHAPTER EIGHT returns to the early part of the eighteenth century to trace the political and economic milieu into which regular Irish freemasonry was born and from which Irish support for Antients freemasonry later emerged. Beginning with the Treaty of Limerick that ended the Williamite-Jacobite Wars in Ireland and emasculated Ireland's Catholic Jacobite opposition, the chapter touches on Ireland's unsteady transition from a loyal 'colony' to become one of Britain's more awkward and fractious neighbours. From the 1690s and early 1700s, Ireland had been governed by a minority Anglo-Irish Protestant elite who viewed their interests and those of England largely as one. Such political dependability would not last. Increasingly onerous legislation forced on Ireland by London prevented the country from trading freely and restricted economic growth. Irritation and discontent was heightened by political discrimination, a mindset encapsulated by the imposition of the Irish Declaratory Act. The legislation removed the ultimate legal authority of the Irish judiciary and replaced it with that of Britain's House of Lords. The conflict between Ireland's military and economic dependency on Britain politicised many in Ireland's Anglo-Irish elite. It was present in the money bills disputes of the 1750s and Grattan's later patriotic opposition. And it was at hand in the earl of Blessington's willingness to support the Antients and become their first noble Grand Master, and in Ireland's switch away from the original Grand Lodge of England to support and recognise the Antients. Although not a subject for this book, the roots of Ireland's later quest for economic and political autonomy were as much a function of the patriotic nationalism of the Protestant Anglo-Irish in the mid- and late eighteenth century as the burgeoning Catholic opposition that followed the Acts of Union in the nineteenth. Masonic estrangement from those previously regarded as their peers became a metaphor for the friction created by mercantilism. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the social development of Irish freemasonry in the latter part of the century and its parallels with Antients freemasonry in Britain.\n\nThe CONCLUSION reflects on the different dimensions that prompted the schism in English freemasonry. Masonic historians have traditionally approached 1751 and the antipathy and rancour that followed as a matter best ignored or considered as a now-resolved argument concerning minor or major differences in Masonic ritual. Perhaps worse, most mainstream historians are unaware of the event, its repercussions and the metaphors and insights that it offers. _Schism_ is a first attempt to analyse the subject matter in context and discuss the issues raised.\n\nThe appendices follow. The first three provide for reference purposes details of the Grand Lodge Officers from each of the Antients, Irish and English constitutions who presided at their respective grand lodges during the period under review. The fourth contains a comprehensive list of military lodges warranted by the Irish and Antients Grand Lodges.\n\nThe following two appendices are of greater length. Appendix V contains a brief history of Irish Grand Lodge and biographical information on the early Irish Grand Offices. It provides an overview of the eighteenth-century origins of Irish freemasonry and the aristocrats and gentry who stood behind the formation of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1725. Although the creation of an Irish Grand Lodge can be regarded as having been motivated originally to emulate the social success of its sister organisation in England, few of Ireland's early Masonic records remain extant. Instead, the development of Irish freemasonry is traced principally through press reports. They indicate that the early Irish Grand Masters were, as in England, a litany of the country's Whiggist great and good, leavened with upper middling professionals and Huguenot and Quaker merchants. Family, social and political connections bound together many of Ireland's early Grand Masters and Grand Officers, virtually all of whom, like their English counterparts, were loyal pro-Hanoverians.\n\nAppendix VI moves back across the Irish Sea to examine the members of the lodge at the Ship behind the Royal Exchange in London. The tavern was the location of England's most prominent and possibly first principally Irish Masonic lodge and the membership represented a repository of merchants, lobbyists and expatriate Irish gentry who provide multiple examples of Ireland's social, commercial and political links with Britain. The lodge and its members offer evidence that the main centre of Irish political, legal and financial power lay in London, not Dublin. The Irish \u2013 Protestant and Catholic alike \u2013 were obliged to maintain a network of lobbyists and agents in Britain, not least to ensure that their views received attention in parliament. And since it was obligatory for many goods to be shipped via British ports, where they were taxed before being transhipped elsewhere, there were significant advantages to the Irish conducting business and trading in London. An analysis of the Ship provides a conduit through which the composite of family, business and social relationships can be explored; however, it also offers evidence of freemasonry being one of many connections shared by merchants and traders on both sides of the Irish Sea, and of the relative ease with which the affluent middling Irish were then accepted into London society.\n\nAlthough Antients freemasonry can be interpreted as formalising existing Masonic divisions and buttressing what became a bitter and lengthy rivalry with the Moderns, it was principally a product of other less visible but arguably more significant factors. Put simply, the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge had two key drivers: first, England's increasingly calamitous relationship with Ireland and the Irish living on both sides of the Irish Sea; and second, the changing composition of British society and, in particular, the development of a more aspirational lower middling and urban working class.\n\nSteered by its Grand Secretary and Grand Lodge, Antients freemasonry reflected and led changes in progress elsewhere in Britain. It extended membership and formal sociability beyond the gentry and professional classes and, in doing so, helped to create one of the first modern friendly societies. Indeed, by offering its lower middling lodge members the prospect of a broadly based, mutually financed safety net, it may even be correct to argue that Antients freemasonry helped to create and support a more confident, ambitious and less easily controlled urban working class. It is argued that Antients freemasonry not only performed an economic and social welfare function but that this, perhaps more than the ritual aspect of freemasonry, provided its main function.\n\n_Schism_ offers a social and economic prism through which Britain's changing relationship with Ireland and Britain's own emerging aspirational lower middling and working class can be examined. The book seeks to throw light on a hitherto neglected Irish dimension to the great English drama of the existence, pre-1813, of two rival grand lodges, each of which claimed to represent authentic English Freemasonry, and to contribute to the history of London and its eighteenth-century trade and social networks.\n\n# CHAPTER ONE\n\n# _Laurence Dermott and the Antients Grand Lodge_\n\nIf one were to search for a single point of origin at which London's \u00e9migr\u00e9 Irish began to veer away from the original Grand Lodge of England, it might be 11 December 1735. On that day, the minutes of English Grand Lodge record a meeting at the Devil Tavern in Temple Bar, central London. Three Grand Officers were absent. The Grand Master, Lord Weymouth, had 'received an express this morning from Paris concerning the death of his lordship's grandmother, the Lady Jersey so that he could not with decency attend the society this evening'; and Mr Ward, Deputy Grand Master, and Sir Edward Mansell, Senior Grand Warden, 'also happened to be out of town'. In their place, George Payne was 'desired to take the Chair as Grand Master' and 'Bro. Lambell and Dr Anderson... took their seats as Grand Wardens pro tempore'. Martin Clare, the Junior Grand Warden, was elevated temporarily to Deputy Grand Master.\n\nAfter opening the lodge and reading the minutes of the last Quarterly Communication and Charity Committee, the minutes record\n\nNotice being given to the Grand Lodge that the Master and Wardens of a lodge from Ireland attended without desiring to be admitted by virtue of a Deputation from the Lord Kingston, present Grand Master of Ireland. But it appearing there was no particular recommendation from his Lordship in this affair, their Request could not be complied with, unless they would accept of a new Constitution here.\n\nJames King, the 4th lord Kingston (1693\u20131761), had served as Grand Master of English Grand Lodge in 1729, and in 1735, was sitting for the second time as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, having been elected in June. Given his Masonic standing and relative eminence as an Irish aristocrat, it may have been reasonable to expect that a deputation in his name would be welcomed with appropriate fraternal respect. However, with the excuse that 'there was no particular recommendation from his Lordship', the Irish were snubbed and their wish to be admitted 'could not be complied with'. The event stands out and, at least superficially, appeared to run against the fraternal philosophy that freemasonry professed to follow.\n\nIn his _Introduction_ to the QCA transcript of Grand Lodge's minutes, William Songhurst explained the rebuff by noting 'the absence of fraternal intercourse' between the Antients and Moderns. And in an editorial footnote, he commented further that the decision to reject the Irish delegation 'seems to point to alterations having been made which prevented intervisitation':\n\nWe know that the premier Grand Lodge was not recognised either in Ireland or Scotland, though both maintained fraternal correspondence with the Antients. Recognition by the Grand Lodges in the sister kingdoms, and a union with the Grand Lodge of the Antients only became possible after the resolution passed by the Moderns in 1809 \"that it is not necessary any longer to continue in force those measures which were resorted to in or about the year 1739 respecting irregular masons, and do therefore enjoin the several lodges to revert to the ancient land marks of the Society\".\n\nDespite these arguments having been widely accepted for many years, Songhurst's analysis is both inadequate and incorrect. First and most obviously, the Antients Grand Lodge did not come into existence until 1751, some sixteen years after the event under discussion; it was only after this point that the issue of a want of 'fraternal intercourse' between the two rival organisations developed. Second, a formal breakdown in the relationship between the Grand Lodge of Ireland and England did not develop until 1758, over two decades later. It was only in that year that Ireland recognised the Grand Lodge of the Antients formally as the sole legitimate grand lodge in England and broke off fraternal correspondence with the Moderns. Dublin's decision was linked to that of William Stewart, the 1st earl of Blessington, Grand Master of Ireland in 1738 and 1739 and a leading Irish aristocrat, who had agreed to become the Antients' first noble Grand Master two years earlier in 1756. Third, the Grand Lodge of Scotland did not recognise the Antients as the sole governing body of English freemasonry until even later, in 1773, when the 3rd duke of Atholl had become Grand Master of the Antients and was also appointed Grand Master elect of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. It was only at this point that Scotland entered into a formal Masonic pact with Ireland under which both grand lodges recognised the Antients Grand Lodge to the exclusion of the original Grand Lodge of England. The pact was a central thread in cementing the Masonic marginalisation of the Moderns in the late eighteenth century. It also reinforced a Masonic split between the Moderns and Scotland that had threatened for almost a decade. Where in 1762, the Grand Master of English Grand Lodge, Sholto Douglas, Lord Aberdour, had been the immediate past Grand Master of Scottish Grand Lodge, continuing a strong link between the two organisations, the following year the position had altered. From 1763 until 1765, Thomas Erskine, the 6th earl of Kellie, was both Grand Master of the Antients, where he presided from 1760 until 1766, and Grand Master of Scotland. Moreover, the 3rd and 4th dukes of Atholl maintained the same strong association between the Antients and Scottish Grand Lodge, serving as Grand Masters of the Antients (1771\u20134, 1775\u201381, 1791\u20131813) while simultaneously sitting as Grand Masters of Scotland (1773\u20134, 1778\u201380, respectively).\n\nBut notwithstanding the historical inaccuracies, perhaps the most important issue for Songhurst and other historians seeking to explain the rejection of the Irish deputation is the argument that 'alterations [had] been made [to Masonic ritual] which prevented inter-visitation'. Although not often specified, there were two sets of changes. In the early 1720s, Desaguliers, George Payne and other leading figures at English Grand Lodge had modernised Masonic ritual, adopting a more Enlightenment style that promoted religious tolerance and brought education and entertainment into lodge meetings. However, this had not prevented inter-visitation and made freemasonry less popular. It had had the opposite effect. Between the early 1720s and the mid-and late 1730s, freemasonry grew almost geometrically, both in terms of its grass roots membership and the number of lodges accepting the authority of the new Grand Lodge of England. Although it is possible that Songhurst was referring to these alterations, it is more probable that he had in mind a second set of changes that took place in the late 1730s, some three or four years or so after the date on which the Irish deputation had been barred from admission to Grand Lodge. Regardless of the discrepancy between the dates, the second set of amendments to Masonic ritual were placed by Songhurst and others at the centre of the later dispute between the Antients and Moderns grand lodges. And given their role as the principal _casus belli_ that instigated and sustained six decades of acrimony between the two organisations, it is appropriate to examine the issue in some detail.\n\nThe adoption by the Moderns of what the Antients criticised as 'innovative ritual' was termed 'the discard... of the old unwritten traditions of the Order'. Two questions arise: first, did such changes occur; and second, how extensive and comprehensive were they. The answer to the first question is 'yes'. Why else would the Moderns have resolved in 1809 that it was no longer necessary for them to continue 'those measures which were resorted to in or about the year 1739'. However, the answer to the second point is harder to establish with clarity. Although the ritual used by Irish and Antients freemasons was at variance from that used by 'regular' English freemasons, the nature and extent of any divergence need to be understood in context. In addition, it is necessary to understand that the changes made in the late 1730s were demonstrably less radical and considerably less far-reaching than often supposed.\n\nIn the eighteenth century, Masonic ritual took slightly different forms in each of England, Ireland and Scotland. It is known and accepted that lodge practice also varied on a regional basis within each country and that it often differed materially from lodge to lodge. This was partly a function of an oral tradition that thwarted homogeneity, something that was achieved only later when ritual was written down. However, it was also the case that many individual lodges determined for themselves the precise nature of the ritual that they followed. Indeed, at least in the mid-eighteenth century, there was also a financial incentive to promoting and occasionally inventing additional Masonic ceremonies: extra fees could be levied by a lodge as members progressed from lower to higher degrees. It is not unreasonable to believe that this may have been a relatively important motive behind the initial spread of the Royal Arch in England and Ireland, where it only appeared on the Masonic scene in the 1730s and 1740s. And it is significant that, despite its relatively recent introduction into the Masonic ceremonial, the Royal Arch was later championed by the Antients as a principal differentiator between it and the Moderns and held out as providing evidence of the former's greater historical legitimacy and adherence to 'ancient' tradition. Tangentially, it is somewhat ironic that it was probably the popularity among freemasons of the many eighteenth-century expos\u00e9s published in Britain, France and elsewhere that prompted greater uniformity in the forms of ritual used within the lodge. But standardisation in freemasonry only developed more substantially in the nineteenth century once an agreed form had been documented and disseminated by the then merged United Grand Lodge of England. And differences persisted even then. An obvious example is Bristol and the West Country, where the Masonic ritual employed had a strong commonality with that practiced in Ireland. The relationship was based on longstanding commercial ties which were mirrored in freemasonry, with merchants and traders forming and reinforcing Masonic bonds through inter-visitation and common lodge membership. Similar attachments extended to the London Irish: the first two Antients lodges to be warranted outside of London, Nos 24 and 25, were established in Bristol in October 1753. Further examples of the genre can be found in Appendix VI, which details the members of the lodge at the Ship behind the Royal Exchange and their relationships with Ireland.\n\nTurning to the specifics of the accusations levied at the Moderns, the most common Antients complaint was that 'in or about 1739', the traditional passwords and handshakes that comprised the accepted form of Masonic recognition in the first and second degree ceremonies were transposed. The switch had purportedly been made at the suggestion of English Grand Lodge to exclude those masons whose knowledge had been gleaned from the press rather than from participating in the ceremonial. However, such a ruse would have become known rapidly. An alternative and more probable explanation is that such changes were introduced instead as an excuse to bar those thought to be of insufficient social standing. This is discussed in more detail below.\n\nOther \u2013 lesser \u2013 Irish and Antients' criticism was directed at what was viewed as the over-secularisation of freemasonry and the omission of Christian symbolism; changes to the way in which initiates were prepared; the failure to recite the Old Charges in full (a lengthy process); and failing to use a sword in the initiation ceremony. Two further objections were directed at the use of 'stewards' to undertake roles performed in Ireland by 'deacons'; and, perhaps more tellingly, that the Moderns did not allow additional degrees to be worked in the lodge. Most of these complaints were relatively minor or even specious, and virtually all might be regarded as being undermined by the reality of eighteenth-century Masonic practice. As noted, given that Masonic ritual varied nationally, regionally and from lodge to lodge, such differences, whether minor or major, were sometimes the rule rather than an aberration. Examining the matter objectively, one can conclude with respect to ritual that in most areas of substance, the Moderns and Antients and their respective bodies of freemasons were largely aligned. Support for this interpretation is provided in _Hiram,_ published in 1766, which set out to compare the two forms of ritual. The book confirms the extent to which the two overlapped and makes clear the absence of any material contradictions. This should not be a surprise. There is only modest evidence that points to Masonic ritual being the primary motive for the creation of Antients freemasonry and the principal cause of the later schism. In short, the issue has been misunderstood. But if ritual was not the central factor, what was?\n\nThe work of two Victorian historians, Robert Gould and Henry Sadler, underpins the received explanation of the dispute between the Antients and Moderns and how the Antients Grand Lodge came to be established. Gould's synopsis was based substantially on the minutes of what he dismissively called 'that schismatic body, commonly, but erroneously, termed the _Antient Masons'_ and was limited to an analysis of freemasonry itself. Anecdotally, despite his partiality against the 'schismatics', Gould was surprisingly appreciative of the effectiveness of Laurence Dermott, the Antients' Grand Secretary, whom he termed 'the most remarkable mason of that time'. And he was correspondingly critical of the original Grand Lodge of England, Lord Byron, the then Grand Master, and its wider leadership, noting that their actions and inactions allowed the Antients to gain traction in London and elsewhere.\n\nSadler's assessment of the Antients focused more directly \u2013 and correctly \u2013 on the influence of the predominant majority 'Irish faction' in the new rival Antients Grand Lodge and its constituent lodges. However, unlike Gould, Sadler argued pedantically that since the London Irish had not been members of English lodges, it would be wrong to term the rivalry between the two organisations and their respective members a schism. Sadler's argument was based on the seeming tautology that, by definition, one cannot leave or fracture an organisation of which one has not been a member. He therefore contended that no schism had occurred and that the presence of two competing grand lodges was an aberration. This was a nonsense. But it was accepted without serious question in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Even a century later, Dashwood, writing in support of Sadler, made the quasi-legalistic observation that the position could not have been otherwise since no 'exclusive territorial jurisdiction [for freemasonry] had [then] been formulated'.\n\nSadler's approach, and that of many subsequent commentators, ignored the evidence. Moderns freemasons did join the Antients, and sometimes _vice versa._ Why else would the Moderns and Antients Grand Lodges sanction members who joined their respective rival? The Moderns insisted that their members meet only under their jurisdiction. Those who did otherwise risked expulsion. And the Antients took a parallel view:\n\nif any lodge under the ancient constitution of England... shall have in their possessions any authority from the Grand Lodge of Moderns or in any manner assemble or meet under such authority, [they] shall be deemed unworthy of associating with the members of the Ancient Community and the warrant they hold under this Right Worshipful Grand Lodge shall be immediately cancelled.\n\nSadler also disregarded the London Irish who were prevented or dissuaded from joining English lodges. This had been the case since the late 1730s, and probably earlier if the reaction to Lord Kingston's deputation to Grand Lodge is a guide. And he may have purposefully overlooked those freemasons who were ejected from regular English freemasonry and later found their way to the Antients. With almost a quarter of lodges expelled by the original Grand Lodge of England during the decade to 1750, the exodus is likely to have contributed substantially to the speed with which Antients freemasonry developed.\n\nRegardless, returning to George Payne's rejection of the Irish deputation in 1735, there is another issue to be considered: the significance of the offer of 'a new constitution here', that is, the grant of an alternative English Masonic warrant. Payne would have been aware of the discrepancies that existed between Irish and English Masonic lodge warrants or constitutions. The key difference was with regard to the degree of autonomy deemed devolved to an individual lodge through the issue of a warrant by grand lodge.\n\nAlthough Irish lodges placed themselves nominally under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, in practice, they retained considerable independence, with many lodges outside Dublin giving few thoughts to the edicts of Irish Grand Lodge and fewer dues. The first warrants issued in Ireland conferred extensive powers on the recipient lodges and included a license to draw up their own regulations and a grant in perpetuity to the master and wardens of the right to constitute the lodge. In such circumstances, the warrant had considerable significance and lodges were not deemed to be tied to a particular geographic location but to the location of the document itself. This gave rise to the convention and practice that a lodge could meet anywhere, whether in Ireland or overseas. It may also be one reason why peripatetic regimental lodges were first granted in Ireland.\n\nThe custom would have been anathema to English Grand Lodge in general, and to George Payne in particular. Alongside Desaguliers and Martin Folkes, Payne had been instrumental in the construction of new _Regulations_ that provided the centralised federal framework that was intended to govern English freemasonry and, with other Grand Officers, he had spent more than a decade in their promotion and enforcement. In Payne's eyes, if the Irish were to meet as regular masons in London, they should do so only if they accepted an English constitution and observe English Masonic norms, most especially fealty to English Grand Lodge and acceptance of a more restrictive warrant. Consequently, given the absence of any written letter of introduction from Lord Kingston, and perhaps even if one had been forthcoming, recognition of any lodge or deputation based on an Irish warrant would have posed an unacceptable threat both to Payne and to English Masonic convention.\n\nHowever, in interpreting Payne's actions, one can go further. Given his position within society, it is likely that Payne would have been subject to the same social mores as his peers. In this respect, with the exception of the Anglo-Irish gentry and aristocracy (and sometimes not even then), few Englishmen drew distinctions between different classes of Irishmen. Whether Catholic or Protestant, conformist or dissenters, rural or urban, the Irish were often lumped together as one feckless whole. Payne's negative approach to Ireland and the Irish would have mirrored the attitude of many others within English Grand Lodge. And perhaps matters were made worse by the absence of two of Grand Lodge's more aristocratic Grand Officers. Where it might have been feasible for the wealthy and socially secure Lord Weymouth and Sir Edward Mansell to have adopted a less condescending and relatively laissez faire attitude to the Irish deputation, it would certainly have been less easy for Payne, a tax official and magistrate, Jacob Lambell, a carpenter, and the Rev. James Anderson, a lowly Presbyterian minister. Although each had been associated intimately with Grand Lodge from its early years, all would have been conscious that their external social standing was at odds with their Masonic status, and this would have been guarded jealously.\n\nWhy was the anti-Irish bigotry that was so common in the eighteenth (and nineteenth) century ignored by Songhurst, Gould and Sadler as a possible cause of the rejection of Kingston's deputation. A possibility is that it would have been difficult for any of them to advance such an explanation given the subsequent union between the Antients and Moderns and the relatively more socially inclusive freemasonry that followed. Moreover, Gould and Sadler were writing in the 1880s when issues of Masonic unity (and their absence) were once again in the foreground. An argument over the precise nature of the oath to be taken in the lodge had divided international freemasonry, splitting much of the English speaking Masonic world, including the United Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, and the principal lodges of the United States and the British Empire, from the Grand Orient of France and European and South American freemasonry. And Songhurst, writing in 1913, would have been sensitive to the then delicate state of contemporary Hiberno-English relations given the controversy surrounding the question of Irish Home Rule.\n\nHaving had their overture summarily rejected, the reaction of the Irish delegation to Grand Lodge is unknown: bemused, annoyed or irate. Regardless, the growth of Irish freemasonry in London is likely to have been untrammelled; after all, English Grand Lodge had no sanction other than exclusion. And exclusion probably worked in favour of an \u00e9migr\u00e9 version of Irish freemasonry, creating a separate environment in which it thrived. In such circumstances, it would have been understandable psychology for the mainly lower middling and working-class London Irish freemasons to have accentuated the greater deemed antiquity, integrity and superiority of their own 'Antient' Masonic ritual, including the newly introduced Royal Arch ceremony. And for them to have developed and emphasised those aspects of freemasonry that had specific social and economic relevance, in particular, what evolved into the practice of mutual communal social and financial support. Given such a framework, there was perhaps an element of inevitability to the eventual aggregation of London's excluded Irish lodges. Their later agreement to create a Grand Committee and submit to an alternative central authority provided a counterpoint to the original Grand Lodge of England and offered a substitute source of prestige and patronage.\n\nAntients freemasonry may have been established initially by the \u00e9migr\u00e9 London Irish but its later membership had a wider composition that included the lower middling and working class more broadly. Social and economic alienation was not limited exclusively to those from Ireland and a desire for an accessible form of polite association, an inclination for mutual protection, the dysfunction of English Grand Lodge and the later politicisation of the Anglo-Irish elite, created a confluence of different drivers and dynamics. The professed desire to protect and project a more pure form of Masonic ritual was deployed as a means of promoting the Antients Grand Lodge by castigating its rival and superimposed onto a construct that had other foundations. The tactic proved to be effective, but it was not the primary rationale for the existence of Antients freemasonry.\n\nAntients Grand Lodge quickly became a focal point for London's Irish freemasons and attracted others unhappy with the original English Grand Lodge and those seeking a new form of civil association. However, with regard to propelling forward the organisation's development, perhaps the most vital feature of the new Antients Grand Lodge was that it gave a platform to Laurence Dermott (1720\u20131791), Grand Secretary from 1752 until 1770 and Deputy Grand Master from 1771 until 1777 and, again, from 1783 until 1787.\n\nVirtually from its inception, Dermott was careful to position the Antients and Antients freemasonry as part of a long and well-established tradition: 'keeping the ancient landmarks in view'. It was in this context that he identified the Antients Grand Lodge with York freemasonry and took to describing the rival Grand Lodge of England as 'Moderns'. The description was, and was intended to be, heavily pejorative. In a period when the age and history of an institution had powerful implications for its legitimacy and public standing, it was a clever move. Indeed, virtually the same tactic had been employed by the first Grand Lodge of England itself some three decades earlier.\n\nThe major part of James Anderson's _1723 Constitutions_ was a history of freemasonry that dated its origins to time immemorial. In this, Anderson had adopted and extended a methodology used by the mediaeval Masonic guilds where the centrepiece of their 'charges', the manuscripts that constituted the guild or lodge and contained its rules, encompassed a faux history dating back to St Athelstan or St Alban, or even more remotely to Euclid or biblical times. By positioning freemasonry as an institution that could be traced back across the centuries to 'Adam, our first parent [who] had the liberal sciences, particularly geometry, written on his heart', Anderson's narrative provided the new English Grand Lodge with an aura of authenticity and an antiquarian status that an organisation recognised as more recent would have found impossible to attain.\n\nIt is unlikely that many would have considered Anderson's history to be wholly accurate or literal, rather than an account written in the context of a tradition of legend and literary hyperbole. But it is nonetheless clear that Dermott's dismissive categorisation of the original Grand Lodge as 'Moderns' and the adoption of the emotive title of 'Antients' by its younger rival was designed to reinforce the argument that the latter had the greater claim to chronological legitimacy.\n\nLaurence Dermott recognised the value of history and tradition explicitly, most especially its potential emotional impact on prospective recruits. However, it was a mark of his confidence and intelligence that he was also willing to satirise at length the very concept of Masonic historiography. In _Ahiman Rezon,_ Dermott wrote in an editor's note to his readers that he had determined to publish a history of freemasonry and had 'purchased all or most of the histories, constitutions, pocket companions and other pieces (on that subject) now extant in the English tongue'. However, having supposedly furnished himself with pens, ink and paper, and surrounded himself with the relevant compositions and started work accordingly, Dermott 'fell to dreaming', only to be woken some time later:\n\nA young puppy that got into the room while I slept, and seizing my papers, ate a great part of them, and was then (between my legs) shaking and tearing the last sheet... Like one distracted (as in truth I was) I ran to the owner of the dog and demanded immediate satisfaction. He told me he would hang the cur, but at the same time he imagined I should be under more obligation to him for so doing than he was to me for what happened. In short, I looked upon it as a bad Omen and my late dread had made so great an impression on my mind that superstition got the better of me and called me to deviate from the general custom of my worthy predecessors otherwise I would have published a History of Masonry; and as this is rather an accident than a designed fault, I hope that the reader will look over it with a favourable eye.\n\nDermott's funny, ironic and satirical tone was pointedly and deliberately at odds with the more precious style adopted by the Moderns and their chroniclers: 'Doctor Anderson and Mr Spratt... Doctor D'Assigny and Doctor Desaguliers'. And Dermott's conversational introduction and relaxed literary style arguably epitomised the more open attitude adopted by the Antients and marked the organisation's greater accessibility and attraction to the lower middling and working class.\n\nLaurence Dermot makes a first appearance in the Antients' _General Register_ on 1 February 1752. He was one of two men proposed for the position of Grand Secretary, replacing John Morgan who had been 'lately appointed to an office on board one of His Majesty's ships'. Selected, Dermott immediately became the driving force behind the organisation, and his administrative and marketing skills set the foundations on which its later success was built.\n\nDermott's early life is subject to some conjecture. Past biographies have suggested that he was born on 24 June 1720 in Co. Roscommon and thereafter moved to Dublin. However, if Dermott's date of birth is recorded correctly, the date of his initiation into lodge No. 26 in Dublin on 14 January 1741 implies that he would have been under 21. Although aristocrats and affluent gentry occasionally became freemasons before reaching the legal age of maturity, it was otherwise uncommon.\n\nDermott was elected Master of lodge No. 26 in June 1746. He emigrated to England the following year, arriving in London in 1747 or 1748 where he appears to have worked as a journeyman painter. In the Antients Grand Lodge minutes of 13 July 1753, Dermott noted the difficulties he had in delivering grand lodge summonses since 'he was obliged to work twelve hours in the day for the Master Painter who employed him'. Circumstantial evidence suggests that his employer was James Hagarty, variously spelt Hagerty or Hagarthy, a past master of lodge No. 4. Hagarty was also chairman of the Grand Committee that on 5 February 1752 approved Dermott as the Antients' new Grand Secretary. Although Hagarty was described by Dermott as a painter who 'lives now in Leather Lane', he was more probably by then a businessman who employed others, rather than merely another jobbing employee.\n\nS\u00e9an Murphy has written that Dermott was 'almost certainly of the Jacobite-connected MacDermott family of Strokestown, Co. Roscommon'. However, although the MacDermott family writ large can be linked to the Catholic Jacobite opposition, not least through the records of soldiers of that name who served with the Irish brigades in France and Spain, there is no evidence to show that Laurence Dermott was either a Catholic or a Jacobite. Indeed, the opposite is more probable. Dermott's two marriages, his son's baptism and his place of burial all indicate that he was a Protestant, most probably a member of the Church of Ireland and then of the Church of England. His marriages were to Protestants, his son was baptised into the Church of England, and Dermott himself was buried at St Olave's, Southwark, in a Church of England graveyard. Other members of his family living in Dublin were also buried as Protestants, many in the Church of Ireland graveyard of St Nicholas Without in Dublin. They included Thomas Dermott of New Row, Dublin (possibly his great uncle, whose date of burial was 29 September 1716); Mary Dermott and Patrick Dermott of New Street (18 October 1720 and 4 September 1717, respectively); and John Dermott of Frances Street (12 October 1729). The Dermott's supposed Jacobite leanings are also questionable: Anthony Dermott, Laurence's half uncle, and other prominent members of the family were among the principal signatories to loyal addresses published in the Irish and British press. Nonetheless, Murphy was correct in linking the Dermott family to Co. Roscommon. Thomas Dermott, Laurence's father, reportedly had a country house at Strokestown. Moreover, fourteen of the nineteen members of lodge No. 340 in Strokestown, including a Michael McDermott, subscribed to the Irish edition of _Ahiman Rezon,_ published in Dublin in 1760. This would have been an exceptionally high number for a small provincial lodge. Tangentially, the warrant for Strokestown had been issued by the Grand Lodge of Ireland only the prior year.\n\nDespite the connection to Co. Roscommon, the Dermott family appears to have lived principally in Dublin. Newspaper articles and classified advertisements confirm Lepper and Crossle's view that the Dermotts were middling Dublin-based merchants who traded principally with the Baltic and continental Europe. Laurence Dermott's familiarity with Latin and Hebrew, a knowledge he exhibited in compiling the minutes of Antients Grand Lodge, also suggests an education that went beyond the basics and perhaps formed part of a middling upbringing. Moreover, in common with other merchant dynasties, relatives were also based overseas, including France and Spain, where they oversaw aspects of the family's foreign trading and transhipment activities and acted as agents for the importation of wine and other goods into Ireland.\n\nDermott's grandfather and the head of the family in the early eighteenth century was Christopher Dermott (16\u2014?\u20131721), who traded from Usher's Quay on the south bank of the river Liffey in central Dublin. Christopher had one child, Thomas, by his first marriage, and five children, three boys and two girls, by his second wife. It is unknown whether his first wife died in childbirth, but this was a common cause of death at the time. Christopher Dermott's will bequeathing the whole of his estate to his 'dearly beloved wife Mary Dermott [formerly Mary O'Connor, _d._ 1762] and to my five children by her viz., Anthony, Michael, Stephen, Ann and Mary Dermott according to their respective merits' may indicate a falling out with his eldest son, and Thomas appears not to have received a share of the inheritance. Indeed, the principal trading business was taken over by Anthony Dermott (1700\u20131784), Christopher Dermott's second son but the first from his second marriage.\n\nAnthony, Laurence's half uncle, specialised in importing paper and traded mainly with the Baltic. He operated from the family's warehouses at Usher's Quay, trading from there until a fire next door forced his relocation to North King Street. Anthony and other Dermott family members appear regularly in the mid- and later eighteenth-century Dublin press alongside other well known Dublin merchants, often as prominent signatories to letters published in support of Irish bankers' credit or promoting free trade. Anthony was an eminent city merchant and on several occasions represented the influential Committee of Merchants, in one instance in connection with a much publicised donation of \u00a3400 to the Inn's Quay Infirmary, which Anthony presented to the hospital on behalf of the Committee. He and other members of the family were represented on the Committee for around thirty years, from the 1750s through to the 1780s. Other articles and advertisements in the Dublin press confirm the family's prominence. And they suggest that the Dermotts were opportunistic and willing to conduct business across both religious and family divides. An example is their cooperative joint venture with Messrs Cosgrave, Reynolds and Plunkett in the Caribbean rum trade in the 1760s.\n\nThomas Dermott (1699\u201317.?), Laurence's father, also traded with the Baltic, but mainly in timber, which had a lower added value. His premises were in New Row, the northern extension of Francis Street, a hundred yards or so to the south of Ushers Quay. However, a relative absence of press coverage suggests that he may have been less successful commercially than Anthony, his half brother. Nonetheless, with such family connections, Dermott's move to London may indicate less a journey triggered by poverty, a circumstance that motivated many, perhaps most other \u00e9migr\u00e9s, than a falling out with his family or, perhaps more probably, a desire for greater independence.\n\nLondon was the largest city in Europe and the centre of Britain's empire. As such, the capital attracted both economic migrants and others seeking to establish a reputation. Entrepreneurial roots have also been advanced as an explanation for Dermott's ability to upgrade both his occupation and social status from that of jobbing painter to the more middling and financially secure position of vintner. However, in this respect, his marriage in 1766 to Elizabeth Merryman, the widow of 'Mr Merryman, who kept the Wine Vaults in King Street, near Tower Hill', was probably the more significant and immediate influence. Elizabeth Merryman had been widowed in 1760 and her wedding to Dermott received appropriate press coverage:\n\non Saturday last was married Mr Dermott, master of the Five Bells Tavern in the Strand, to Mrs Merryman, relict of the late Mr Merryman, an eminent wine merchant in Prince's Street, Tower Hill.\n\nThe marriage was the second for them both. A note in the _Public Ledger_ a year earlier in November 1765 recorded Dermott's first marriage at St Clements Danes church to 'Mrs Mary Dwindle, Mistress of the Five Bells Tavern behind the New Church in the Strand'. She had been widowed relatively recently. William, her late husband, the previous innkeeper at the Five Bells, had died just under two years earlier in December 1763. Mary Dwindle's second marriage to Dermott was brief and several press reports less than five months after the wedding detailed her unexpected demise:\n\nyesterday died Mrs Dermott, mistress of the Five Bells tavern near the New Church in the Strand.\n\nThat the press coverage of Mary Dwindle's death was moderately wide suggests that both she and the tavern were well known. The implication is probably accurate. The Five Bells occupied a prominent location and was a substantial business with premises sufficiently large to accommodate musical concerts and guild and public meetings. The tavern had a good reputation and was positioned at the upper end of its market. This was expressed in the Five Bells hosting 'elegant entertainments' and formal dinners, including a fund raising anniversary dinner for the governors of the Queen's Hospital, attended by its president and vice presidents, in addition to the drinking, dining and lodging more usually associated with such an establishment.\n\nDermott would have been familiar with both the tavern and its management. The Antients' Grand Committee met at the Five Bells on a regular basis from December 1752, barely a year after its formation, until 1771, when they transferred to the Half Moon tavern in Cheapside to celebrate the installation of the 3rd duke of Atholl as Grand Master. Dermott was also known to the tavern, with Masonic correspondence addressed to him there: 'Mr Dermott, Secretary to the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons at the Five Bells in the Strand'.\n\nMany press articles and advertisements over two decades reported on the Antients' regular, installation and ad hoc meetings at the Five Bells:\n\nOn Saturday last a great number of the most Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, met at the Five Bells Tavern in the Strand and unanimously chose the Hon Thomas Mathews, Esq., their Grand Master to succeed the earl of Kelly.\n\nAnd in advance of a benefit evening in March 1754 to raise funds for 'decayed Antient Masons',\n\nthe Brothers are desired to meet on the day of the performance at the Five Bells Tavern in the Strand, at Four in the Afternoon.\n\nDespite his marriage to its mistress, Dermott did not inherit the Five Bells on Mary Dwindle's death. The freehold was owned by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers and the business was let. However, operating the Five Bells in the short period he acted as its landlord was nonetheless likely to have been profitable and Dermott's departure was probably triggered by his marriage to Elizabeth Merryman and the prospect of greater remuneration and prestige as a wine merchant, an occupation shared by family members back in Ireland. Certainly, a new landlord was in residence at the Five Bells within two years; an obituary in 1769 recorded the death of a Mrs Anderson, described at that time as 'wife of Mr Anderson, master of the Five Bells Tavern, near the New Church in the Strand.'\n\nWith regard to his Masonic curriculum vitae, Dermott had been initiated into lodge No. 26 in Dublin in 1740, where he rose through the ranks to become its Master in 1746. Although the records of the Grand Lodge of Ireland contain nothing that substantiates Dermott's initiation or progress through the lodge, when his _bona fides_ were queried in 1757, Dermott's account of his time in Dublin was apparently verified:\n\nThen arose Brother Thomas Allen, Past Master of No. 2 and proved that Brother Dermott had faithfully served all Offices in a very reputable Lodge held in his house in the City of Dublin... [and] Brother Charles Byrne (Sr.), Master of No. 2 proved that Bro. Lau. Dermott having faithfully served the Offices of Sr. and Jr. Deacon, Jr. and Sr. Wardens and Secretary was by him Regularly Installed Master of the good lodge No. 26 in the Kingdom of Ireland upon the 24th day of June 1746... Brother Dermott produced a Certificate (signed Edwd. Spratt, GS) under the seal of the Grand Lodge of Ireland of his good behaviour and Servitude... which gave entire satisfaction.\n\nThe warrant under which lodge No. 26 had been constituted was originally issued in Co. Sligo in December 1735. The lodge moved subsequently to Dublin where it met at the house of Thomas Allen, the then Master. From there it seems to have transferred to London, the warrant possibly being taken overseas by either Allen or Dermott. Smith's 1735 _Pocket Companion_ supports this interpretation and, if accurate, the lodge would provide an early example of a travelling Irish warrant. A Thomas Allen, possibly the same person, appears as No. 863 in the _Grand Register._ Although no more than anecdotal evidence, an advertisement in the _Dublin Journal_ on 12 June 1733 suggests that Allen was a dentist who practiced in Golden Lane off Bride Street, Dublin. Tangentially, although the lodge was erased in 1801, the warrant number was later reissued to the 26th Foot, the Cameronians.\n\nAccurate biographical information on Dermott is sparse. Many past biographies have been anecdotal and most may be wrong. Limiting analysis to what can be verified, the Antients' _General Register_ details his London address in 1752 as Butler's Alley in Moorfields. The location was close to Grub Street, a district that ran from Fore Street to Chiswell Street on the northern border of the City of London. Published in the 1730s, _The Grub Street Journal_ was a satire on the gutter journalism with which the area became synonymous. Alexander Pope referred to the area both in his _Epistle to Arbuthnot_ and in the _Dunciad,_ where it was described as a 'powerful image of shabbiness of way of life [and] morals'. He characterised Grub Street as 'skulking', an appropriate description for what was one of the city's more impoverished areas: overcrowded and packed with low rent housing, brothels and inns.\n\nAfter his second marriage, Dermott moved east from the Five Bells tavern to King Street in St Botolph Aldgate, on the eastern borders of the City of London, where he took over his wife's vintners business. They later purchased a property in Stepney at Mile End, then a hamlet in what was the eastern extremity of semi-rural Middlesex. The latter address is given in Elizabeth's Dermott's will, the former in newspaper advertisements and in Laurence Dermott's own will, proved at probate on 15 July 1791. Located on the western edge of the parish of St Botolph Aldgate, King Street bordered the Tower of London and the old Royal Mint buildings. It was another densely populated district but with a minority of more affluent residents, including Dermott, whose rates would have helped to sustain the parish's comparatively high level of poor relief.\n\nDermott's address in King Street appeared in press advertisements in February and March 1773, when he acted an executor to the estate of Frances Allen, a fellow freemason. This is one of many examples of the social and business relationships that were built or reinforced through freemasonry. And it was probably not a coincidence that Dermott's co-executor, Joseph Langser, a tallow chandler based in White Street, off Goodman's Fields, was another Antients freemason.\n\nAll persons indebted to Mr Francis Allen, late of Woodstock Street, near New Bond Street, deceased are desired to pay the same to Mr Joseph Langser of Leman Street, Goodman's Fields, tallow chandler; or Mr Laurence Dermott of King Street, near Tower Hill, wine merchant, executors of the said Mr Allen. And all person having any demands on the said Mr Francis Allen are desired to bring in their bills in order to be paid.\n\nLike Dermott, Frances Allen had also managed to improve his social and economic status. He is recorded in the _Register_ as the 290th member, having joined Antients freemasonry in 1753. He was then a victualler living at the King and Queen tavern in Capel Street, near Rosemary Lane in the East End of London. He later moved to Chandois Street, to the south of Covent Garden, and from there to the more affluent Woodstock Street, near New Bond Street and close to the Great West Road.\n\nLaurence and Elizabeth Dermott had a son within a year of their marriage on 30 December 1767. Named for his father, he was christened into the Church of England at St Botolph Without, Aldgate, close to the Dermotts' King Street premises. Elizabeth also had a child, a daughter, from her previous marriage, Sarah, who later inherited the principal part of her estate. Laurence and Elizabeth were both buried in the Church of England graveyard of the newly rebuilt St Olave's in Southwark. Given that other members of the Dermott family had graves at the Church of Ireland St Nicholas Without in Dublin, it would be hard to argue that Dermott was not a Protestant. Nevertheless, other members of the Dermott family were Catholic.\n\nChristopher Dermott, Laurence's grandfather, had married twice. This may explain why Anthony, Laurence's half uncle was Catholic, as were his siblings and children: they probably took their mother's faith. This was not uncommon. Indeed, according to a biographer, the Dermott family had both Protestant and Catholic branches. In 1782, Anthony Dermott was one of three who signed an open letter 'on behalf of the Roman Catholics of Ireland' addressed to Luke Gardiner, 1st viscount Mountjoy. This may have been either Laurence Dermott's uncle or his cousin, who had also been named for his father. The letter was published in both the British and Irish press in May 1782 and followed the partial repeal of Ireland's penal laws and the passage of legislation promoting greater religious toleration. Anthony was also a signatory to another heavily published open letter dated 12 September the same year and addressed to the duke of Portland, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The letter was signed similarly on behalf of 'His Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Roman Catholics of Ireland'.\n\nAnthony and his sons were prominent members of the Catholic Committee in Dublin. And they were not the first members of the family who were Catholics. The Dermott family had been Roman Catholics in earlier generations. However, in common with other merchant families with an estate to protect, it is likely that some family members, including Christopher Dermott, converted for political and financial reasons rather than out of religious conviction. Regardless, it is likely that religion was a secondary issue for Dermott. Although a Protestant, he associated with a variety of religious faiths in his role as Grand Secretary and, in this, the Antients exhibited a religious tolerance similar to that pioneered by the Moderns whose lodge members included nonconformists, Catholics, Quakers and Jews.\n\nDermott probably began his move towards relative affluence before his second marriage. An indication is the extent to which he was able to donate to Masonic charities and make large scale financial contributions to the Antients Grand Lodge. In 1766, before his wedding in November of that year but after his first marriage to Mary Dwindle, Dermott subscribed five guineas to help to pay the debts of a brother freemason held in Newgate and an additional ten pounds to the Antients Grand Charity. The following year and now married for the second time, Dermott commanded additional financial resources that allowed him to donate a Grand Master's throne 'which cost in the whole \u00a334'. However, aside from the wealth he may have derived through his two marriages and briefly operating The Five Bells, another source of income and capital would have been the royalties from his publication of _Ahiman Rezon,_ the Antients' popular book of constitutions.\n\n_Ahiman Rezon, or Help to a Brother_ was published privately by Dermott in 1756, as were at least five subsequent editions. The book was dedicated to the earl of Blessington, described by Dermott as 'a father to the fraternity'. The rationale for the title is unclear and a variety of different explanations have been proposed, none of which are definitive. Mackey suggested that it was derived from three Hebrew words: _ahim,_ meaning brothers; _manah,_ meaning to select or choose; and _ratzon,_ meaning the will or law. Taken together, Mackey offered the suggestion that the title could be construed as 'the will of selected brethren' or 'the law of a society of men who are selected as brethren'. Other translations and interpretations of the title have included 'brother of the right hand secret', an allusion to the pass grip of a master mason; 'the secrets of a prepared brother'; 'royal builder'; and 'worthy brother secretary'.\n\nDermott himself chose not to clarify the meaning of the title other than in its by-line, 'Help to a Brother'. Notwithstanding that the central component of the text was based on Laurence Spratt's _Irish Constitutions,_ which was published in Dublin in 1751 and drew heavily on Anderson's rewritten and extended 1738 _Constitutions, Ahiman Rezon_ ran to at least six editions in England during Dermott's lifetime and at least another six in the two decades to 1813, when the Antients entered into a union and merged with the Moderns. _Ahiman Rezon_ was also published and sold elsewhere, including Ireland, where over twenty editions were printed, and in the American and Canadian colonies, where it was adopted as the basis for the constitutions of the grand lodges of seven American states. In addition, special editions of _Ahiman Rezon_ were published by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1783 and the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia in 1786. Virginia and Maryland produced their own versions in 1791 and 1797, respectively, as did South Carolina and Georgia in the nineteenth century.\n\n_Ahiman Rezon_ codified and more importantly publicised Antients freemasonry, arguing in favour of its greater antiquity and superior ritual as compared to the (not dissimilar) form practiced by the Moderns. Dermott also used later editions of the book to highlight the pact between the Antients and the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland and to emphasise the Antients' claim to Masonic pre-eminence over the Moderns. The book's impact was extensive and grew as subsequent editions gained greater traction. The value of the publisher's royalties would also have been considerable and, in September 1785, in an act that set a seal on Dermott's standing within the Antients Grand Lodge and testified to his then affluence, Dermott gifted his future royalties to the Antients' Grand Charity.\n\nNotwithstanding his achievements and perhaps because of them, in the mid-nineteenth century, some four decades after the union and six decades after his death, it became commonplace to vilify Dermott. Laurie in his _History of Freemasonry_ wrote that\n\nmuch injury has been done to the cause of the Antients... by Laurence Dermott... the unfairness with which he has stated the proceedings of the Moderns, the bitterness with which he treats them and the quackery and vainglory with which he displays his superior knowledge, deserve to be reprobated by every class of Masons who are anxious for the purity of their Order and the preservation of the clarity and mildness which ought to characterise all their proceedings.\n\nMackey wrote of Dermott in a similar vein: 'as a polemic, he was sarcastic bitter, uncompromising and not altogether sincere or veracious'. Mackey nonetheless acknowledged that Dermott was 'in intellectual attainments... inferior to none... and in a philosophical appreciation of the character of the Masonic institution he was in advance of the spirit of his age'. Gould's view of Dermott was of an 'unscrupulous writer [but] a matchless administrator'. Hughan called his works 'absurd and ridiculous. And Sadler commented variously on Dermott's writings as 'comical', 'ridiculous' and 'scarcely worth a moment's thought'. Antipathy towards Dermott dated back a century and Gould's observation that 'in Masonic circles, Dermott was probably the best abused man of his time' was almost certainly accurate. Rolling with the punches, Dermott used subsequent editions of _Ahiman Rezon_ to retaliate to his vilification with biting satire. He was effective. He joked that the rival Moderns had:\n\n[considered it] expedient to abolish the old custom of studying geometry in the lodge and some of the young brethren made it appear that a good knife and fork in the hands of a dextrous brother (over the right materials) would give greater satisfaction and add more to the rotundity of the lodge... from this improvement proceeded the laudable custom of charging to a public health to every third sentence that is spoke in the lodge.\n\nAnd Dermott continued:\n\nThere was another old custom that gave umbrage to the young architects, i.e. the wearing of aprons, which made the gentlemen look like so many mechanics, therefore it was proposed, that no brother (for the future) should wear an apron. This proposal was rejected by the oldest members, who declared that the aprons were all the signs of masonry then remaining amongst them and for that reason they would keep and wear them. It was then proposed, that (as they were resolved to wear aprons) they should be turned upside down, in order to avoid appearing mechanical. This proposal took place and answered the design, for that which was formerly the lower part, was now fastened round the abdomen, and the bib and strings hung downwards, dangling in such manner as might convince the spectators that there was not a working mason amongst them. Agreeable as this alteration might seem to the gentlemen, nevertheless it was attended with an ugly circumstance: for, in traversing the lodge, the brethren were subject to tread upon the strings, which often caused them to fall with great violence, so that it was thought necessary to invent several methods of walking, in order to avoid treading upon the strings.\n\nThe Moderns published their retaliation in _A Defence of Freemasonry_... _as practiced in the regular lodges,_ published in 1765. Advertisements for the book noted that it contained 'a refutation of Mr Dermott's ridiculous account of that ancient society, in his book entitled _Ahiman Rezon'. 68_ But in the event, the Moderns' _Defence_ achieved only limited success. Worse, the decision of the earl of Blessington to accept the position of Grand Master and thus validate Antients Grand Lodge with his imprimatur, and the later decision of Irish Grand Lodge to cease fraternal communication with the Moderns, was regarded with incredulity by the Moderns. Even a century later their apologists considered the decision inexplicable. Gould wrote that it was\n\na little singular that Dermott secured the services as titular Grand Master [of a] nobleman under whose presidency the Grand Lodge of Ireland conformed to the laws and regulations enacted by the Regular or Original Grand Lodge of England.\n\nGould's analysis, like that of many other Masonic commentators, was incomplete. He and others ignored the political and economic dynamics that underlay Blessington's decision and the Antients' success. In any event, even within the terms of his own analysis, Ireland had adapted rather than adopted the laws and regulations of the Grand Lodge of England. And perhaps equally importantly, Ireland's evolving socially inclusive approach to freemasonry and less proscriptive governance was an approach readily emulated by the Antients.\n\nWith Dermott's guidance, Antients freemasonry traded successfully on the combination of inclusivity and notionally superior antiquity. Underlining this, in his second edition of _Ahiman Rezon,_ Dermott's 'Philacteria for such gentleman as may be inclined to become Free-Masons' accentuated the preeminence of Antients freemasonry through a catechism. Probably more than any other element of _Ahiman Rezon,_ it created, captured and cemented the perception of the Antients as superior Masonic beings. It was to be instrumental in attracting and retaining new members:\n\nFirst Question: | Whether freemasonry, as practiced in antients lodges, is universal? \n---|--- \nAnswer: | Yes \nSecond: | Whether what is called modern masonry is universal? \nAnswer: | No \nThird: | Whether there is any material difference between antient and modern? \nAnswer: | A great deal, because an antient mason can not only make himself known to his brother but in cases of necessity can discover his very thoughts to him, in the presence of a modern, without being able to distinguish that either of them are free masons. \nFourth: | Whether a modern mason may with safety communicate all his secrets to an antient mason? \nAnswer: | Yes \nFifth: | Whether an antient mason may with the like safety communicate all his secrets to a modern mason without further ceremony? \nAnswer: | No. For as a Science comprehends an Art (though an artist cannot comprehend a science) even so antient masonry contains everything valuable amongst the modern, as well as many other things that cannot be revealed without additional ceremonies.... \nNinth: | Whether the present members of modern lodges are blameable for deviating from the old landmarks? \nAnswer: | No. Because the innovation was made in the reign of George I and the new form was delivered as orthodox to the present members. \nTenth: | Therefore as it is natural for each party to maintain the orthodoxy of their Masonical preceptor, how shall we distinguish the original and most useful system? \nAnswer: | The number of antient masons compared with the moderns being as ninety-nine to one proves the universality of the old order... \n| | |\n\nOf course, what Dermott held out to be facts were either falsehoods or opinions. However, together they comprised a powerful polemic and encouragement to join Antients freemasonry whether _ab initio_ or by way of a conversion from the Moderns. (In later years, many freemasons became members of both organisations.) The force and persuasive power of Dermott's arguments were directed to prospective masons both at home and overseas, especially at British and Irish colonists in the Americas, whose 'right worshipful and very worthy gentlemen' were singled out for particular flattery in the second edition of _Ahiman Rezon._\n\nAs the Antients expanded their membership in London, across provincial England and in Britain's colonies and elsewhere, Dermott posed a challenge to the authority of the original Grand Lodge of England and that of the (English) establishment. He championed the potentially seditious nature of Antients freemasonry and embedded it in its workings and literature. For example, Dermott's frontispiece to the revised third edition of _Ahiman Rezon,_ published in 1778, featured a design that reflected the exclusion and marginalisation of the Moderns in favour of the Irish, Scottish and Antients branches of freemasonry, the last an offshoot of Ireland:\n\nThe three figures upon the dome represent the great masters of the tabernacle... The two crowned figures with that on their right hand represent the three great masters of the holy temple at Jerusalem. The three figures on the left hand represent the three great masters of the second temple at Jerusalem.\n\nThe three columns bearing Masons aprons with the arms of England, Ireland and Scotland and supporting the whole fabric, represents the three Grand Masters... who wisely and nobly have formed a triple union to support the honour and dignity of the Ancient Craft, for which their Lordship's names will be honoured and revered while Freemasonry exists in these kingdoms.\n\nDermott's text reminded the reader that it was Antients freemasonry that offered the more widespread support to the indigent, quoting an unfortunately phrased letter from the Moderns to a 'a certified petitioner from Ireland' that stated 'your being an Antient Mason, you are not entitled to any of our charity'. The Moderns' letter continued, digging a deeper hole, with the author, the then Grand Secretary, stating that the 'Society is neither Arch, Royal Arch or Ancient, so that you have no right to partake of our charity'. The minutes of the Moderns Grand Lodge confirm the position. Although there are few direct references to the rival Antients, a resolution passed on 29 November 1754 is significant. Under the Marquis of Carnarvon, then Grand Master, English Grand Lodge resolved:\n\nthat if any mason shall attend, tyle or assist as tyler at any meetings or pretended lodges of persons calling themselves masons not being a regular constituted lodge acknowledging the authority of our Rt. Worshipful Grand Master and conforming to the Laws of the Grand Lodge, he shall be forever incapable of being a tyler or attendant on a lodge or partaking of the General Charity.\n\nIn short, the primary response of the Moderns to the challenge posed by the Antients was to rule that no Masonic charity would be available to any Antients freemason, that they would not be allowed to act as an attendant or tyler, a role often performed by indigent freemasons, and that they would be excluded from any and all 'regular' Masonic lodge meetings.\n\nWithin six months the rule was put to the test. The Master and Wardens of the lodge at the Ben Johnson's Head tavern were summoned to Grand Lodge to answer an accusation that they had been meeting as Antients. The lodge responded by arguing that, as private persons, they had the right to meet in any manner they deemed fit. In order to seek a resolution, Thomas Manningham, the acting Grand Master, asked the Master and Wardens on behalf of the lodge to put forward a proposal to determine the issue. The minutes continue, noting that 'after some debate about the question to be proposed', a suggestion was tabled that 'the Members of the Lodge at the Ben Johnson's Head be permitted to meet independent of their Constitution from this Society under the Denomination of a Lodge of Ancient Masons'. The resolution was voted down almost unanimously. The representatives of only two lodges voted in favour: those from the Ben Johnson's Head itself and a delegation from the Fish and Bell tavern in Soho. Subsequently, the members of the Ben Johnson's Head having been invited to 'refrain from their said irregular Meetings [and] reconcile themselves to Grand Lodge', the minutes note that the request was 'without effect'. Accordingly,\n\na question was then put, that the lodge No. 94, held at the Ben Johnson's Head in Pelham Street, Spitalfields, be erased from the Book of Lodges and that such of the Brethren thereof who shall continue those irregular Meetings be not admitted as Visitors in any Lodge.\n\nThe resolution was carried 'almost unanimously, with the same Brethren as above only dissenting'.\n\nTwo aspects to the affair can be noted. First, the Fish and Bell in Soho, the only lodge voting to support the Ben Johnson's Head, was one of four lodges who together had founded the first Grand Lodge of England. The lodge had met previously at the Apple Tree Tavern and was then known by that name. The Fish and Bell was one of a number of lodges who had not modified their ritual to the new form approved by Grand Lodge but instead retained their own older form of working. The lodge's resistance to the central diktat of English Grand Lodge was shared by several other lodges that pre-dated Grand Lodge. And its stance had a counterpart in the decision of the Horn tavern, the senior founding lodge, not to attend Grand Lodge's Quarterly Communications for much of the 1740s. As a result, the Horn ceased to be recognised as a 'regular' lodge and stood erased until 1751, when George Payne interceded on its behalf and persuaded both sides to agree to a reinstatement. The issue is discussed further in CHAPTER SIX. However, the point is that the positive approbation of Grand Lodge was not a requirement for a lodge to function. Many would both survive and prosper as independent lodges. Second, Dermott used the fallout from the incident as yet another means to heap derision and opprobrium on the Moderns. The episode was described at length in the third edition of _Ahiman Rezon_ published some two decades later. As usual, Dermott's comments were pointed, designed to show his rivals in a less than favourable light and to emphasise the consequential superiority of the Antients. Dermott spun a summary of what had occurred, writing that the Ben Johnson's Head:\n\n[was] composed mainly of Antient Masons, though under the Modern Constitution. Some of them had been abroad and received extraordinary benefits on account of Antient Masonry. Therefore they agreed to practice Antient Masonry on every third lodge night. Upon one of those nights some Modern Masons attempted to visit them but were refused admittance; the persons so refused laid a formal complaint before the Modern Grand Lodge... [who] ordered that the Ben Johnson's Head should admit all sorts of Masons without distinction. And upon non compliance to that order, they were censured.\n\nDermott continued. Quoting from a protest pamphlet that he assured his readers had been issued by the maligned lodge, he observed that the 'injustice' to the Ben Johnson's Head was due to the Moderns' crass ignorance of freemasonry. In a memorable analogy, Dermott compared the futility of the Moderns' position to that of 'a blind man... in the art of mixing colour'. And as a final thrust and with intentional irony, albeit that it was in conflict with his earlier remarks, Dermott stated that the relevant members of the Ben Johnson's Head had not even been Antients freemasons, although '(from [his] personal knowledge and public report) they were persons of the most amiable character as men and masons'.\n\nDermott's actions on this and other occasions encapsulate three key aspects to his success in positioning the Antients as an attractive organisation, maligning the Moderns, and thereby recruiting and retaining new members. First, he emphasised that the Antients provided a conduit for Masonic benevolence, even when members were overseas; after all, members of the Ben Johnson's Head 'had been abroad and received extraordinary benefits on account of Antient Masonry'. Second, he drew attention to the Antients' greater exclusivity and possession of superior ritual, arguing that the lodge at the Ben Johnson's Head was, in this sense, correct to refuse admittance to the lesser qualified Moderns. And third, he suggested that the behaviour of the Moderns Grand Lodge was at the same time both dictatorial and ignorant. In particular, their decision to order the admittance of 'all sorts of Masons without distinction' indicated an absence of knowledge of the 'true' nature of freemasonry. They were, in short, 'as a blind man is in the art of mixing colour'.\n\nThe disparagement of the Moderns was a constant thread throughout Dermott's terms of office. Twenty years after having first been appointed, in April 1772, Dermott chaired a meeting of a lodge at the Half Moon tavern on Cheapside at which a letter from the 3rd duke of Atholl was read and later reported in the press. In the letter, quoted verbatim,\n\nthe duke thanked them for the great honour they had conferred upon him by continuing him Grand Master for the year ending and he likewise acquainted them that he was of opinion (and it is the opinion of the Society in general) _the Modern Masons are acting entirely inconsistently with the antient customs and principles of the craft. 79_ [Author's italics.]\n\nThe letter was almost certainly genuine. Another addressed to the Grand Secretary of the Moderns dated 15 October 1776 and signed on behalf of the 4th duke by Captain George Smith of the Royal Military Academy posed four questions and expressed similar sentiments. The questions are as set out in the original document held at the UGLE Library:\n\n 1. His Grace the duke of Athol would wish to know by what authority the GLE pretends to supremacy over the GLS, instituted by Royal Charter granted by King James the sixth to the family of Roslin in the year 1589 and there acknowledged to be the head and first lodge in Europe.\n 2. Why the GLE has thought proper to alter the mode of initiation; also the Word, password, and grip of the different degrees in Masonry.\n 3. Whether Dermot constitutes lodges in his own name or in the name and authority of the duke of Athol, and whether anything can be said to his charge inconsistent with the character of an honest man and a Mason.\n 4. Whether any mode of Union could be thought of and in such manner that might appear probable to both parties.\n\nThe third question is of particular interest. It indicates, if not confirms, the duke's lack of knowledge of Antients workings, asking 'whether Dermot constitutes lodges in his own name or in the name and authority of the duke of Athol'. It also raises the issue of why the duke, the Antients' Grand Master, would question the Grand Secretary of the Moderns with regard to Dermott's probity. However, the duke was barely 21 and had been initiated, passed and raised during a single ceremony barely a year earlier. It is probable that, at the time, he had no more than a limited knowledge of freemasonry and was a simple figurehead. Tangentially, the fourth question is also worth underlining in that it may represent one of the first occasions on which the question of a union between the Antients and Moderns was posited. The theme was revisited and taken further by the duke in the early nineteenth century when he retired as Grand Master specifically to facilitate the later union.\n\nDermott continued to remain vigilant in press management throughout his Masonic career, even into the 1780s. Like Desaguliers with respect to the Moderns some fifty years earlier, he was adamant that the London press should report the Antients in a favourable light.\n\nThe December 1786 installation of the earl of Antrim as Grand Master (and Dermott as his deputy) was accompanied by the installation of officers of several hundred Antients lodges and Dermott ensured that it received widespread and positive publicity. A line in one press article stating that 'the day was spent in the utmost harmony and much to the honour of the _true system of ancient and legitimate masons'_ points strongly to Dermott's influence and suggests that even after thirty-four years, he was unwilling to forego the opportunity to sideswipe the rival Moderns and place the Antients in the better light.\n\nA change to a less confrontational approach occurred only after Dermott's death when the tone and content of those editions of _Ahiman Rezon_ published after 1791 were substantially moderated. The more judicious methodology was an important factor in allowing the later union to be negotiated and to proceed. A second was the more collegiate approach adopted by the Grand Masters who preceded and presided over the negotiations leading to union in 1813.\n\nThe search for a noble Grand Master to take the nominal leadership position at Antients Grand Lodge had commenced almost immediately after its formation. The minutes of 1 April 1752 record three members \u2013 Morgan, Hagan and Dermott \u2013 being asked to explain their success in petitioning Lord Sackville (1716\u201385), the duke of Dorset's youngest son, to accept the position of Grand Master. They reported that:\n\nthey had waited on Lord George Sackville at Somerset House in the Strand, that having read the petition His Lordship told them politely that he had the highest veneration for the Ancient Craft, and [wished] to promote it; but he was engaged to attend his father the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and was informed that the Grand Lodge of Ireland had lately chosen him Grand Master; and that upon his return to England he would accept the Chair, or recommend them to another Noble Man.\n\nWhile a reasonable response, it posed a problem for the Antients: should they wait for his return to London or seek an interim or permanent alternative.\n\nA Grand Committee had been established a year earlier to manage the Antients lodges in London and Westminster until 'an opportunity offers for the choice of a noble personage to govern our antient fraternity'. Looking to the Moderns and to Ireland and Scotland, the point was made that:\n\nthe Craft has flourished most and best when governed by a Noble Grand Master [and] although Grand Committees have power to form new laws for the fraternity... a Grand Master is absolutely necessary.\n\nHowever, Dermott cautioned against moving in haste. He argued that Sackville would soon return and believed it would be 'most prudent to wait... as he had formerly given a very friendly and obliging answer'. There was also the question as to whether the Antients were correctly positioned to receive a noble Grand Master. A number of members of the Grand Committee considered the Temple Eating House, their then home, an inappropriate location, unsuitable for the installation of a noble Grand Master. It was Dermott who proposed that they relocate to the Five Bells tavern \u2013 a location both 'suitable and reputable'. The vote was carried by 16 to 11.\n\nGiven the apparently strong possibility that he might accept the position of the Antients' first noble Grand Master, Dermott's suggestion that the Grand Committee wait for Sackville's response is understandable. Sackville was potentially an excellent choice. Most particularly, he was familiar with and sympathetic to Ireland and its interests. Sackville had graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1733 during his father's first term as Lord Lieutenant, been elected a member of the Irish bar and served as a past clerk to the Irish privy council, appointed in 1737, the same year he was made a captain in Lord Cathcart's horse, the 6th dragoon guards, then on the Irish establishment. Sackville later became lieutenant colonel of Bragg's 28th Foot (appointed in 1740), and in 1748, having soldiered on the continent and in Scotland, he was awarded the colonelcy of the 12th and, subsequently, the 3rd dragoon guards.\n\nSackville had also been connected to freemasonry for some time. Captain John Arabin, the Grand Treasurer of Irish Grand Lodge in 1736\u20137, had served alongside Sackville as a captain-lieutenant in the 6th dragoon guards in 1737 and in 1740 joined Bragg's 28th Foot as lieutenant colonel. Arabin was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 8th dragoons in 1745 and, a decade later, received the colonelcy of the 57th Foot. Sackville would also have known Philip Chevenix, a brother officer in the 6th dragoon guards and another freemason. And Captain John Corneille, Junior Grand Warden in 1735 and Senior Grand Warden the following year was director of the Irish Ordnance, which Sackville later commanded as lieutenant general.\n\nIt is not known when Sackville first became a freemason but in common with his brother, Charles, the earl of Middlesex, later the 2nd duke of Dorset (1711\u20131769), it is likely to have been in his youth. Moreover, given the extent to which he was resident in Ireland, it is likely that he would have been initiated into an Irish lodge. Support for the argument can be found in his personal application to Irish Grand Lodge in 1748, while colonel of the 20th Foot, for a warrant to be re-issued to the regiment. The warrant was granted to Sackville, signed by Sir Marmaduke Wyvill as Grand Master, John Putland, his deputy, and his two Grand Wardens, Boyle Lennox and Hans Bailie. Sackville also knew other senior members of Irish freemasonry, including many of the principal politicians and aristocrats at its head. However, in the event, although he acted as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland from 1750 until 1753, he did not sit as Grand Master of the Antients. Consequently, in December 1753, no nobleman having been secured for the role and with unease dominating the mood of the Grand Committee, Dermott, as Grand Secretary, proposed:\n\nthat as the fraternity had not made choice of any of the noble personages formerly mentioned... and it being doubtful whether the Antient Craft could be honoured with a noble GM at this time, he humbly begged that the brethren would make choice of some worthy and skilful Master to fill the Chair for the space of six month successively.\n\nRobert Turner, the Master of lodge No. 15, was accordingly nominated to the role and served for twelve months. And the Hon Edward Vaughan, the Senior Warden of lodge No. 4, succeeded him and served for the following two years. During this period, four names were raised as possible alternatives to Sackville, those of Blessington, Chesterfield, Inchiquin and Ponsonby. Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield had been a successful and popular Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1744 and 1746, and thereafter was briefly Secretary of State. He was a member of the duke of Richmond's Horn tavern lodge and had been an active freemason both in Britain and in continental Europe where, as ambassador to the Low Countries, he was instrumental in the initiation of the duke of Lorraine, later Holy Roman Emperor.\n\nInchiquin was William O'Brien, the 4th earl, a past Grand Master of English Grand Lodge, Whig MP for Aylesbury between 1747 and 1754 and Governor of Co. Clare from 1741 until 1777. And Ponsonby was William Ponsonby, Junior Grand Warden of Irish Grand Lodge in 1731, the elder son of Brabazon Ponsonby, earl of Bessborough, and chief secretary to the duke of Devonshire when he had first been appointed to Ireland's lord lieutenancy. Ponsonby subsequently married Devonshire's elder daughter and became active in British politics in the Devonshire interest.\n\nHowever, it was William Stewart, 1st earl of Blessington, who acceded. It is unclear what means were used to approach Blessington and whether Sackville intermediated with him as had originally been suggested. Regardless, on 1 December 1756, having given the committee prior notification of his consent, Blessington was accepted unanimously as the Antients' prospective Grand Master and first noble figurehead. Confirming the appointment, Dermott read out a letter that he had written to the noble lord:\n\nTo the Right Honourable William, earl of Blesinton, in Margaret Street\n\nMy Lord,\n\nI have the Honour of conveying the unanimous thanks of the Grand Lodge of the most antient and honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, for the great honour your Lordship has done the Fraternity in condescending to fill Solomon's Chair, I am also ordered to assure your Lordship that the several members which compose this Grand Lodge are firmly resolved to pursue such measures as will convince your Lordship that this great favour is not ill bestowed.\n\nI have the honour to be my Lord &c. &c.\n\nLAURENCE DERMOTT, Grand Secretary\n\nIronically, the letter had not been delivered at the first attempt; however, when eventually received by Blessington, he had replied in kind.\n\nTo Mr Dermott, Secretary to the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons at the Five Bells Tavern in the Strand\n\n_December 16, 1756_\n\nSir,\n\nI am much concerned that I happened not to see you when you called on me the other day but my being denied was owing to a mistake having given my orders not with regard to you but another person who has been very troublesome. As I shall be out of town St John's day, I must beg leave to act by Deputy. I am very sensible of the honour done me by the fraternity in choosing me Grand Master, and if you shall hereafter have any business to transact with me, you have but to let me know beforehand when you will call, and I shall give proper orders to receive you.\n\nI am Sir, your Humble Servant \nBLESINTON\n\nDermott had ostensibly delayed publishing _Ahiman Rezon_ until it could be dedicated to a noble Grand Master and Blessington's consent allowed printing to proceed. Gould's comment that Blessington did not attend any meetings of the Antients Grand Lodge misses the point. The Antients had sought aristocratic imprimatur; they did not expect Blessington to make any contribution to the day-to-day management of the lodges, nor would Blessington have intended or expected to do so. His appeal to the Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s in London was the seal of approval that an affluent and well-known Irish aristocrat provided. And it went further. Blessington commanded a flattering reputation for his charitable benevolence and, as Lord Mountjoy, while Grand Master of Ireland in 1738\u201340, had led fund raising and food distribution efforts to support the poor in Dublin and relieve the famine. His actions were part of working-class Irish folklore and remembered as much as three decades later. A letter to the _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser_ in 1766 complaining of the then current lack of action in dealing with Irish poverty reminded its readers that 'the present earl of Blessington, then Lord Mountjoy, went in his coach... and collected money... with great success.'\n\nBlessington was installed as Grand Master of the Antients privately in the library of his London townhouse in Margaret Street. His acceptance was as significant as that of John, 2nd duke of Montagu, had been with respect to the original Grand Lodge of England in 1720 and would have spurred recruitment and sanctioned the position of the Antients as a legitimate outpost of Irish freemasonry and as a grand lodge in its own right. Moreover, as with the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland, Blessington's decision and presence as Grand Master cut a path for others to follow, most notably the 3rd and 4th dukes of Atholl, both of whom also sat as Grand Master of Scotland.\n\nBlessington had inherited as viscount in 1728 and was created earl in 1745. First mentioned as a freemason in 1731 when a member of Viscount Montagu's exclusive Bear and Harrow lodge in Butcher Row near Temple Bar in London, a few yards from the Five Bells in the Strand, Blessington had been a popular Grand Master of Ireland. However, it was his position as the Antients' first noble Grand Master from 1756 to 1760, and the aristocratic imprimatur he bestowed upon the organisation, that was arguably more significant.\n\nBlessington's family had settled in Ulster from Scotland in the sixteenth century and been loyal undertakers in the Irish parliament for six generations. His grandfather, a second-generation baronet, had fought against the Irish rebellion as commander of a foot regiment and, in 1682, was rewarded with a viscountcy. A Protestant, he was suspected of disloyalty by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, the Anglo-Catholic commander of James II's army in Ireland, and sent on a false diplomatic mission to Paris where, as intended, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. Joining William's army on his release in 1692, he was killed at Steenkerque later the same year. Blessington's father, 2nd viscount Mountjoy, was also a talented soldier. Given command of a foot regiment, he was promoted to successively higher military offices, becoming a lieutenant general. In 1714, he was advanced to Master General of the Ordnance, given the colonelcy of a regiment of dragoons and made Keeper of the Great Seal.\n\nAt his father's death, Blessington inherited estates in Co. Tyrone and Co. Wicklow and held property in England at Silchester in Hampshire and town houses successively in Grosvenor Square and Hill Street, Mayfair. He was one of many absentee property owners criticised by Thomas Prior in his _List of absentees of Ireland,_ who accused him of annual expenditure abroad of \u00a32,500. The criticism was largely misplaced. Blessington was an active contributor to charities in Ireland, and in Britain, where he was a prominent supporter of the Middlesex Hospital, among other institutions. In 1748, consolidating his position as a person of quality and one of the great and good, Blessington was appointed Governor of Co. Tyrone and sworn a member of the Irish privy council. He received the governorship of Carlisle Castle in 1763.\n\nAlthough Blessington's loyalty to the Hanoverian dynasty may have been absolute, this did not translate into blind support for its government and their policies. His concern for Irish agriculture and manufacture and for the right to trade freely was notable and noted, not least by the London agents and representatives of the West Indies merchant community who sought his backing to promote the cause of free trade both in parliament and more widely. And his wider interest in Ireland's wellbeing was expressed in membership of organisations ranging from the Incorporated Society for the Promotion of Protestant Working Schools in Ireland to the Dublin Society, where he was a member across two decades from 1741 until 1762.\n\nBritish condescension towards Irish accomplishments, Ireland and its aristocracy would have grated with Blessington, as it did with others. Toby Barnard's comment that Sir John Perceval, 1st earl of Egmont, alongside other Irish peers, was 'shouldered aside' in the procession marking the wedding of the Prince of Orange to George II's eldest daughter, and that Irish peers were unable to obtain proper recognition of the precedence due to their rank, encapsulates the position. Stung, the alienation of Ireland's elite was reflected in a changed relationship with English freemasonry. What began as a supportive and fraternal affiliation with common cross membership of English and Irish lodges became more antipathetic. It was expressed in the decision of the Grand Lodge of Ireland to recognise the Antients Grand Lodge and to cease fraternal communications with the original Grand Lodge of England. And it had underpinned Blessington's decision to accept the role of Grand Master some two years earlier.\n\nBlessington declined to be reappointed in 1760 and was succeeded as the Antients' Grand Master by Thomas Erskine, 6th earl of Kellie [or Kelly] (1732\u20131781), who was in turn succeeded six years later by the Hon Thomas Mathew, the Provincial Grand Master of Munster, then one of the wealthiest and most influential commoners in Ireland. Mathew's estates purportedly generated an annual income exceeding \u00a330,000. He was widely believed to have been promised a peerage but in the event this was not forthcoming:\n\nwe hear that Thomas Mathew Esq. of Thomastown in the county of Tipperary, Ireland, will be created a peer of that kingdom by the style and title of earl of Clonwilliam, Viscount Anfield and Baron Mathew.\n\nThe family was obliged to wait until the next generation to obtain the peerage, Mathew's son, MP for and later Governor of Co. Tipperary, then being created earl of Llandaff.\n\nThe Antients Grand Lodge's minutes record openly the dissension and disputes among the lodges and the membership that became a central characteristic of its development. And despite Blessington and Kellie, there were periodic difficulties in obtaining and retaining an aristocrat as the organisation's nominal head. The 4th duke of Atholl declined to be reappointed as Grand Master in 1782 and the duke of Leinster, when asked, refused the position. Indeed, in the temporary absence of a willing member of the aristocracy to take the chair, the Deputy Grand Master, William Dickey, presided over the Antients' Grand Committee for fifteen months until Randal MacDonnell, 6th earl of Antrim, eventually acceded to act as Grand Master. Antrim held office from 1783 until his death in 1791. And at that time, despite his earlier reluctance, the 4th duke of Atholl agreed to succeed. He would serve for over two decades until 1812, when he stepped down in favour of the duke of Kent, whose brief year as Grand Master preceded a union with the Moderns in 1813.\n\nAt the time of the union, and subsequently, the issue of the Royal Arch ceremony came to the fore. The degree was significant in that it had evolved to become one of the more fundamental differences in the ritual schematic as practiced by the Antients and Moderns, and it was a key to their later reconciliation. Dermott had been exalted into the Royal Arch degree in Dublin in 1746. The precise nature of the ceremony at that time is not known, nor are its origins, whether invented, corrupted or replicated from Scotland or elsewhere. The degree may have been instituted in Ireland in the 1740s or earlier partly for financial reasons. _Faulkner's Dublin Journal_ mentions the Royal Arch in January 1744 in connection with a Masonic procession in Youghal, Co. Cork, as does D'Assigny, among other sources. It is also recorded in Scotland in the 1730s and early 1740s. However, whether this was the same degree and ceremony cannot be assumed with any certainty. Nevertheless, regardless of its origins, the Royal Arch proved popular and developed a following among freemasons, especially Irish masons. Indeed, Royal Arch appears to have been introduced to England by the London Irish.\n\nIt first appears in the early minutes of Antients Grand Lodge in connection with the censure of two of its members, Thomas Plealon and John Macky:\n\nGrand Committee at the Griffin Tavern Holborn \nMarch 4, 1752 \nBrother John Gaunt, Master of No. 5, in the Chair\n\nThe following Brethren viz., Thomas Figg of No. 5, Laurence Folliot of the same Lodge, Samuel Quay of No. 2, Richard Price of No. 3 & Henry Lewis of No. 4, made formal complaints against Thomas Phealon and John Macky, better known by the name of the leg of mutton Masons.\n\nIn course of the examination it appeared that Phealon and Mackey had initiated many persons for the mean consideration of a leg of mutton for dinner or supper to the disgrace of the Ancient Craft [and] that it was difficult to discover who assisted them, if any, as they seldom met twice in the same Alehouse. That Macky was an Empiric in physic; and both impostors in Masonry. That upon examining some brothers whom they pretended to have made Royal Archmen, the parties had not the least idea of that secret. That Doctor Macky (for so he was called) pretended to teach a Masonical Art by which any man could (in a moment) render himself invisible. That the Grand Secretary had examined Macky, at the house of Mr James Duffy, tobacconist, in East Smithfield who was not a Mason and that Macky appear'd incapable of making an Apprentice with any degree of propriety. Nor had Mackey the least idea or knowledge of Royal Arch masonry. But instead thereof he had told the people whom he deceived a long story about 12 white Marble stones etc. etc. and that the rainbow was the Royal Arch, with many other absurdities equally foreign and ridiculous.\n\nThe Grand Committee Unanimously Agreed and Ordered that neither Thomas Phealon nor John Mackey be admitted into any Ancient Lodge during their natural lives.\n\nOn 2 September the same year, the Antients' minutes noted that:\n\nThe Lodge was opened in Ancient Form of Grand Lodge and every part of Real freemasonry was traced and explained, except the Royal Arch.\n\nAnd on 2 March 1757, they recorded an Order that:\n\nthe Masters of the Royal Arch shall also be Summoned to meet in order to regulate things relative to that most valuable branch of the Craft.\n\nDermott referred to Royal Arch in _Ahiman Rezon_ as 'the root, heart and marrow of masonry'. There may have been two reasons. The Royal Arch had become quite rapidly a highly popular aspect of the Antients' Masonic ritual and had garnered a strong following. Indeed, many Moderns were also attracted to the Royal Arch and the ceremony was practiced by the Moderns, albeit unofficially, from at least the 1760s. But perhaps most importantly, the ritual had not been adopted formally by the Moderns. In fact, it had been rejected. Samuel Spencer, the Moderns' Grand Secretary, argued that the degree 'seduced the brethren' and that it did not form part of the core traditional ritual. In his words, 'our Society is neither Arch, Royal Arch or Antient'. Spencer's sentiments allowed Dermott to increase the distance between the Antients and the Moderns still further and to use the issue as yet another means to malign his rivals. This was a principal reason why the issue of incorporating the Royal Arch degree into post-union freemasonry later assumed such symbolic importance.\n\n# CHAPTER TWO\n\n# _Antients Freemasonry and the London Irish_\n\nDetailed in Appendix VI, the members of the lodge at the Ship behind the Royal Exchange demonstrate the presence, function and integration of wealthy upper middling Irish in London in the 1720s. However, as this and later chapters make clear, the professionals, politicians and merchants who made up the lodge and are often the subject of study by both academic and Masonic historians were a minority and unrepresentative of London's larger \u00e9migr\u00e9 Irish population. Unsurprisingly, they also had limited commonality with the members of Antients freemasonry.\n\nResearch into the London Irish working class in the eighteenth century and its strong connections with Antients freemasonry has generally been bypassed. One reason has been the false consensus view that there is an absence of relevant primary data. In fact, the early records of the Antients Grand Lodge and its constituent lodges contain details of over a thousand individual lodge members. A few of those listed, around eighty, appear more than once: a function of members moving from lodge to lodge. In addition to their names, approximately half the entries provide the addresses and occupations of the relevant members. In many instances, the date on which such members joined or rejoined their respective lodges is also recorded. And from the disaggregated data, multiple social relationships can be identified and a range of associations explored. Taken as a whole, the Antients' lodge minutes and membership registers provide a unique and to date almost uncultivated resource that complements parish records and exposes the individual and communal characteristics of an important segment of London's social sub strata, many of whom would have been first or second generation \u00e9migr\u00e9 Irish.\n\nEstimates of the size of London's Irish population in the mid-eighteenth century vary from the mid-thousands to the low tens of thousands. However, given the relatively large number that appear as members of Antients freemasonry, it is not unreasonable to assume that the latter figure is the more probable and perhaps an underestimate. Accurate census data began only in 1801. At that date, the Irish-born population in London was calculated to be around 40,000. The number is thought to have reached a peak of around 110,000 in 1851 after the mass migration that accompanied and followed Ireland's great famine of the 1840s. However, later census data only captures Irish-born respondents and excludes second, third and later generation Irish who were born in the capital. And it is clear that from the second and third decades of the 1700s, the number of Irish migrants settling in London became a rising proportion of the city's population.\n\nIrish migration to England had generally been seasonal, with workers travelling across the Irish Sea each year to work on the harvest. In contrast, the majority of Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s in the mid- and later eighteenth century were a combination of skilled workers seeking improved employment opportunities and unskilled labourers driven by poverty. Seasonal working continued and such migrants remained a large presence but, over time, they were outweighed by those who settled permanently. There were several reasons. The interconnection between Dublin and London's respective linen and silk industries drew weavers from Ireland to Spitalfields and elsewhere, where they worked alongside the Huguenot community. Yet more economic migrants found employment as unskilled or semi-skilled labourers, building the emerging infrastructure, from canals, bridges and mines to London's docks, as Britain industrialised. Many were engaged in a variety of other relatively low-end occupations, including domestic workers, chairmen and porters, or pedlars, hawkers and street sellers, employments where the absence of start-up capital was no bar to working and where the increasing wealth of the capital and other growing urban areas provided a regular demand for such services. Irishmen also served in the British army and navy. Up to a third of the lower ranks were thought to be Irish and from there they were often discharged jobless onto the capital's streets. It is not known how many among London's Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9 community drifted into vagrancy and criminality but anecdotal evidence and contemporary crime reports suggest that the figure may have been disproportionately large.\n\nAlthough London's Irish were disbursed widely across the metropolis, many congregated in the slums or rookeries of St Giles and St Martin's, and the crowded courts and lanes east of the City of London around Rosemary Lane, the Ratcliffe Highway, Wapping and the docks, where poverty was often the common denominator. Even by contemporary standards, conditions were deprived, and often dire, and both new and old arrivals tended to subsist in crammed lodging houses and tenements similar to if not worse than those described by Dickens nearly a century later:\n\nwretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper: every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three. Fruit and sweet-stuff manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and redherring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a 'musician' in the front kitchen and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one. Filth everywhere, a gutter before the houses and a drain behind, clothes drying and slops emptying, from the windows... men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting and swearing.\n\nFor the majority with limited or no education and few skills, London had limited potential financial rewards. Those in the jobbing building trades such as painters, plasterers, carpenters and bricklayers, or providing basic services such as tailoring, wig making or cobbling, were likely to obtain only irregular and poorly paid casual work. And even as regular waged labour became more common, workers were frequently subjected to low pay and sweated conditions, with security of employment threatened by seasonal layoffs, their employer's vicissitudes and the economic cycle of boom and bust. It is estimated that up to two-thirds of low paid workers would have been forced periodically to draw on parish funds or charity to supplement their earnings. And more \u2013 if not almost all \u2013 would have needed to do so if unemployed, sick or following the death of the main earner in the family. Living conditions in this layer of London society were miserable and characterised by overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and squalor. And life was often short, a function of poor diet, alcoholism and rampant disease.\n\nBut despite the many barriers to economic and social achievement, a small but growing minority of the lower middling and working-class Irish community attained relative success, climbing some rungs higher on the financial ladder and gaining the refuge of improved occupations or the security of more remunerative employment or self-employment. Some, indeed many, provided services to their compatriots and, over time, there developed a network of Irish-owned and Irish-run lodging houses, chop and alehouses, gin distilleries and brothels. Others used their determination and expertise to become traders or more skilled artisans, or became teachers, apothecaries or even lawyers, doctors or barber surgeons, some providing services within their own communities and others serving the burgeoning stratum of wealthier Londoners. In this sense, the rookeries and slums were not simply a sink but also a font of entrepreneurialism. Those resolved to escape poverty had few options other than to look after their own interests and rely on their own resources or that of their family or close community. Those with the necessary drive and determination would strike out, embracing commerce, building capital and sometimes achieving success. Those that prospered (if only in relative terms) and broke free from the constraints of absolute poverty and escaped the worst aspects of the rookeries grew in status and were able to exercise greater influence upon and within their communities, if only by example. Although only around 20 or 25 per cent of those considered below might fall into such upwardly mobile categories, they are of especial interest in determining the changing nature of Antients freemasonry and its membership as it developed over the course of the second half of the eighteenth century. Indeed, it was from this group that many of the more aspirational lower middling and middling London Irish came into Antients freemasonry, perhaps attracted by the prospect of its ritual, faux history and, perhaps most crucially, a social space that was considered comparatively exclusive and could provide both fraternal association and sustainable mutual financial support.\n\nAlthough a gross simplification, many in eighteenth-century England held the Irish (and not only their working class) to be uniformly feckless and there was little popular distinction between the indigent and the aspirational. Perhaps unsurprisingly given its lack of dimension, the common perception was a misrepresentation. The membership registers and minutes of London's Antients Masonic lodges provide strong evidence that many within the Irish and larger working-class community in London were motivated, entrepreneurial and driven by a desire for social and financial self-improvement. The Antients' _General Register_ lists a heterogeneous group of men in a range of occupations from the lower rungs of society to an unexpectedly high number of more middling and lower middling occupations. It suggests that the Antients created an effective interdenominational mutual support structure for both the Irish community in London (and elsewhere) and for the urban working class and lower middling more broadly.\n\nEstablished in London in 1751, the Antients Grand Lodge and the freemasonry it represented was shaped and supported by London's Irish diaspora. The new organisation provided an accessible social space as well as a focal point for Irish Masonic lodges in London and a home to members of previously independent or 'St John's' lodges, as well as those expelled by or estranged from the original and now rival Grand Lodge of England. In doing so, the Antients opened freemasonry intentionally to a more diverse membership and offered potential mutual financial assistance and a support structure that was available not only to the expatriate Irish community but also more broadly to the lower middling and working class. From a relatively small base \u2013 just five lodges were in the founding nucleus and only nine lodges were listed in the first minutes written in 1752 \u2013 the Antients grew rapidly such that by 1756, there were over a thousand members across more than forty lodges. The organisation gained traction and, in 1758, a union was established between the Antients and the Grand Lodge of Ireland to the exclusion of the original Grand Lodge of England. The pact was made tri-partite in 1773 when Scotland joined. In that year, the 3rd duke of Atholl was both Grand Master of the Antients and Grand Master-elect of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, a pattern repeated in subsequent years. By 1770, Antients' membership had grown to more than five thousand within London and the provinces and the rival Moderns were at risk of being sidelined permanently. A decade later, the Antients had over 200 affiliated lodges; 75 were based in London; more than 80 in the provinces; and 45 had been warranted overseas. And by the early 1800s, the number had nearly doubled again to a total of more than 350 Antients' lodges nationally and internationally, with a total of perhaps 20,000 or so members.\n\nData on individual members was held centrally between 1751 and 1755, and also locally, where it was recorded by individual lodges, usually as part of the lodge minute books or treasurer's records. Although trying to determine either nationality or religious affiliation from an analysis of members' surnames is notoriously difficult (and probably impractical in the absence of corroborative data such as the corresponding records of births, marriages and deaths), it is nonetheless likely that the Antients' membership included a mixture of Irish and English Protestants (conformist and non-conformist) as well as Catholics. Scottish (possibly Ulster) and Jewish \u00e9migr\u00e9 surnames are also present, as is evidence that Quakers also joined freemasonry. The _General Register_ records members' occupations in approximately 500 cases and a place of residence or contact address in around 450, albeit that there is data repetition where a member appears in the register more than once. In a minority of instances, additional data is recorded, including the name of any proposer, current lodge, rank and\/or prior lodge.\n\n# ANTIENTS FREEMASONRY: \nTHE LONDON MEMBERSHIP, 1751\u20135\n\nWith respect to the 500 or so members whose addresses were listed in the _General Register,_ approximately half (around 250) were located in Middlesex and Westminster to the west of the City of London. Over eighty lived in the central London slum district stretching from St Giles and Seven Dials through to Covent Garden; nearly fifty were to the east of Covent Garden in an area from Drury Lane to Gray's Inn and north to Holborn; and about the same number were to the south of Covent Garden in the Strand and Temple Bar. A further forty or so members lived to the west and southwest of the Strand in the contiguous district of St Martin's Lane, with smaller groups in Soho, Golden Square, Leicester Fields and Piccadilly.\n\nThe majority of the remainder lived and worked around the eastern and northern borders of the still partly walled City of London. Twenty-five members were resident in east London, around the Ratcliffe Highway, Goodman's Fields, Rosemary Lane and Wapping; with a similar number in Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and Shoreditch, of whom seven gave their address as Holywell Lane. Close to seventy came from the arc around the north east of the City from Spitalfields to Clerkenwell, of whom nine alone gave an address in Quaker Street. Seven members lived or worked in Farringdon; fifteen in Bishopsgate, mostly without the City walls; and eleven in Moorgate and Moorfields. Over forty lived elsewhere in the City, from Aldersgate, Smithfield, Little Britain and Cheapside to Wallbrook and Lower Thames Street. And across London Bridge and south of the Thames, some thirty members gave a Southwark address, with a lesser number in Bermondsey, Borough and a handful in Lambeth and elsewhere.\n\nLocation is generally a useful sociological tag, however, it is important to recognise that in eighteenth-century London, the segregation of social class by neighbourhood was relatively undeveloped and the middling classes and gentry often lived in close proximity to the poor. This was the case not only in those neighbourhoods that were downshifting from affluence to relative poverty, such as Covent Garden, but a pattern that could be followed across London as a whole, including some of the most impoverished areas such as St Martin's, and relatively prosperous districts such as Grosvenor Square and St James's, both of which housed servants, shopkeepers and other tradesmen. However, although residence in Seven Dials, for example, could not be advanced as proof of penury, or in Mayfair, of affluence, it could be viewed as raising the probability. Regardless, despite the difficulties of using location as a simple proxy for social status and relative wealth or poverty, the social and financial standing of many Antients' lodge members is given greater clarity by the specifics of their addresses \u2013 the courts, alleys and lodging houses in which they lived \u2013 and attains still higher probability through a granular examination of their occupations.\n\nAssessing the data at such a level reveals a frequent reoccurrence of specific locations and members with the same or proximate addresses living in the same streets and sometimes sharing a common tavern or boarding house. In addition, many had similar or related occupations. Both demonstrate local clusters of Masonic sociability and suggest strongly that social and business networking was not limited to middling and upper class eighteenth-century society but stretched across the social divide. Perhaps the clearest confirmation of such associations and sociability among the London Irish and other members is the number of neighbours and near neighbours who joined at the same time, together with the large number of members with common and linked occupations. Taking only a small number from many possible examples, we can point to Barnaby Fox, Thomas O'Harah and John Morris, three weavers, who joined the Antients at virtually the same time, each giving the same address 'opposite The Two Brewers' in Spitalfields. Similarly, the Ship & Anchor in Quaker Street, Spitalfields, was home to four weavers: Thomas Kaan, John Disrael, Edward Butcher and William Pendlebury, as well as Isaac Daking, a cooper, and Moses Willoughby, a victualler. Tangentially, Laurence Dermott gave the same address on 24 February 1752.\n\nMembers who joined the Antients as a group included John Woodward, Mathew Doyle, James Moran, John Eustace and Thomas McGuire, five linen printers who lived in Broadwall in Southwark, and three of their neighbours, William Bryant, a pipe maker, Thomas Sneath, a victualler, and John Sheridan, a hatter. The same commonalities linked George Rochford and Anthony Morley, both weavers and neighbours in Old Coach Lane in Spitalfields; and James Say, a glazier, and Robert Blount, a wine merchant, both of whom lived at Upper Ground, Church Street, Southwark. Other examples of colleagues, friends or neighbours joining in tandem include twelve shoemakers, seven of whom lived in the streets immediately surrounding Red Lion Square in Holborn and three others close by in Drury Lane; and two silversmiths, John McCormick and Samuel Galbraith, both of whom lived in Horse Shoe Alley in Moorfields, both members of lodge No. 20. Two painters, Richard Storer and Benjamin Hobbs, who lived in Tower Street in Seven Dials, moved lodges together, transferring their membership to lodge No. 5 from lodge No. 9. And Daniel Neil, Daniel Dawson and Peter Dunhaven, three carpenters living at Mr Steed's in King Street near Bloomsbury Square, are recorded simultaneously joining the same lodge.\n\n**Figure 1** Antients' Members, 1751\u20135: Analysis by Location\n\n**Figure 2** Antients' Members, 1751\u20135: Analysis by Occupation\n\nFamily connections are apparent with brothers, or possibly fathers and sons, becoming members of the same lodges. Examples include John and William McDowell, carpenters, both of whom initially lived at the Crown tavern in Green Street Leicester Fields before relocating to Chandois Street in Covent Garden, and Coventry Court, Haymarket, respectively. The McDowells joined lodge No. 7, introduced by James Hagan. And Evan and Alexander McKenzie, both introduced by John Bradshawe, each became a member of lodge No. 8. Numerous other examples reinforce a sense of communal sociability that is marked by members from the same streets or courts joining successively or simultaneously. The evidence suggests that Antients freemasonry was from its earliest years an association of friends, neighbours and co-workers, the large majority of whom lived and laboured in a relatively small number of compact adjacent areas within London. It was a medium in which a mutual benefit society might be expected to take root; and it did.\n\nAlthough there is only a limited number of examples extant, the minutes of eighteenth-century Antients' lodge meetings that have survived underline that freemasonry offered London's \u00e9migr\u00e9 Irish and others from the lower middling and working class not only a social medium but also access to potential mutual financial support through mutually financed Masonic benevolence. Among the many hundreds of instances recorded, we can quote the following three representative examples:\n\npaid to Bro. Jackson, SW No. 5, for Bro Evans, he being ill, 2s 7\u00bdd;\n\ndebated on the funeral charges of Brother Mitchell late of No. 2 [and] unanimously and cheerfully agreed that the said funeral charges shall be paid for by a voluntary contribution of two shillings [from] each lodge; and\n\nheard a petition from Thomas Warren Master of No. 20 (sick) \u2013 ordered that the petitioner shall receive forty shillings at the rate of five shillings per week. Ditto from Michael Wade of No. 8 (sick) \u2013 ordered that the petitioner shall receive one pound five shillings at five shilling per week, both these donations to be paid by the hands of our worthy SGW, John Jackson.\n\nAnd there was more. Antients freemasonry provided a _de facto_ passport to those visiting London from Ireland and leaving London for elsewhere. Moreover, the utility offered by Masonic membership was not confined to those permanently resident in the city. The lodge's milieu was also exploited by London's transient population with members periodically returning to the mother country \u2013 'gone to Ireland' \u2013 and others recorded as travelling elsewhere \u2013 'gone to Liverpool'. Indeed, the evidence includes New York (Nicholas Horton, a mariner, No. 773 in the list of members) and Jamaica (Roderick Rose, No. 192).\n\nThe cachet of membership should also be considered. Given its faux antiquarian history, well-publicised aristocratic leadership in each of Ireland, English and Scotland, and in all three countries, but especially in England, a past association with Enlightenment luminaries, freemasonry would have been perceived as having a prestige and exclusivity otherwise unavailable to the socially marginalised. Perhaps as a consequence, lodge membership came with what were considered and treated as serious moral and financial obligations. First and probably most importantly, in addition to funding the cost of regular weekly or (more commonly) bi-weekly dining and drinking, members were obliged to pay lodge fees and charity dues. This was the natural _sine qua non_ of any mutual support framework and the Antients' _General Register_ hints at the probability that at least some members were obliged to leave or left because such dues, which in general were not low, proved too onerous. In certain instances, members who were recorded as barred for non-payment appear later to have rejoined the same or a different lodge, presumably at a time when their financial circumstances had improved. The collection of lodge arrears by the Antients Grand Lodge was also a problem and in September 1754, five lodges were excluded for this reason. Second, regular if not strict attendance was expected and the Antients' lodge registers catalogue both habitual attendees and a minority of members subsequently excluded by virtue of their inability or unwillingness to be present. One such member, presumably unable rather than unwilling, was Samuel Watson, the housekeeper at Harwood's Bell Brewhouse in Shoreditch. Watson had originally been introduced to lodge No. 10 by Lawrence Dermot, the Antients' proselytising Grand Secretary.\n\nThe range of livelihoods recorded in the _General Register_ and other lodge membership data comprises a surprisingly broad spectrum of occupations, employments, income and status. A comparatively large number, twenty-five or over 5 per cent of those whose work status was recorded, were categorised as 'gentlemen'. However, whether the description was ironic, genuine or the product of social inflation is unclear and several members have addresses that may appear to be in conflict with their assumed status. Examples include Isaac Simon living in White Lion Street in Seven Dials; Colin Bruce of Lancaster Court at Shand in Southwark; William Hindlestone of the Star in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street; Benjamin Dove at Mr Gardener's in Hedge Lane, Southwark; Thomas Heathcott of Borough, who was later excluded for non-payment; and Thomas Porteus of 18 Gillum's Court in Rotherhithe. Each address was in an area of some poverty although, as noted, that does not preclude the presence of better-off residents.\n\nCertain members appear genuinely to have been gentlemen, for example, James Rowe, who lived at Alderman Hoare's house in Fleet Street; Robert Turner at the Eagle & Child in Petty France; John McCormick, whose address was at the popular Spring Gardens in Vauxhall; and James Hartley of the Golden Fan at Bucklersbury, a few yards to the south of the Royal Exchange at the centre of the City.\n\n**Table 1** 'Gentlemen' Members of Antients Freemasonry, 1751\u20135\n\n_Membership Number_ | _Name_ | _Address_ \n---|---|--- \n91 | James Hartley | Golden Fan, Bucklersbury, Cheapside \n170 | James Lauder | \n240 | Thomas Porteous | No 18 Gilham's Court, Rotherhithe Wall \n242 | Richard Partridge | Chandois Street \n284 | Austin Allen | \n285 | Isaac Simon | White Lion Street \n300 | Robert Turner | Eagle & Child, Petty France, Westminster \n344 | James Rowe | Alderman Hoare's, Fleet Street \n352 | Nathaniel Franks | Mr Frank's, Skinner Street \n354 | Benjamin Dove | Mr Gardener's, Hedge Lane \n368 | Collin Bruce | Lancaster Court, Strand \n385 | Thornhill Heathcoat | Borough \n393 | Alexander Drumond | \n411 | Alexander Fraizer | \n435 | John Rob | \n456 | John Holloway | \n476 | Richard Partridge | Chandois Street \n502 | Robert Gray | \n510 | Peter Reily | Long Acre, Covent Garden \n518 | Jerome Robinson | Mr Chambers' near Opera House \n521 | Francis Vignolas | \n534 | John McCormick | Spring Gardens, Vauxhall \n550 | William Davis | Malpas Arms \n586 | Henry Jellybrain | Chapel Street, Westminster \n756 | William [Hindle]stone | Star, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street\n\nOther addresses are more ambivalent social indicators. For example, that of Richard Partridge of Chandois Street, and William Davis, whose address was given as the Malpas Arms in Charles Street. There were several 'Charles Streets' in London. One was close to the affluent Grosvenor Square; a second located less salubriously on the edge of the rookeries. To quote from Frank McLynn:\n\nthe species of London criminal feared most was the footpad, the armed robber operating on foot, usually in gangs. They infested London on the outskirts. [Their] operating haunts... were around Knightsbridge and Tottenham Court Road, then surrounded by ditches and open fields. After the robbery, the favourite retreat would be one at Holborn, Gray's Inn Lane, Great Queen Street, Long Acre, St Martin's Lane, Bedford Street and Charles Street.\n\nAlthough many of the factors that drove the growth in Antients membership had their counterparts in the Moderns, including patronage by wealthy members of the aristocracy and gentry, a loose connection to the Enlightenment, an impressive if faux history and relative social exclusivity, other aspects were more specifically Irish. The inter-denominational nature of the Craft was probably a significant attraction for prospective Catholic members and the relatively ornate Masonic ritual may have proved a draw where access to liturgy was difficult to access. Indeed, depending on county, towards the last quarter of the eighteenth century, between 20\u201340 per cent of Irish freemasons are thought to have comprised Catholics. In England, notwithstanding greater religious toleration, the Tests and Corporations Act remained in force, and Sarah Knott's analysis, although not directed at Antients freemasonry, is relevant:\n\nas a politically defeated and confessionally excluded community, [Catholics] articulated civil society as a realm superior to politics which might incarnate virtue, especially that of religious charity.\n\nLinked to this, perhaps the leading factors behind the growth in membership for all denominations was Antients freemasonry's function as a social forum for the otherwise marginalised and provision of a mutually financed support structure.\n\nAside from those described as gentlemen, only nine of the c.470 or so Antients' members whose occupations were disclosed might be categorised as 'professional' men. There were two surgeons, albeit that they were possibly barber surgeons; three apothecaries; two attorneys; and two merchants. Neither of the two surgeons, Thomas Brothwick and Edward Vaughan, were members of the Royal College of Physicians. In any event, the categories of physician and surgeon were socially and professionally distinct at this period, with surgeon being the lesser of the two. However, there is press evidence that John Gillum, whose occupation was stated as merchant, was exactly that, and that James Shee and David Jennings, were both attorneys. Shee's address at Fetter Lane and Jennings' at 4 Brick Court in the Temple, were also both close to the Law Courts. John Wright, the apothecary living in Great Wild Street, may have been the same John Wright who in 1736 was admitted to the Society of Apothecaries.\n\nBut although there were only a few 'professional' men, at least 7 per cent of Antients members can be categorised as having relatively upwardly mobile 'semi-middling' occupations. The number included five wine merchants, two vintners and others with comparatively well-paid occupations including goldsmiths, silversmiths and jewellers, some of whom would have doubled as bankers. Yet more appear to have been talented and possibly better paid artisans: clock and watchmakers; bookbinders; printers; a gunsmith and so on. Such men were likely to be capable of avoiding cyclical poverty and amassing capital, if only on a small scale. As noted, they may also have been disproportionately influential within the community and in Antients freemasonry, not least because of their status and the financial contribution they made to the lodge. In aggregate, the proportion of such middling, semi-middling and skilled artisans amounted to approximately 20 per cent of the members whose occupations are disclosed.\n\n**Table 2** The 'Professional' Members of Antients Freemasonry, 1751\u20135\n\n**Table 3** Middling & Lower Middling Occupations among Antients Freemasons, 1751\u20135\n\nAfter allowing for the duplication of entries in the _Register,_ the number of gentlemen, middling, semi-middling and skilled artisans totals just over a quarter of those Antients members whose occupations were disclosed. However, the actual percentage is likely to have been higher. Although the majority of those described, for example, as 'tailors', 'weavers' or 'painters', were probably employed or self-employed and low-skilled, a minority, perhaps a large minority, would have been the small or medium scale entrepreneurs and businessmen that employed them. An obvious example would be James Hagarty, the Past Master of lodge No. 4, the master painter who at one time probably employed Laurence Dermott.\n\nHowever, not surprisingly, by far the largest element of Antients' members is likely to have comprised less skilled and unskilled workers. These included bakers, brewers, bricklayers, britches makers, coopers, distillers, hatters and linen printers. The most common occupations were those of carpenter (with around twenty members); cobbler or shoemaker (thirty-five); painter and decorator (twenty-eight); peruke [wig] maker (twenty-six); weaver (thirty-nine); and tailor, the most widespread occupation at fifty-seven members, or around 13 per cent of the total. The relatively high proportion of peruke makers is of interest; although fashionable in the early 1700s, wearing wigs was rapidly going out of style by the mid-eighteenth century and such men may have been among the more impoverished. Even further down the social ladder were shop workers and street salesmen, with around fifty members, the majority victuallers and drapers (in total, forty-three). Although some, perhaps many or even most of their number may have been the more affluent shop owners rather than shop workers, others were probably hawkers or peddlers, for example, those living near Rag Fair in Rosemary Lane. But although few or none would have been regarded as well-paid or steady occupations, not all such men and their families would have lived close to subsistence, although most would have been in need of charity during periods of unemployed and illness, if not more regularly.\n\nData in the _General Register_ suggests that in the same way that English and Irish lodges such as the Horn at Westminster, Rummer at Charing Cross, Ship behind the Royal Exchange and the Yellow Lion in Dublin, tended to encompass men with a similar social standing and a common business and\/or political outlook, Antients freemasonry developed along similar lines. This is not unexpected given that lodge membership was generally a function of invitations to friends, colleagues or neighbours and, in common with most societies, only a minority might have been active in issuing such invitations. Further evidence for this interpretation can be seen in the membership registers and minute books of individual Antients lodges.\n\n**Table 4** The Membership of lodge No. 20 at the Hampshire Hog, Goswell Street, London\n\nAlthough only a small number of such mid-eighteenth century lodge records have survived, one that has is that of lodge No. 20, which met at the Hampshire Hog in Goswell Street near Aldersgate. The composition of its membership supports the argument that commonalities of occupation and address, and an association with a few key figures, drove the lodge and created and cemented social and business relationships.\n\nSeven members formed the lodge on 9 July 1753 and a further thirteen joined in the first twelve months. Of these, just over half appear to have been relatively high status artisans including five silversmiths, four watchmakers, a jeweller, a clockmaker and a gold chain maker. John McCormick, the Master of the lodge, a silversmith living at Horse Shoe Alley in Moorfields on the outskirts of the City, appears to have been responsible for inviting John Finch and John Scovill to join. The minutes for 20 August record that 'John Scholefield [was] reported by the Master and Senior Warden to be made a mason on our regular Lodge night next ensuing'. They were neighbours: Finch, another silversmith, and Scovill, a clockmaker, also lived in Horse Shoe Alley. Other early joiners connected through silversmithing were John Houghton, Thomas Jones and John Cleminson. Once again, the minutes for 3 September note that 'John Cleminson [was] reported by the Master, Bro Stone[s] and Bro Lewis M[aster] No. 4 to be made a mason on our regular Lodge night next ensuing'. Similarly, Samuel Galbraith, a watchmaker living in Great Arthur Street on the northern rim of the City of London at the Barbican, can be linked to Noblet O'Keefe, another watchmaker at the same address, and to others. The minutes of 23 December 1753, record that 'Bro Galbraith reported Mr William Healy [a peruke maker of St John's Square, Spitalfields] to be a member of this most honourable and antient lodge of free and accepted mason[s]'. And on 6 May 1754, a 'Bro Weir [was] reported to become a member of our Lodge by Bro Galbraith'.\n\nSix new members joined in the lodge's second year when membership reached a plateau, with exclusions that year, most for non-payment, equalling the number of new entrants. Two new members, William Green and Robert Barnett, both victuallers, lived east of the City, around the Minories and Goodman's Fields; it is unclear at whose invitation they were invited to join. However, at this time, freemasonry was entirely open and those wishing to join a lodge would simply have to ask a known member.\n\nThe principal fulcrums on which the lodge turned appear to be John McCormick, the first Master, and Samuel Galbraith, the Senior Warden, who in 1755 was appointed the Antients' Junior Grand Warden. Evidence of Galbraith's influence is apparent in the volume of visitors from lodge No. 3, of which he had been Master, and the number of proposals Galbraith made with respect to new members. Galbraith also financed the lodge's initial establishment. If his influence was central to maintaining the lodge's vitality, his subsequent absence would provide a reasonable explanation for the lodge's demise in the latter part of 1756, which followed Galbraith's return to Ireland in March of that year.\n\nTaken as a whole, lodge No. 20 epitomises the characteristics found elsewhere in Antients freemasonry: a close concentration of addresses, in this instance around the northern perimeter of the City; related occupations, here principally within the jewellery trade; and a sense of friends and colleagues coming together. Although lodge numbers were relatively small, the membership register records that most members attended the twice monthly meetings with only limited absences: McCormick was away on five occasions in 1754; Galbraith was absent once ('sick'); and the majority of other members are shown as failing to attend on only a handful of occasions. There were a few exceptions. John Finch moved to Lisbon in January 1754 and was not present again. That he paid his lodge fees may indicate that freemasonry was of some use to him in Portugal. John Scovill and John Cleminson ceased to attend after May 1754. Like Finch, Cleminson paid his lodge fees, despite having 'gone to the country'; however, Scovill was later excluded for non payment. Six others were similarly excluded: Frances Weddrinton, John Summers and Samuel Hutchins in September 1754; and Samuel Welbeck, Thomas Weir and William Fox in May 1755. Welbeck had been recorded 'sick' for virtually the whole year and had been able to attend only once.\n\nIn a paper transcribing the minutes and describing the lodge, Songhurst noted that the minute book had been prepared in the first instance by Laurence Dermott, who received 8 _s_ for its supply and for writing out the bylaws and preparing the minutes of the first two meetings. An implication is that the lodge would have been relatively affluent in order to pay for such a service. The supposition is supported further by the employment of Richard Gough, the Antients' Grand Tyler, as the lodge tyler, that is, the external guard and lodge servant, who may have charged a premium for his services.\n\nThe lodge by-laws, an extract from which is replicated, set out the fees and system of fines levied in relation to various events and infringements. Based on a retail price index deflator, the fee per meeting of 1s _2d_ would be equivalent to c. \u00a312 today, which would have excluded any charitable contribution; and a dining fee of half a crown, 2s 6d, would be c. \u00a325. The adjustment of such data for inflation is not an exact science and the figures would be considerably higher (by a factor of 7\u201310), based on the increase in average earnings between 1750 and 2010. Nevertheless, even at the lower level, the inference is that a member's earnings would necessarily have had to be relatively high and that joining such a lodge was a status improving act. There may also have been an implicit assumption by members that the benefits of joining, both social and financial, were perceived as having tangible value. Conversely, it would also be correct to assume that the high level of lodge fees would have provided the rationale for those members forced to leave or subsequently excluded for non-payment.\n\n# **V**\n\nAND if any member refuse to Serve any of the aforesd. Offices shall be Fin'd as follows Viz. the Mastr. 5 Shilla. each Warda. and Secretary two Shilla. each Deacon One Shilling, and to be Fined the Same if they don't Serve their full time Except for the Reasons mention'd in the 2d. Rule. That the Master and Brethren meet on every St. JOHN day to dine together between the Hours of 12 and two o'Clock and that each Memr. pay 2 Shilla. the Lodge night before each St. JOHNS day towards defraying the Charges of the Festival that the Wardens be appointed as Stewards to Transact all matters Relateing to the Feast that the new Officers be in Stall'd immediately after Dinner, and all Visiters who dine, In this Lodge on said days Shall pay 2a.6 for Dinner.\n\n# **VI**\n\nTHAT on each Lodge Night every Memr, pay one Shilling and put 2 pence in the Box that (lie Junr. Ward, keep an Exact Account of the Reckoning and Acquaint the Body when all are in. and upon his neglegence or Omifsion he Shall be Answerable for the Difficiency.\n\n# **VIII**\n\nANY Person desireous of being made a Mason Shall be reported a Lodge night before his making by a Member of the Lodge and if not well known Shall be farther reported to the Grand Secretary with his Name, Occupation, and place of Abode with the intended time of his makeing, that the Secretary may make a Strict Enquiry into his Character, (and if approv'd off) Shall pay \u00a31.5, one pound five shillings one moiety to be spent as a Wellcome to the New Bror. and the Other part to be put in ye Chest of tins Lodge and at his making Shall Cloath the Lodge if Requir'd and when Enter'd Shall be Register'd in the Grand Lodge Book.\n\n# **IX**\n\nWHEN any Mason is desireous of becoming a Member of this Lodge he Shall be Reported a Lodge Night before, as above and Balloted for and when Admitted, Shall pay 25\/6d into the box and Chip Shilling to the Grand Secretary for Registering hiw to the Number of this Lodge\n\nUnlike English lodges where meetings tended not to occur during the summer when the aristocracy and gentry were out of town, lodge No. 20 met bi-weekly throughout the year. Fees were payable by members on each occasion, jointly with dining charges and charitable contributions. The overall cost, per meeting and annually, would accordingly have been high. Nevertheless, although relatively affluent, the lodge was not rich. Indeed, much to its embarrassment, McCormick, as Master, supposedly complained at a meeting of Antients Grand Lodge that he had 'no jewels to open the Lodge'. However, his grumbling is not borne out by the lodge's accounts, the first item of which notes a donation of 10 _s_ 6 _d_ from Bro. Hosier to purchase such jewels.\n\nBelying the London Irish reputation for insobriety, by-law eleven dealt with the penalties payable for drunkenness. It implies that the members of the lodge considered their activities to have significance beyond the purely social and that lodge meetings should and could command a more appropriate level of respect. Where levied, fines were payable 'the third lodge night after they are due, otherwise the transgressor shall have no vote in the lodge and if not cleared on St John's day, shall be excluded'. Indeed, the sanction for a third offence was potentially considerable:\n\n# XI\n\nIF any Member of this Lodge com-; disguis'd in Liequor he Shall be Admonish'd by the Mast.r. for bite First Offence, for the _2_ d Offence he shall be Fin'd One Shilla. for the 3d he Shall be Excluded without Ccrtifycate or Benefit from the Lodge and reported to the Grand.\n\nThe minutes of lodge No. 20 indicate that Masonic ritual assumed a central role in the lodge's proceedings. The lectures given by the officers of the lodge, members and visitors were not the scientific or self-improving addresses that had been and may have remained a part of at least some English lodge evenings, but rather recitals and explanations of Masonic ceremony. Lectures 'in the Craft', 'in the first branch' (the initiation ceremony) or 'in the second part' (passing to the degree of a fellowcraft), were given at virtually every meeting and not limited to those where members were actually initiated, passed or raised. An obvious question is whether the Antients' focus on and championing of a more ornate form of traditional Masonic ritual was a factor in the popularity of Irish freemasonry in England, Ireland and elsewhere. Indeed, for some members it may have become a substitute for Catholic liturgy or a proxy for the High Church Anglicanism of at least some Church of Ireland services. Moreover, despite the absence of tangible evidence, there are understandable reasons to suppose that many Irishmen, in the main poorly educated and at some distance from home, would have welcomed that form of freemasonry.\n\nBut apart from any quasi religious or spiritual benefits, it is also reasonable to conclude that two of the main advantages of lodge membership were economic and social. Individual lodges and Antients Grand Lodge acted as proto friendly societies, provided a forum for social interaction and a testament to a member's reliability and financial status: a 'good man and true' whose lodge fees were up to date. In this context, membership may well have been viewed as evidence of financial rectitude and improved a member's opportunities for trade and employment. This was certainly the position in the latter part of the eighteenth century and in the nineteenth. One example is that of certain harbour pilots both in the Americas and in Britain's colonies who used a Masonic pennant as an identifier when competing for trade from incoming vessels.\n\nUnlike current practice, Masonic membership certificates were not provided to members automatically when they were made a mason but on request and only where that member was in good standing. Certificates acted as a passport to allow the bearer to be recognised and accepted by lodges elsewhere. As such, they provided access to a ready-made support structure and would have been a valuable possession. They may also have assisted labour mobility. The minutes of 2 September 1754 record that following a lecture by Laurence Dermott, Bro. Blunt requested a membership certificate from the lodge 'as he is going to Jamaica'. After discussion, the certificate was granted, 'received honourably, as he has paid all his dues in our lodge'. The following year, on 25 May 1755, Thomas Dowsett joined the lodge, introduced by Galbraith. Proof of Dowsett's Masonic position, his 'being worthy of being a member', was attested by 'his certificate from No. 218, Ireland'. Dowsett may have been a former soldier who had previously been stationed in Ireland. The warrant constituting lodge No. 218 had been issued to the 48th Regiment of Foot by Irish Grand Lodge on 27 December 1750.\n\nOf course, a certificate was not always required as proof of Masonic membership. Men seeking to join or visit another lodge within the same district or town might normally expect to be known to a current member who could vouch for his _bona fides._ But in a large city this was not always easy to achieve and there are instances of complaints raised by those whose admission had been rejected:\n\nBros Mercado and Hood [complained] against the lodge held at the Anchor & Baptist Head in Chancery Lane for refusing to admit them as visitors as they were not known to any member.\n\nHowever, Antients freemasons travelling overseas or to other parts of the country where they were unknown would require a membership certificate as proof of their identity and of their good standing. With such a certificate, they would be freely admitted to the local lodge and to the support and infrastructure it offered.\n\nThe speed with which provincial and overseas lodges were created by the Antients is an excellent indication of their social and commercial utility. Two lodges were warranted in Bristol in 1753, and by 1755, others had been established elsewhere, in Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester and Warrington. Over the next two decades, the Antients built a significant presence across England that stretched from Kent in the south east to Cumberland in the north west, and from Devon in the south west to Durham in the north east. Most Antients lodges were established in the newly industrialising communities where Irish and other workers were drawn to work in the new factories or laboured on construction projects. And overseas, Antients lodges were active in each of America's thirteen colonies, and in the Caribbean and Canada; they were also present across continental Europe and in Scandinavia. Adding to the total, by 1790, fifty Antients regimental warrants had been granted within the British army, the majority of which were issued to regiments posted to North America.\n\nLodge No. 37, constituted on 19 April 1754, represents a second Antients lodge whose membership register and late eighteenth century minutes have survived, albeit only in part. Although the earliest lodge minute books have been lost, the records of Antients Grand Lodge indicate that in 1754, the lodge applied to exchange its warrant for a now vacant earlier (and thus lower and thereby more prestigious) number: that of No. 6, granted on 17 July 1751. The minutes record that on 2 October 1754,\n\n**Table 5** The Membership of lodge No. 37 at the Red Cow, Holywell Street, Strand, 1754\u20135\n\n_Registration_ | _Name_ | _Rank_ \n---|---|--- \n19 August 1754 | William Cowen | WM \n| William Osborne | SW \n| John Nelson | JW \n| Charles Buss | \n| Leonard Holiday | JD \n| William Child | Sec. \n| William Dickey | \n| William Grayson | DGM \n| Thomas Field | \n| Richard Houlditch | \n| Nathaniel Morgan | \n| William Moore | \n6 November 1754 | Giles Powell | \n| John Turner | \n4 December 1754 | Alexander McDowell | \n2 April 1755 | Charles Smith | \n| John Masters | \n| Thomas Stodard | \n| James Logan | \n| Thomas Morgan | \n| Omitted Tottershell | \n| James Hagan |\n\nBrother William Cowen, Master of the Lodge No. 37, proposed paying one guinea into the Grand Fund for No. 6 (now vacant).\n\nGrand Lodge agreed the application and for the consideration of a guinea, paid by instalments and completed on 18 June 1755, lodge No. 37 was elevated thirty-one places. The first members of the lodge are listed in the _General Register,_ albeit that the address and occupation of each member was not recorded.\n\nThe lodge returns to Antients Grand Lodge show three new members in 1754; seven in 1755; and 29 in 1756, of whom six ceased to attend after the December meeting. Four joined in 1757 and one in 1758, being Laurence Dermott, the Grand Secretary. John Lane's _Masonic Records_ note that the lodge moved to the King's Arms tavern in Holywell Street in 1755. It remained there until 1770, when the lodge transferred its meeting place to the Admiral Vernon tavern at 114 Bishopsgate Street Without. The surviving minutes commence on 17 December 1770 at the Admiral Vernon and contain the list of members set out below. In 1819, lodge No. 6 took the name 'Enoch Lodge'.\n\n**Table 6** The Membership of lodge No. 6 at the Admiral Vernon, Bishopsgate Without, 1771\n\nLodge No. 6 shares similar characteristics to No. 20, with a concentration of members around the north of the City of London and a combination of middling and lower ranking occupations that range from the relative affluence of two attorneys, a gentleman and a goldsmith, to a weaver, victuallers and tailors. Interestingly, the lodge's membership also included two Jews: Moses Myers and Abraham Abrahams. At the 17 December 1770 meeting, Thomas Blair sat as Master of the lodge and Robert Irwin, a brandy merchant, was proposed, initiated and passed to a fellowcraft. Irwin was already a freemason, albeit a Modern, and consequently paid a fee of 10s _6d_ rather than the standard joining fee of 2 guineas. The same arrangement applied in March, when Moses Meyers, another Modern, joined the lodge, on this occasion proposed by Charles Bearblock. The discounted fee suggests that the Antients were happy to encourage Moderns to defect to their ranks and indicates the continuing competition between the two rival grand lodges. That Meyers and Abrahams had to undergo an initiation for a second time under Antients' ritual speaks to the lack of regard in which the Moderns were held by the Antients (and vice versa). Both organisations imposed the same obligation on those joining from their respective rival, albeit that each set of candidates was 're-made' using a similar ceremonial. The scale of fee \u2013 even at 10s 6d \u2013 speaks to the expense of lodge membership.\n\nThe first page of the earliest surviving Treasurer's Book for lodge No. 4, dated June 1769 and covering the period 1769\u201391, lists twenty-two lodge members. However, the first named fifteen, probably those who had constituted the lodge, are recorded in name only, and it is only the subsequent six members whose occupation and address were also noted.\n\nThe membership register of lodge No. 3, dated 1773, contains a more detailed list. The lodge was originally numbered 55; it acquired the vacant warrant for No. 3 on 6 June 1759 for a donation of \u00a34 14s 6d. The lodge later took the name 'St George's Lodge'.\n\n**Table 7** The Membership of lodge No. 4, 1769\n\n**Table 8** The Membership of lodge No. 3, 1773\n\n_Name_ | _Occupation_ \n---|--- \nThomas Carter | Cook \nJohn Moody | Undertaker \nRobert Jones | in Sir W.W. Wynn's Service \nSamuel Sidebottom | ditto \nJohn Yeomans | Hair [unclear, possibly 'merchant'] \nEdward Meredith | Musician \nWilliam Dennison | Shoemaker \nOmitted Kelly | Servant to Lord Thomand \nEdward Marsh | Baker \nOmitted Storer | Plumber \nOmitted Llandale | Taylor \nOmitted Cook | Silversmith \nJohn Pilkington | Coal Merchant \nOmitted Stade | Tailor \nOmitted Chamless | Baker \nOmitted Cullom | Tailor \nOmitted Parker | Joiner \nJohn Neal | Hatter \nOmitted Parmistone | Breeches Maker \nJohn Wild | Framework Knitter \nOmitted Wood | Victualler \nCharles Sidebotham | in Sir W.W. Wynn's Service \nWilliam Pixley | ditto \nGriff Williams | ditto \nOmitted White | Victualler \nOmitted Rogers | \nOmitted Ross | of the Treasury \nOmitted Morris | Victualler \nOmitted Collins | Builder \nSpencer Draper | Cheesemonger \nOmitted Lightwood | Victualler \nOmitted Charme | Carver \nOmitted Lindenburgh | Tailor \nOmitted Looseley | Smith \nJohn Sergeant |\n\nThe lodge register illustrates a principally artisanal and working-class membership. That five members were in the employ of Sir Watkins Williams Wynn, 4th Bt., (1748\u20131789), is of interest. Given the probability \u2013 if not certainty \u2013 that Wynn's permission would have been required for his servants to attend lodge meetings, their presence and his patronage, albeit indirect, suggest a possible (if loose) tie to opposition politics. Wynn's father, the third baronet, had been an active and influential Jacobite sympathiser, a leading Tory and at the forefront of opposition to Walpole. Although Wynn did not pursue a political career with the same vigour and his parliamentary attendance was more limited, as MP for Shropshire (1772\u20134) and Denbighshire (1774\u201389), he nonetheless carried influence and was noted for voting with the opposition.\n\nDespite his Tory politics, Wynn's wealth nonetheless made him a mainstay of the north Wales gentry and in April 1775, he applied for the lord lieutenancy of Merionethshire. Reluctantly acceding to a request to grant the honour, the king replied to Lord North that he would 'consent to Sir Watkins Williams being lieutenant of Merioneth, if he means to be grateful, otherwise favours granted to persons in opposition is not very political'. Wynn supported the government accordingly for the next four years but, following a threat to his commercial interests in Wales, reverted to the opposition and thereafter voted against North and the administration until his death. One other factor might be mentioned. Wynn was in 1770, Junior Grand Warden of the Moderns and, in 1771, their Senior Grand Warden. His decision substantiates the social divide between Antients and Moderns freemasonry and also speaks to the different attraction that freemasonry had to Tories in Wales, an issue explored in _Foundations._ Whether it also indicates Wynn's temporary conversion to pro-establishment politics is more open to debate.\n\nWynn's multitude of servants represented a pattern of domestic service that was becoming overshadowed albeit not replaced by a changing commercial and industrial dynamic. Despite onerous employment legislation and harsh penalties, the concept of the worker as a servant subject to the Master and Servants Acts who could and should be compelled to work was being substituted by the notion of the employer and employee. A growing minority of the urban working class was beginning to benefit financially from real wage growth and, psychologically, from a new ability to choose their employer as much as be chosen. As such pockets of urban prosperity expanded, the freedom to allocate time between labour and leisure became its corollary. Urban interaction within the lower middling and working class also created a space for greater social confidence allied to improved access to information. Both helped to create a more secure and certain labour force where the prospect of climbing out of poverty and creating personal wealth, if only on a small scale, was for many an extension of the same social and moral imperatives as those that motivated others higher up the financial and social ladder.\n\nGreater and growing income disparity was a consequence of British economic development. However, it existed not just in the chasm between those at society's pinnacles and the bulk of the remainder, but also within the labour force itself. Urban workers' earnings accelerated away from those of their rural counterparts and, within towns and cities, the skilled artisans who provided the differentiated services and goods demanded by an increasingly affluent urban social elite could command a wage premium. Both developments can be identified in the composition of the Antients lodges and in the sometimes generous contributions of their members towards local mutual support and fraternal benevolence. They are also present in the fees, costs and expenses associated with lodge membership, and nuanced in the reputation of the different taverns that hosted lodge meetings and in the dining arrangements that distinguished one lodge from another. Similar clues to status and association are marked in the relationships that linked members of similar \u2013 and different \u2013 social and financial standing.\n\nOver time, Antients freemasonry reflected and added to the rollback of social deference and to greater self-reliance and more open debate. Where the Moderns sidelined controversy and considered such matters in private meetings or within the loyal and discreet Charity Committee of Grand Lodge, the Antients debated issues more freely. An extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Antients Grand Lodge on 2 April 1755 provides an example of the confidence exhibited and the mutual support in which that confidence was rooted:\n\nThomas Eastman the Master of No. 18 stood up and declared that his business to the Grand Lodge on this night was to make a formal declaration that neither he nor any of the members of his lodge, No. 18, would contribute to the Grand Fund nor attend this Grand Lodge for the future, upon which the GM [Edward Vaughan] told Mr Eastman that he was welcome to stay away and, further, that if he knew anybody of like principles in this Assembly he was also at liberty to take him or them.\n\nHeard the petition of Thomas Byrne, Past Master of No. 32, in distress (through sickness). Ordered that the petitioner shall receive one pound fifteen shillings at the rate of seven shillings per week by the hands of George Birney, Master of No. 32 aforesaid, providing that in case the said petitioner, Thomas Byrne, should die within five weeks, the said George Birney shall return the remainder of the money to the Grand Lodge.\n\nHeard a petition from James Towbin, a Sojourner in distress. A private collection was immediately made for and delivered to him.\n\nGW Galbraith begged leave to resign his office on account of the ill usage which he received from Laurence Rooke, the Master of No. 17. The Grand Warden was reconciled to his Office and Laurence Rooke declared off the Grand Charity and demanded two shillings which he had formerly contributed to the fund for relief of worthy brethren in distress. The GM told him that taking him in every sense, he did really believe him to be one of the poorest creatures in London, but wanted merit to receive a single farthing out of any charitable fund in the universe.\n\nThis is not to argue that England's workforce was uniformly or even predominantly upwardly mobile and aspirational. That was far from the case. But it is to contend that many of those who found a home within Antients freemasonry were within that category. That such a considerable proportion were Irish speaks to the determination and drive of many of those economic migrants who made their way to England. Indeed, Laurence Dermott is a pre-eminent examples of the diligence, confidence and above all success that characterised this section of London's labour force. His sharp elbowed promotion of the Antients was extraordinarily effective, as was his emulation of the gentry in his use of marriage as a path to social mobility and relative affluence. Where the Moderns had created a mid-century vacuum in English freemasonry, Dermott placed the Antients at the front and centre of lower middling community life.\n\n# CHAPTER THREE\n\n# _The Antients'_ General Register\n\nWithin this chapter we examine briefly a number of the principal London districts where most Antients freemasons listed in the _General Register_ lived and worked, and detail the names, addresses and occupations of those known to have lived in each area. In practice, certain districts merged into one another, however, for our purposes, they have been grouped loosely into five broad areas. The first comprised a swathe of central London including much of the city of Westminster; the second, an arc that stretched north and north-east of the City of London; the third, the City itself; the fourth, the area to the east of the Tower of London, including the Minories, Ratcliffe Highway and Goodman's Fields; and the fifth, Southwark and south of the Thames. And, of course, within each district were sub-districts.\n\n# COVENT GARDEN & DRURY LANE\n\nThe earls of Bedford had been granted land in Covent Garden after its sequestration by Henry VIII. They employed Inigo Jones to design and layout a central square and planned to create a residential district that would attract the gentry and aristocracy as a means of increasing the value of the land. A small fruit and vegetable market serving the area later developed to the south. However, as with St Giles-in-the-Fields and Seven Dials, what had been intended in the seventeenth century as an affluent and fashionable quarter gradually fell into decline. As the gentry relocated further west, taverns, coffee houses and brothels filled the vacuum and proliferated. By the early eighteenth century, the district had become a notable location for popular entertainment and attracted a demimonde of pleasure seekers, becoming synonymous with drink and prostitution. Drury Lane, an area to the immediate east, was equally notorious and insalubrious:\n\nthe Hundred of Drury [with its] one hundred and seven pleasure houses within and about the settlement, the Ladies whereof ply the passengers at noon.\n\nContemporary guidebooks listed those streets and districts where prostitution, both hetero and homosexual, might easily be found, together with the rates charged for such services. _A Trip through London_ was one of many popular guidebooks to the area. Another, _A second part of A view of London and Westminster: or, the Town Spy,_ encouraging 'lewdness unrestrained by shame', provided a list of courtesans and their respective addresses. And _Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies,_ setting out a description of each courtesan to be found in the area, was in such demand that successive editions were published almost annually from 1746 until Harris's death in 1766, and thereafter by other enterprising compilers through to the 1790s. Indeed, the book's popularity was such that it was believed to sell around 8,000 copies a year, a vast number given the cost, let alone the percentage of the population that was illiterate.\n\nDespite a focus on central London, prostitution was omnipresent across the metropolis and far from limited to the theatre and entertainment districts of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. The adjacent St Giles, St Martin's, the Haymarket and the Strand were also renowned for their brothels and streetwalkers, as was the City, Spitalfields, the Commercial Road, the Ratcliffe Highway and Southwark. Estimates of the numbers of women (and men) involved vary widely. Randolph Trumbach in _Sex and the Gender Revolution_ refers to the reforming magistrate, Saunders Welch, who concluded in 1758 that approximately three thousand women worked in prostitution; a number that was also adopted by Jonas Hanway in 1760. Trumbach analysed the locations of London's disorderly or 'bawdy' houses, noting an estimated 408 in the decade 1720\u20139, over 70 per cent of which, 290 such establishments, were located in the West End. The greatest number was in St Giles (with 193) and St Martin's (69), with a smaller figure located in the Strand (16). The data are similar to the number of pleasure houses mentioned by the _Town_ Spy. Of the balance, 15 per cent or some 60 houses were situated to the north of the City in Clerkenwell and Cripplegate; with the same number to the east of the City along the Ratcliffe Highway and in Stepney, Whitechapel and Wapping, an area that also attracted substantial custom from the port of London and its docks.\n\nAs might be expected, the Antients members living in Covent Garden and Drury Lane appear generally to have been in less well paid occupations, a combination of tailors, jobbing painters and other unskilled or low skilled employments. However, a few rise clearly above the mass: Richard Partridge, a gentleman living in Chandois Street; another, Jerome Robinson, at Mr Chambers' near the Opera House; John Wright, an apothecary in Great Wild Street; Maliche Delany, a vintner in Charles Street; and Peter Reilly, another gentleman living in Long Acre.\n\nTable 9 sets out the names and occupations of those recorded in the _General Register_ living and working in Covent Garden and Drury Lane, together with their respective occupations.\n\nJohn Rocque's 1746 map of London illustrates Drury Lane running south from Broad Street St Giles to Wych Street and the Strand. A few major thoroughfares branch out in perpendiculars out along its length, including Long Acre, Russell Street and Princes Street. But such principal thoroughfares are massively outnumbered by an abundance of cross-streets, cul-de-sacs and courts, many accessible only via narrow alleys. It is these smaller and more penurious addresses that appear against the majority of members' names in the _General Register:_ Blackmoor Street, leading to Stanhope Street; Broad Court; Maypole Alley; Middlesex Court; Old Playhouse Passage; Orange Court, made infamous by Gustav Dor\u00e9 in the nineteenth century; Stewart's (or Stuart's) Rents, joining Drury Lane to Great Wild Street; Tash Court and others. Many of the streets were the named locations in criminal trials at the Old Bailey and in cases brought before the Middlesex and Westminster Justices. And they and others are cited in poor relief, vagrancy and bastardy examinations at local parish hearings. And they appear and reappear in later parliamentary enquiries investigating the effects of contagious fever among those in the city's most overcrowded districts:\n\n**Table 9** Covent Garden & Drury Lane, 1751\u20135\n\none house in Saffron Hill supplied eight patients from its different apartments; one in Tash Court, Gray's Inn Lane, four; and from three or four houses in St Giles, upwards of twenty patients were admitted in the course of a month.\n\nA high proportion of London Irish lived in such overcrowded closed streets and passages. They were described by Thomas Beames, the Victorian commentator, as London's 'Irish colonies' which he viewed as both a physical manifestation of the community's social isolation and, importantly, as a testament to its strong intra-communal support network.\n\nBut despite its association with the Irish and with Antients freemasonry, Covent Garden also contained Moderns lodges, attracted by the proliferation of taverns and coffee houses. Meetings were held at an array of locations including the Two Black Posts and Lebeck's Head in Maiden Lane; the Cross Keys in Henrietta Street; the Mitre and the Globe, both in Globe Lane; and the Bedford Arms in the main piazza. Others lodges met at the Shakespeare's Head to the north east of the piazza; at the Bedford Coffee House, where Desaguliers stayed after leaving Channel Row; and in Bury's Coffee House and the Theatre Coffee House, both in Bridges Street. One of the better known and more popular taverns was the Bedford Head in Southampton Street, a 'luxurious refractory' celebrated for its food and gaming. As Pope noted: 'when sharp with hunger, scorn you to be fed, except on pea-chicks at the Bedford-head?'\n\n# ST GILES AND ST MARTIN'S\n\nOvercrowded, insanitary and in an even more reduced state, St Giles was adjacent to Covent Garden and to its north-west. It was regarded accurately as one of the worst slums in Britain and 'abounding in poor'. The district was home to so many of those Engels later termed the 'poorest of the poor', that it came to epitomise poverty in London, especially among the Irish, and was widely known as Little Dublin. To its south was the equally unfashionable St Martin's, another slum dominated by Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s, colloquially called 'porridge island' for the plethora of takeaway shops that fed those too impoverished to have access to a kitchen or who were otherwise unable or could not afford the raw materials and equipment to cook for themselves. It was then the case \u2013 as it is now \u2013 that cheap takeout shops proliferated in the poorest urban areas where the cost of labour and premises was low and translated to cheap, if not always nutritious, food.\n\nLike Covent Garden, St Giles-in-the-Fields and St Martin's-in-the-Fields had in the past been destinations for the affluent gentry and merchant classes. However, from the late seventeenth century they had subsided into decay as the gentry gravitated west towards the newly built Berkeley, Grosvenor and St James's Squares. And as decline took hold, new landlords, mainly the gentry and professionals, but also merchants, traders and more affluent shopkeepers, leased or purchased property portfolios of multiple houses and even whole streets. Individual tenements would be under-leased to lesser landlords, who would themselves sub-lease or rent rooms to under-tenants. Individual rooms were in turn subdivided and rented on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis to families or manifold individual lodgers. In such circumstances, overcrowding and a lack of sanitation was endemic. Over the course of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, St Giles and St Martin's became two of the most densely populated areas of London, 'a core of increasingly crowded and shabby housing ringed by the Haymarket, Long Acre, Drury Lane, the Strand and Charing Cross'. Both parishes developed into bywords for disease, vagrancy and unemployment. Prostitution of both sexes was pervasive, as was alcoholism, assisted and promoted by the proliferation of distilleries and inexpensive gin shops.\n\nOf the two, St Giles came to embody most egregiously the evil of poverty in popular culture. In _Gin Lane_ (1750) and the first scene of _Four Stages of Cruelty_ (1751), Hogarth illustrated the cruelty, misery and squalor associated with the alcohol dependency and destitution for which the district was known. Consumption of gin was regarded by the establishment as a particular iniquity and viewed as a threat not just to public health and morality but, more subtly, as the means by which the middling classes and the gentry were deprived of an effective labour force and productive consumption. In the Bishop of Worcester's words, 'how many... are annually killed and how many commodities... does this pernicious gin supplant'. Kent has emphasised the scale of the problem, noting the St Martin's parish officers' complaints to parliament, which argued \u2013 and demonstrated \u2013 that the excessive consumption of spirits led to crime, disorder and idleness. The constables' reports indicated that as many as one in eight houses in Westminster sold spirits. In St Giles, the number was thought to be higher, at one in four. Small-scale distillers proliferated in London and, in 1735, the number was estimated at more than 1,500 across the capital. The retailing of spirits was similarly widespread. The Middlesex justices calculated in 1736 that around 7,000 premises sold gin and brandy, of which just over half sold nothing else. William Maitland's survey corroborated the data. Considering the area covered by the Bills of Mortality as a whole, Maitland calculated the number of retail wine merchants to be 1,148; alehouses, 5,975; and spirit retailers, 8,659. The consumption and production of alcohol grew in tandem, almost doubling between 1730 and 1736, with excise duty levied on a total of around 6.4 million gallons of British spirits in the latter year. Unsurprisingly, spirit outlets had a particularly high density in the most deprived areas of London, with an especially large number to the east of the City in Whitechapel and in the rookeries of central London. The same districts were also home to other spirit vendors, including barrowmen, stall holders and chandlers shops, most of whom needed little initial capital to set up in business.\n\nRanged against the spread of Mother Gin was an alliance of genteel forces spearheaded by the Middlesex and Westminster magistrates benches. Clark has described their relationship in the 1730s and 1740s with fellow opponents of the spirits trade in London, including parliamentarians, the SPCK and other forces supported and encouraged by the sensationalist London press. Allegations of drunken disorder and drink-fuelled crimes spurred letter writers to deplore 'this destructive vice' and to rally 'some of the wisest and best men who have long lamented this evil'. Lurid reports of intoxication, robbery and even murder proliferated and were given credence by episodes such as the fire started at Mrs Calloway's, an Irish-owned brandy shop, in Cecil Court off St Martin's Lane. The fire spread rapidly, destroying thirteen houses and requiring the mobilisation of the local military to put it down. Brought before Thomas de Veil, London's leading magistrate, Elizabeth Calloway was indicted for maliciously setting fire to her own house with the intent to burn those of two of her neighbours. Amid an upsurge of anti-Irish sentiment, Calloway was committed to Newgate to await trial. But although the fire and its aftermath received extensive publicity, the trial itself was almost unreported, perhaps because Calloway was acquitted.\n\nAmong the foremost promoters of the Gin Act was Sir Joseph Jekyll, the then Master of the Rolls, who used his parliamentary and judicial contacts and a close cooperation with the SPCK and the magistrates' benches to mobilise public, judicial and parliamentary support. He was assisted by Sir John Gonson, chairman of the Westminster bench, as well as Thomas de Veil, Nathaniel Blackerby and Benjamin Burrowes, all influential magistrates. Other prominent supporters included James Oglethorpe and James Vernon, a commissioner of the excise. Not coincidentally and as discussed in CHAPTER FOUR, many leading figures, including de Veil, Blackerby, Vernon and Oglethorpe were also prominent freemasons, as were other justices of the peace.\n\n# SEVEN DIALS\n\nSeven Dials, a junction that linked St Martin's Lane with Broad St Giles to the north, had also once been intended for the aristocracy. Designed by Thomas Neale in the late 1700s as a fashionable residential development, the area had then, in John Strype's words, been 'inhabited by the nobility and the gentry'. However, over a few decades it was gradually absorbed by the decay of St Giles and became 'unhappily associated... with the extremes of wretchedness and vice'. Dickens' later description of the 'maze of streets, courts, lanes and alleys' around Seven Dials would have been recognisable in the eighteenth century. And contemporary press reports reinforce a sense of social disrepair where the absence of foundations and destruction of a tenement house becomes a metaphor for the lives of its residents:\n\nThursday Night a House near Seven Dials in which were 25 persons, mostly lodgers, fell down; providentially no person was killed but several were much bruised and wounded.\n\nContemporary newspaper reports also speak to a caricature of the Irish and other outcasts living there: 'Yesterday Pheneas Balthazar, a Jew Dealer in clothes, quarrelling with two Irish traders in the same branch in a public house near the Seven Dials, received so violent a blow in his right eye as totally to extinguish all future use... and was otherwise so much bruised, that it is thought he cannot recover.' And the near fatal after-effects of excess alcohol were so common as to be a joke: 'Sunday evening a tradesman who lives near the Seven Dials, being with his wife in a public house... insisting on more liquor, she was obliged to leave him, and next morning he was found in the road with both legs broken, supposed to have been occasioned by his having taken asleep and a carriage going over him in the dark.' Albeit expressed in the 1840s, Engels' comment would have been equally valid a century earlier:\n\nhere live the poorest of the poor, the worst paid workers with thieves and the victims of prostitution indiscriminately huddled together, the majority Irish, or of Irish extraction, and those who have not yet sunk in the whirlpool of moral ruin which surrounds them, sinking daily deeper, losing daily more and more of their power to resist the demoralising influence of want, filth, and evil surroundings.\n\nTable 10 details those Antients members living in St Giles, Seven Dials and St Martin's. The stated occupations reflect the possibility of their predominantly low social status and suggest that many may have been employed as poorly paid or sweated labour, including the painters, tailors and casual building workers who lived and worked in the area. Only a few stand out as potentially more middling, including, Isaac Simon, a gentleman living in White Lion Street; and William Garven, an apothecary at Mr Hooper, St Martin's Lane.\n\nCommentators have suggested that one reason for the concentration of Irish residents in St Giles was a prevailing understanding that parish charitable relief was accessible to incomers with relative ease. It is unclear why this should be so. In most instances, the Poor Laws were of limited use to recent Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Under the terms of the 1692 Poor Relief Act, a claimant could obtain access to relief only after a minimum period of employment or residency. And any potential entitlement was determined only after examination, which was often thorough:\n\nChristopher Dallmange aged 38 years saith he hath no lodging these five nights and that his last lodging was at one Mr Peacocks in Earls Street by the Seven Dials where he lodged a year, that he was bound apprentice by indenture for seven years to Mr Robert Waterfield, a Painter in Half Moon Street in the Parish of St Martin in the Fields where and with whom he served all his said apprenticeship which expired 16 years ago, since which he took an apartment of 14 pounds per ann. which was not separate unto itself, the house being let out in tenements, and that he never took any house rented \u00a310 per ann. paid any parish taxes or was a yearly hired servant afterwards, that he was married to Isabella his wife (who has been absent from him these seven years) at Marylebone Church 12 years ago and hath no children. Sworn the seventh Day of January 1740 before me'.\n\n**Table 10** Seven Dials, St Martin's & St Giles, 1751\u20135\n\nIt is not known to what extent, if any, the availability of benevolent relief from the Antients may have swayed attitudes to the openness of poor relief on a larger scale, however, it is likely that the Irish sought to offer what support they could to their fellow countrymen.\n\n# HOLBORN AND THE OXFORD ROAD\n\nAdjacent to St Giles to the north, Holborn and Bloomsbury were in part an extension of the rookeries and had similar characteristics. The area had a justifiable reputation for being unsafe, and not only at night. Press reports of attempted and successful daylight robberies in Holborn and the immediate district, including the Oxford Road, were published on a daily basis in the early 1750s:\n\nSunday about 7 o'clock in the evening, Mr Nevill returning from Gloucester Street to his chambers in Gray's Inn, crossing Red Lyon Square, was attacked by six fellows armed with drawn cutlasses and pistols, who robbed him of his gold watch and thirty guineas... the same night, about 11 o'clock, a man was robbed in Red Lyon Square, and it is presumed by the same fellows, but he making some resistance, one of the villains gave him a blow with a cutlass whereby it is feared he will lose one of his eyes.\n\nThe press and public commonly blamed the Irish for what was regarded in the eighteenth century as a crime epidemic, albeit that rising urban poverty and the absence of an effective policing force were the principal causes. And crime was not simply a function of frequent drunken brawling. Correctly or otherwise, many footpads were thought to be Irish and at least some of them believed to be deserters from the continental Irish brigades. The Oxford Road, one of the principal routes running west from the City of London, passed through Holborn to Tyburn and Oxford beyond, and the travellers that it attracted had their counterparts in those that preyed on them. The highway was known for its theatres and other varied entertainments. Cock fights were staged, including several well-advertised bouts such as that 'between the gentlemen of London and Westminster and the gentlemen of Suffolk'. The route provided a focal point not only for gamblers but also prostitutes and their clients, becoming 'a rendezvous for loose, idle and disorderly persons'. However, as elsewhere, the poor and rich lived in close proximity and despite its sometimes negative reputation, 'fine streets... from Great Russell Street down to St Giles' and 'from King Street to the Oxford Road' were constructed in the belief that they would prove attractive to those that could afford them. Table 11 details those Antients members living in Holborn, Bloomsbury and along the Oxford Road where their address and\/or occupation was recorded.\n\n**Table 11** Bloomsbury, Holborn & the Oxford Road, 1751\u20135\n\nThe majority of members listed appear to be from the working classes, the majority in poorly paid occupations, including thirteen cobblers. Other similarly paid trades include those of bricklayer, carpenter, painter and tailor. However, perhaps the most notable aspect of the data is the concentration of members living and working around Red Lion Square, many of whom joined the Antients simultaneously.\n\n# THE STRAND AND TEMPLE BAR\n\nOnce lined by grand aristocratic mansions, the Strand, the main artery linking the cities of London and Westminster, was in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more noted for its entertainments, coffee houses and taverns. Mottley's description of the 'streets, lanes, alleys and courts in this parish', recorded the contrast between 'good built houses, well inhabited by gentry' situated next to 'passage[s]... pestered with carts... bringing coals and other goods from the wharfs by the water side'. His 'ill inhabited lanes', 'a small place called Piffling Alley, a very proper name', jostle against larger and older houses converted to multiple occupation or converted for business use. The description of the area between Temple Bar and St Clement's Inn is representative.\n\nOn the North side of the Butcher Row... are several courts, most of which are but small. The first is Ship Yard, a through fare into little Shear Lane, with a pretty broad passage; on the east side is an open place going into a small court, called Chair Court with a fair Freestone Pavement. This yard seems to take its name from the Ship Tavern at the entrance thereof. Next to Ship Yard are... Swan Court, very small; Star Court, indifferent good and large with an open air; White Hart Court, long but narrow; Lock Alley, but small; Windmill Court, very small and inconsiderable. Crown Court hath an open air about the midst and leads into little Shear Lane. Bear & Harrow Court, so called from such a sign, a noted eating house at the entrance into it. This court, (or rather alley, for its length and narrowness) runs into Boswell Court. Then beyond St Clements Lane is the Angel Inn, a very large place and of a great resort, especially for the Cornish and West Country Lawyers.\n\n**Table 12** The Strand & Temple Bar, 1751\u20135\n\nThe area was particularly popular with Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s and transients, not least for its proximity to the Inns of Court that lined the upper reaches of the Strand, and the Five Bells tavern, where the Antients Grand Lodge met, and other grand inns that provided a range of popular entertainments and accommodations. Table 12 lists the Antients members living in the Strand and Temple Bar to its east.\n\n# SPITALFIELDS AND THE EAST\n\nTo the other side of the City of London was Spitalfields, an area bounded by Bishopsgate Without in the east, Brick Lane to the west, Shoreditch in the north and Houndsditch to the south. The area housed over thirty-five Antients freemasons with others living in the adjacent districts of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Bishopsgate within the City walls. Prominent among the addresses stated was Brick Lane, home to at least ten members; Holywell Lane, with seven; and Quaker Street, with nine. Just under half, nearly thirty members, gave their occupation as 'weaver'; and it is likely that other members living in the area whose jobs were not specified would also been employed on or associated with the looms. Brewing was another relatively common occupation, with at least three working in the industry. The remainder worked in an assortment of unskilled and semi-skilled occupations ranging from baking and bricklaying, carpentry and cabinet making, to a shoemaker and victualler.\n\nOutside the City walls and nominally free of guild constraints, Spitalfields, originally pastures owned by the New Hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate, better known as 'St Mary Spital', had been a destination and home to thousands of Huguenot refugees who had settled in the area after fleeing France in the late seventeenth century. Many terraced houses had been constructed to combine accommodation, workshops and showrooms, with silk weaving on the upper floors and a sales and display area at ground level. Houses built by successful master weavers, such as those in Fournier Street, approached small urban mansions. Others were or became slums.\n\nIrish weavers began to arrive in Spitalfields in numbers from the 1730s, as the decline in Ireland's domestic linen industry forced both linen and silk workers to seek employment elsewhere. Although the greatest migratory flows occurred in the mid-nineteenth century following the famine and agricultural depression of the 1840s, successive waves of emigration also accompanied and followed the severe famines of the 1720s and early 1740s. The irony of the Irish seeking refuge in the capital city of the country that was at least partly to blame for their poverty and circumstance may not have been lost on those concerned. The London Irish had been an influence on the city's population since before the seventeenth century. And over time, seasonal harvest workers were joined by permanent migrants as successive generations of Irish sought better economic prospects across a spectrum of skilled and semi-skilled occupations. But despite the influx of Irish migrants, a flow complemented by immigration from the surrounding rural counties and continental Europe, London's population remained virtually static until the latter part of the eighteenth century. Estimates for Middlesex suggest only a nominal rise in population between 1701 and 1751, from 582,000 to 590,000, and within London as a whole, a figure of around 630,000 in 1715 is thought to have grown by little more than 100,000 to perhaps 740,000 in 1765. If so, this would have represented an increase of just over 2,000 per year over half a century.\n\nHigh mortality was a product of overcrowded housing compounded by an inadequate diet, and non-existent or poor sanitation accelerated the speed with which contagion and infection took hold within London's densely packed population and brought death early to many, and not just those in the lower middling and working classes. During the first half of the eighteenth century within the areas covered by the Bills, the number of recorded burials consistently exceeded that of baptisms. The statistics underline the importance of migration, without which London's population would have declined in absolute terms. Indeed, even such population growth as occurred was often uneven and periods of expansion were commonly followed by decline or stagnation as agricultural cycles and economic depressions caused adult and infant deaths to soar. The latter was a particular issue and infant mortality was calculated to be around 20 per cent in the 1750s, that is, a rate of twenty deaths per hundred live births within the first two years of birth. Deane and Cole estimated London's rate of natural population increase between 1701\u201350 at a negative 10.8 per thousand, rising to negative 4.8 per thousand in 1751\u201380 and only becoming positive \u2013 at 2.7 per thousand \u2013 in the last two decades of the century. Only migration offset the decline; between 1701 and 1780, this was estimated to be around 11.4 per thousand, falling slightly to 9.6 per thousand in 1781\u20131800.\n\nWhether migrants or longer term residents, the relative poverty of many of those recorded in the _Register_ is suggested by the details of their address. Examples include James Ryan, a weaver living in Half Moon Alley off Bishopsgate, a member of lodge No. 10; James Loury, a cobbler, in Long Alley off Moorfields; John Jackson of lodge No. 5, a tailor in Angel Alley, Houndsditch; Michael Wade, a general dealer in Dunnings Alley; and John Duff, a weaver in Brick Court, Brick Lane. Others lodged at taverns and boarding houses, at least six alone at the Ship & Anchor tavern in Spitalfields. Edward Ryan, a peruke maker, roomed at the John of Gaunt tavern in Duke Street; Loghlin McIntosh of lodge No. 3, at the Crow in Patrick's Alley; and Thomas Nowlan, a shoemaker from lodge No. 14, at the Sun-in-the-Woods, Spitalfields. Perhaps another indication of limited means, Nowlan was later excluded for non-payment of lodge dues.\n\nSpitalfields had been a centre for small-scale woollen, linen and silk manufacture, printing and dying since the seventeenth century. But it also housed carpenters, cobblers, tailors, shopkeepers and others serving the local community, and held a mixture of other industries. Brewing had developed there in the late seventeenth century. This was the Huguenot-influenced Truman's brewery, whose Black Eagle site in Brick Lane had been built in the 1680s. The brewery expanded almost continuously in the eighteenth century to cover more than six acres, becoming a substantial employer and supplying nearly three hundred publicans by 1739. Other breweries in east London included the Red Lion in Lower East Smithfield; Harwood's at the High Street in Shoreditch; Meux's Griffin brewery located in the aptly named Liquorpond Street, now Clerkenwell Road; and Whitbread's in Chiswell Street. Further west, central London had another assortment including the Woodyard brewery in Castle Street, Long Acre; the Horseshoe on Tottenham Court Road; and the Stag in Pimlico.\n\nBut regardless of other industries, the manufacture of cloth and tailoring continued to be Spitalfields' main activity. The concentration of skills created economies of scale in weaving and its allied trades but this had both advantages and disadvantages. In better times, the prospect for those employed was buoyant; but in recession, with reduced demand, many dependent on the looms were forced out of work and unable to find alternatives. Although the distribution of poor relief provided an element of support, the consequential effect, as Thornbury noted a century later, could be the near pauperisation of the district.\n\nA number of Spitalfields lodges, including No. 10, formerly 11, at the Duke's Head in Winfield Street, had local catchment areas with members drawn almost exclusively from the immediate vicinity, including Bishopsgate, Shoreditch and Spitalfields itself. Around half the members were weavers, with the balance in other low paid employments; the only member not obviously in unskilled or semi-skilled work was Nathaniel Frank, who gave his address 'at H. Frank's in Skinner Street, Bishopsgate' and his occupation as gentleman. However, as noted, it is possible, perhaps probable, that at least some of the members listed may have been master weavers, that is, employers rather than employees. The lodge was later erased for 'disobedience of the 21st rule'.\n\nThe membership of lodge No. 5 was comparably narrow. However, as the lodge relocated successively to different meeting places across the metropolis, its members' addresses and occupations broadened accordingly. The lodge met at three locations between 1751 and 1754, moving from the Plaisterers' Arms in Little Gray's Inn Lane to the Horse Shoe tavern on Ludgate Hill and, from there, to the Red Lion in Dirty Lane, an alley that ran across to Long Acre in Covent Garden that was home to several Antients freemasons. The last entry in the lodge records was on 21 January 1761 and the lodge lapsed later that year.\n\n**Table 13** Spitalfields, 1751\u20135\n\n# SHOREDITCH TO BISHOPSGATE\n\nLondon Wall, the northern border of the City of London, bisected Bishopsgate, dividing it into two more or less equal sections within and without the City's walls. Bishopsgate itself marked the beginning of the Old North Road and a number of large coaching inns and taverns had been constructed alongside the road to accommodate passengers. These relatively grand buildings were interspersed with cheap and overcrowded housing for those working in the surrounding sweat shops outside and within the City proper. Strype described the neighbourhood outside the City wall as a 'continual building of tenements' that stretched to Shoreditch \u2013 named after Sir John de Soerditch \u2013 until eventually reaching open fields. Shoreditch itself extended from Norton Folgate to Old Street and from Finsbury to Bethnal Green. As development expanded north, what had once been a village became increasingly a pauperised continuation of Bishopsgate Street.\n\nOf the thirty or so members resident in the area, seven specified an address in Holywell Lane in Shoreditch; three in Skinner's Street; and two at the Admiral Vernon, a tavern that hosted several Masonic lodges. Other members lived within a radius of a few hundred metres. Holywell Lane was located on the western side of Shoreditch and, according to Stow, was named after a water well which, by the early eighteenth century, had become spoiled by the manure heaps of the surrounding fields and market gardens that served London. Holywell Mount, close by, was one of several local plague burial pits that dated from the Black Death of the seventeenth century. Another was further to the west in the artillery grounds of Finsbury. The parish was the site of a notable building workers strike and riot in the late 1730s. Local labourers had refused the low wages on offer for work on the reconstruction of St Leonard's church and were replaced by cheaper Irish labourers. The move triggered an anti-Irish riot that required the militia to be called out.\n\n**Table 14** Shoreditch & Bishopsgate, 1751\u20135\n\n# THE MINORIES, RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY, ROSEMARY LANE AND GOODMAN'S FIELDS\n\nA warren of narrow streets advanced to the east of the Minories, with slum housing extending from the naval victualling office, slaughterhouse, pickle yards and the old Mint buildings east of the Tower of London, alongside and between Rosemary Lane, East Smithfield and the Ratcliffe Highway to Wapping, its warehouses and the docks. Although a slum, the district was more cosmopolitan than St Giles and St Martin's, with a leavening of discharged sailors, soldiers and failed or returned colonists. In the 1750s and later, it was also notorious for its prostitution, criminality and for its large expatriate Irish and Jewish communities. And in _Rookeries of London,_ Thomas Beames described the area, what he termed 'this Cimmerian region':\n\nbounded on the south by the Thames, on the west by the Minories, on the north by the Commercial Road, on the east by the basin of the Regent's Canal... The rookeries of this neighbourhood, then, are among the oldest in London. They are bona fide rookeries built for the habitations of the poorest classes two hundred and fifty years since. Many of the buildings... are of wood \u2013 for the Great Fire, that wholesale purifier of these iniquities, did not extend to the Tower; so that the long narrow streets, with their branches and intersections of courts and alleys, remain in a condition little removed from their original form. The streets are not wider, less tortuous; the alleys are as formerly cul-de-sacs [and] the only entrance [is] from the street... the main thoroughfares are uneven, the roads narrow, the houses crumbling with age, with fronts of every variety.\n\nAs London had expanded eastwards along the Ratcliffe Highway, Goodman's Field, a once open space to the north became progressively more the site of cheap housing, in Strype's words 'small, nasty and beggarly'. The area was beyond the formal legal jurisdiction of the City of London and gradually became associated with theatres, taverns and other entertainments, particularly prostitution, whose relationship with the docks and sailors on shore leave was parasitic and lasted into the twentieth century:\n\n**Table 15** Minories, Ratcliffe Highway and East London to the docks, 1751\u20135\n\nthe women associate chiefly with sailors and foreign mechanics and they have habits differing from those of the more destitute prostitutes of other districts but are even more closely congregated together than the former.\n\nBy the mid-eighteenth century, the locality had also become a by-word for criminality and poverty. It remained so for over a century. An 1840 report on public health described it as 'a district proverbial for fever and filth' and its residents 'miserably neglected'.\n\nPope, in the _Dunciad,_ used the Rag Fair, a vast second hand clothes market stretching along Rosemary Lane, as a metaphor for the condition of those who lived there, as well as declining moral standards more widely:\n\nWhere wave the tatter'd ensigns of Rag-Fair,\n\nA yawning ruin hangs and nods in air;\n\nKeen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recess,\n\nEmblem of Music caus'd by Emptiness.\n\nRag Fair was more than merely a 'place near the Tower of London where old clothes and fripperies are sold'. Many of the second hand goods for sale were stolen and the market was notorious across London both for fenced goods and the cheapest prostitutes in the city: 'a rare place for a miser to lay his lechery at a small expense, for two-pence will go as far here in woman's flesh as half a crown at Madam Quarles'. Like St Giles, Ratcliffe Highway and Rag Fair were allegories for the underside of mid-eighteenth century London life. Newspaper reports throughout the period provide a vivid commentary on the violence, disorder and immorality with which both locations were associated, whether 'a squabble... in Rag Fair between some soldiers, two of whom were killed on the spot and several others wounded'; or a more general observation concerning 'the inhabitants of blind alehouses... the various clans of pedlars and hawkers that patrol through the streets or ply in Rag Fair'.\n\nAlthough Jewish traders were prominent participants in Rag Fair's second hand clothing market, the majority of the lodging houses and taverns were Irish. Over twenty Antients members gave an address in this somewhat insalubrious part of London. Examples include John Sullivan, a chapman or pedlar, and James Belles, a cobbler, both living in Rosemary Lane. Thomas Brien, a bricklayer and member of lodge No. 16, and John Grainger, a victualler. Both lived close to the Ratcliffe Highway, the former at 'Mrs Morgan's near Bluecoat Fields' and the latter at the 'Black Dog'. Joseph Langser, a distiller, and Nathaniel Clarkson, a tallow chandler, each lived in White Street in Goodman's Fields. Rosemary Lane was also home to at least one Jewish Antients freemason, Abraham Jacob, who gave his occupation as salesman. Other Jews noted in the Antients' register include Abraham Ardizaif of Broad Court, Covent Garden; Abraham Juers, a weaver, in Brick Lane; Isaac Wolfe, a shoemaker, in Old Playhouse Passage, Drury Lane; and Mordechai Isaacs, whose address was not stated. However, not all members from this part of London were from the working class. One member living to the west in King Street near Tower Hill, a more upmarket address, was John Merryman, the wine merchant whose widow Laurence Dermott subsequently married. His lodge number is not given in the register but his name appears at No. 594 in the chronological list of members. Another middling figure is Thomas Brothwick, a surgeon, and the aptly named William Kidney, a butcher in Capel Street, who would have been at least among the lower middling.\n\n# FLEET STREET, THE CITY AND ITS NORTHERN\/WESTERN BORDERS\n\nThe City's membership list comprised several more middling members. It included James Shee, an attorney in Fetter Lane; and James Hartley, William Hindlestone and James Rowe, gentlemen living respectively at the Golden Fan at the centre of the City at Bucklersbury, the Star tavern in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street and Alderman Hoare's house in Fleet Street, probably linked to Hoare & Co., the merchant bankers. It also included John Gillum, a merchant in Norton Folgate, and Edward Vaughan, a surgeon living at the Blue Ball in Fleet Street. Many others appear to have been relatively affluent artisans, such as Richard Allen, a snuff box maker behind the Inns of Court in Gray's Inn Lane, and include those in the jewellery trade who were members of lodge No. 20. Tradesmen were also present: victuallers, distillers, weavers and shoemakers. But many were likely to be factory or shop owners and major or minor employers rather than poorly paid employees. Thomas Ginsell, for example, described as a weaver, lived at 13 Old Bridewell off Fleet Street. Bridewell was the location of a prison and a hospital, both run by the Corporation of London. William Ginsell, possibly his father, was one of those who had been appointed a governor by the City Corporation. As Stow noted: 'the private riches of London rest chiefly in the hands of the merchants and retailers, for artificers have not much to spare and labourers had need that it were given unto them'. Many may have been among the more affluent members of the Antients and some of the more influential.\n\n# SOUTHWARK AND SOUTH OF THE THAMES\n\nAccording to Strype's _Survey,_ 'no part of London... is more populous than the borough of Southwark and parts adjacent.' The comment was something of an overstatement. London south of the Thames was a relative backwater and, even in 1800, Southwark's population of 60\u201370,000 was only around 6 or 7 per cent of London's total population which was then approaching the million mark. Nonetheless, the completion of Westminster Bridge in 1750 and that at Blackfriars in 1770 greatly improved connections between the north and south banks of the Thames and the southern parishes of Southwark, Bermondsey and Borough developed to house those providing good and services to Westminster and the City. The result was a small economic boom south of the Thames and an expansion in local construction.\n\n**Table 16** Fleet Street, Gray's Inn and the City of London, 1751\u20135\n\n**Table 17** Southwark & South of the Thames, 1751\u20135\n\nApart from the building trades, the majority of south-bank residents were in the riverside trades or worked in brewing, small-scale manufacture, or as shopkeepers, taverns and street hawkers. Others serviced the many prisons in the borough: the notorious Marshalsea and King's Bench debtors' prisons; the Surrey Gaol; the Clink, a prison burned down in the 1780 Gordon Riots; and the Borough Compter on Southwark High Street. Southwark was also home to St Thomas's Hospital, one of London's largest, rebuilt in the early eighteenth century. Around thirty Antients freemasons lived in the district, with a handful further downstream in Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Woolwich. Nearly half were in or near Broadwall and Upper Ground, with its timber yards and wharfs; others were located at Shand and on Gravel Lane, also close to the Thames. Almost all members appear to have had semi skilled or unskilled occupations, including seven linen printers and three hatters. The other occupations stated included tailor, victualler, blacksmith, cook and pipe maker.\n\nModerns' freemasonry had been active in Southwark since the 1720s. The Bull's Head tavern at Southwark was one of London's earliest lodges, No. 15 on the 1729 engraved list at Grand Lodge with a warrant that dated from 1 April 1723. It survived until 1776. Other lodges had been established at the King's Arms on St Margaret's Hill; at the Fountain Tavern; the Prince of Orange's Head; and at the Mitre in Mint Street. In the 1740s, Masonic lodges met at the Queen's Arms, the Swan, the Fox in Castle Street and the Golden Horseshoe, which later relocated to the Woolpack. In contrast, there were relatively few Antients' lodges. The first, established on 13 November 1752, met at the Mitre on Broadwall. The last entry in its minute book was in 1763 and the lodge number was declared vacant in 1787. The second, warranted on 7 December 1752, met at the Marshalsea Tap House, within the debtors' prison. It later moved to the Tiger's Head in Borough and thereafter to the Black Bull. The lodge failed in 1757 and the warrant number was reassigned the following year. That only two out of some thirty-seven Antients' lodges established between 1751 and 1754 met south of the Thames and that both failed to survive may speak to the relative paucity of members (and of the London Irish) who lived in the district.\n\n# WESTMINSTER, SOHO AND PICCADILLY\n\nThe relatively large number of Antients' freemasons living and working in and around Westminster does not imply a uniform or high level of affluence. A few, such as William Lansdowne, a goldsmith, and Robert Turner and Henry Jellybrain, gentlemen, had occupations or titles that might be regarded as middling. Others may also have employed rather than been employees. However, the detail contained in certain members' addresses is instructive. Green Street to the south east of Leicester Fields, home to Thomas Weer, William Carney and Robert Keely, was also known as Dirty Lane and linked the area to Long Acre and Covent Garden. Dirty Lane was the address given by two other Antients masons, Michael Sandipher and John Eare, who lived at the eastern end of the street. And Carnaby and St James's markets were both active street markets in the mid-eighteenth century and not the more fashionable areas they would later become. The Haymarket was also an accurate description, with carts regularly blocking the area on the three days a week the market operated \u2013 Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Mottley's _Survey_ described the Haymarket as 'a spacious street of great resort, full of inns and houses of entertainment, especially on the west side', with coaching inns and yards providing stabling, food and drink. Additional entertainment was offered by two theatres, one 'in which operas are performed in the Italian language, and singers for that purpose brought from Italy at excessive price'; the second 'presently taken up by a pack of French strollers'. And as in Covent Garden and elsewhere, such entertainment attracted brothels, street walkers and similar aspects of the vice trade.\n\nOther streets were equally questionable as residential locations. Suffolk Street and Little Suffolk Street at the southern end of the Haymarket were described as having 'fallen into decay and disrepute'. Shug Lane was 'an old and narrow thoroughfare', 'meanly built', linking Davies Street at the north of Berkeley Square to the Oxford Road. Perhaps worse, 'neither are its inhabitants much to be boasted of'. And although the location of several large mansions, including Burlington House and Devonshire House, and, by the 1720s, developed four or five blocks west of its junction with St James's Street, Piccadilly was at the western border of the metropolis. It bordered the country and was considered by Mottley and others to be 'a place of no great account'. Soho lay roughly between St Martin's and St Giles to the east, Leicester Fields to the south and the Oxford Road to the north. The area reflected in mosaic the different and varied characteristics of its residents and neighbours. While Dean Street may have been 'a very good street, well built and inhabited by the gentry', others were mainly occupied by Huguenot \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Thus, although Compton Street had well-fashioned houses, it was considered 'of no great account for its inhabitants, which are chiefly French'; Wardour Street was 'very ordinary and ill inhabited'; and Greek Street blighted by 'dead walls, which generally are dirty and ill kept'.\n\n**Table 18** Westminster & the West End of London, 1751\u20135\n\n**Table 19** The First Antients' Lodges, 1751\u20133\n\n_Lodge_ | _Location_ | _Year_ \n---|---|--- \nNo. 2 | Turk's Head, Greek Street, Soho | 1751 \n| Rising Sun, Suffolk Street, Haymarket | 1752 \n| Thistle & Crown, Church Court, Strand | 1752 \n| King's Head, Hewitt's Court, Strand | 1754 \nNo. 3 | Cripple, Little Britain | 1751 \n| Crown, St Paul's Churchyard | 1752 \nNo. 4 | Cannon, Water Lane, Fleet Street | 1751 \n| Temple & Sun, Shire Lane, Temple Bar | 1752 \n| Red Hart, Shoe Lane, Covent Garden | 1753 \n| Bedford Arms, Bedford Court, Covent Garden | 1754 \n| Swan & Cross Keys, Long Acre | 1755 \nNo. 5 | Plaisterers' Arms, Little Gray's Inn Lane | 1751 \n| Horse Shoe, Ludgate Hill | 1752 \n| Red Lion, Dirty Lane, Long Acre | 1754 \nNo. 6 | Globe, Bridges Street, Covent Garden | 1751 \n| Brown Bear, Strand | 1752 \n| Rose & Crown, Clare Court, Drury Lane | 1753 \nNo. 7 | Fountain, Monmouth Street, Seven Dials | Erased 1752 \nNo. 7 | Temple & Sun, Shire Lane, Temple Bar | 1752 \n| Angel Inn, Wich [Wych] Street, Strand | 1754 \n| Two Blue Posts, Cockpit Alley, Drury Lane | 1755 \nNo. 8 | Admiral Vernon, Bishopsgate Street Without | 1752 \nNo. 9 | Ship & Anchor, Quaker Street, Spitalfields | 1752 \n| Thistle & Crown, Church Court, Strand | 1752 \nNo. 10 | Duke's Head, Winfield Street, Spitalfields | Erased 1752 \nNo. 10 | Admiral Vernon, Bishopsgate Street Without | 1752 \nNo. 11 | Mitre, Broadwall, Southwark | 1752 \nNo. 12 | Carlisle Arms, Queen Street, Soho | 1752 \n| White Hart, Shug Lane | 1753 \n| White Swan, New Street, Covent Garden | 1753 \nNo. 13 | Marshalsea Taphouse | 1753 \n| Tiger's Head, Borough | 1754 \n| Black Bull, Borough | 1754 \nNo. 14 | Plaisterers Arms, Little Gray's Inn Lane | 1753 \n| Thistle & Crown, Church Court, Strand | 1753 \n| Turk's Head, East St, Red Lion Square | 1754 \n| Crown, Church Court, Fleet Street | 1755 \nNo. 15 | King's Head, Marylebone Street, Golden Square | 1753 \n| Thistle & Crown, Swallow Street | 1755 \nNo. 16 | King & Queen, Capel Street, Rosemary Lane | 1753 \nNo. 17 | Scots Arms, Haymarket | 1753 \n| White Hart, Shug Lane | \nNo. 18 | Admiral Vernon, Bishopsgate Street Without | 1753 \n| Three Sugar Loaves, St John's Street | 1754 \n| Bull & Butcher, Rag Fair | 1754 \nNo. 19 | Fountain Inn, Monmouth Street, Seven Dials | 1753 \n| George, Broad Street, St Giles | 1754 \nNo. 20 | Hampshire Hog, Goswell Street | 1753 \nNo. 21 | One Tun, Strand | 1753 \n| Cheshire Cheese, Savoy Alley | 1754 \nNo. 22 | King's Head, Little Suffolk Street | 1753 \n| Bull's Head, St Martin's Lane | 1754 \nNo. 23 | White Lion, Hemmings Row | 1753 \n| George, Piccadilly | 1754 \n| Prince of Wales' Head, Long Acre, Covent Garden | 1754 \nNo. 24 | Edinburgh Castle, Marsh Street, Bristol | 1753 \nNo. 25 | Unicorn, West Street, Lafford's Gate, Bristol | 1753 \n| Three Indian Kings, Small Street, Bristol | 1754 \nNo. 26 | Rosemary Branch, Rosemary Lane | 1753 \nNo. 27 | Prince of Wales' Head, Capel Street, Rosemary Lane | 1753 \n| Prince of Wales' Head, Rag Fair | 1755 \nNo. 28 | Royal Oak, Charing Cross | 1753 \nNo. 29 | George, Piccadilly | 1753\n\nIn addition to providing a solid basis for analysing the character and composition of the Antients membership during the period 1751\u201355, the _General Register_ also details where the earliest lodges were located. As might be expected, these overlap with those districts that feature most frequently in the membership lists themselves: St Giles, Covent Garden and the Strand; Temple Bar, Fleet Street, Gray's Inn, the City and the east by the docks; and south of the Thames.\n\nDespite the efforts expended by John Lane in compiling his _Masonic Records,_ accurately tracing the history of individual Antients lodges is not straightforward. The first problem is that on 27 December 1752, the lodges were renumbered:\n\nBro. Thomas Blower, Master of (the then) No. 8 in the Chair, ordered that lodge Nos. 7 and 10 be 'discontinued... for their disobedience.\n\nLodge No. 8 accordingly became No. 7; No. 9 moved to No. 8; and each lodge from No. 11 to No. 16 moved up two places. Second, and complicating matters further, they were renumbered repeatedly thereafter. In addition and as noted, when older warrants became available because a lodge had failed or been expelled, the vacant number was either sold to raise money for the Antients' Grand Charity, or reutilised, by moving another lodge to the unoccupied location. The same practice applied in Ireland from where it may have been inherited. Another problem is that many lodges were peripatetic, moving the location of their meeting place often, and frequently more than once a year.\n\nIn the absence of a complete set of minute books, it is hard to track individual lodges with absolute certainty and historians, including Lane, sometimes confuse Antients and Moderns lodges before the 1813 union where the same lodge number is common to both. Notwithstanding such hurdles, Table 19 sets out the details of those Antients lodges warranted in the two years immediately following the creation of Antients Grand Lodge. The first position on the lodge register was left blank intentionally. The conceit was copied from the Grand Lodge of Ireland where the Grand Master's Lodge headed the roll of lodges, albeit unnumbered. The position was filled five years later. Antients lodge No. 1, the Grand Master's lodge, was formed in 1756 following the appointment of the earl of Blessington and formally received its warrant on 13 August 1759. Tangentially, at its first minuted meeting on 5 September 1759, a petition was granted to issue a Provincial Grand Warrant for 'the Brethren at Philadelphia', the first step in the Antients' colonisation of American freemasonry.\n\n# CHAPTER FOUR\n\n# _London's Magistracy and the London Irish_\n\nThe freemasonry associated with the Moderns, the original Grand Lodge of England, had reflected the mores of its founders. Established in 1717, it was from the start a dynamic and explicitly pro-establishment organisation with strong government connections. As such, it was linked closely to the Whig magistracy, especially in London, where the government held a particularly tight sway over appointments to the bench. London freemasonry's association with the Middlesex and Westminster benches and the packed grand juries of the Quarter Sessions was based on common political, economic and philosophical interests that embraced a strongly pro-Hanoverian and Whiggist approach: 'the cause of your God, your king and your country'. The freemasons who sat on the bench and the magistrates who sat in the lodge believed in, upheld and enforced the laws that protected the gentry and the middling against the mob.\n\nJustices would be vigilant to detect and produce to punishment all those who... attempt the subversion of the great basis upon which stands all that is or can be dear to England and Protestants... our religion, our liberty and our property.\n\nIt is almost self-evident that the stereotypical perception and treatment of the eighteenth-century London Irish as drunken, criminal, papist and disaffected, would prejudice or prevent their fraternal embrace by the Grand Lodge of England and its constituent lodges. Writ large, London's lower middling and working classes \u2013 especially the Irish \u2013 were placed as social outcasts at the margins of organised society and the Middlesex and Westminster benches worked to ensure that the majority remained there.\n\nThe lowly economic and social position of the London Irish was not simply a function of their status as recent \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Many if not most would have been subject to anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice that ran from legal discrimination to periodic mob violence. The Spitalfields riot in 1736 against competition from cheaper Irish labour is an obvious example. Perhaps more insidiously, the economic and institutional bias against the London Irish working class was such that by the 1740s and 1750s, anti-Irish bigotry was endemic. Mainly absent from the treatment of the Welsh and Scots, it pushed the Irish to the borders of the capital's economic activities and entrenched their poverty. Several of London's many slums became effectively Irish ghettos, nicknamed 'Little Dublin', 'The Holy Land' or 'Paddy Town', the designations reflected the vast numbers of Irish congregating there.\n\n**Table 20** Frequency Analysis of Irish Surnames in Criminal Trials at the Old Bailey, 1740\u201390\n\n_Surname_ | _Frequency_\n\n---|---\n\nBoyle | 29\n\nBurke | 54\n\nByrne | 27\n\nCallahan\/Callaghan | 8\n\nCarroll\/O'Carroll | 39\n\nCollins | 316\n\nConner\/Connor\/O'Connor | 155\n\nConnolly | 20\n\nDaly | 18\n\nDoherty\/O'Doherty | 0\n\nDonnelly | 15\n\nDoyle | 100\n\nDuff\/Duffy | 32\n\nDonne\/Dunn\/Dunne | 132\n\nGallagher | 0\n\nHughes | 420\n\nKelly | 201\n\nKennedy | 129\n\nLynch | 60\n\nMartin | 536\n\nMcGuire | 2\n\nMoore | 325\n\nMurphy | 360\n\nMurray | 188\n\nNeal\/Neil\/O'Neil | 23\n\nNolan | 3\n\nO'Brian\/O'Brien | 55\n\nO'Donnel\/O'Donnell | 5\n\nQuin\/Quinn | 70\n\nReilly\/O'Reilly | 9\n\nRyan | 96\n\nSullivan\/O'Sullivan | 143\n\nThompson | 715\n\nWalsh | 17\n\n**Total** |\n\n**4,302**\n\nLife in the rookeries often precluded social and economic assimilation and cemented many into penury at the bottom of society's ladder. Perhaps inevitably, poverty begat crime, and although criminality was far from limited to the London Irish and seasonal Irish workers, the publicity given to prosecutions and convictions from within those quarters reinforced the popular image of the Irish as feckless and violent. In short, they were portrayed and treated as the epitome of the undeserving poor.\n\nAlthough it would be incorrect to reach a firm conclusion on the basis of inadequate data, a preliminary analysis suggests that the number of Irish appearing before the various magistrates' benches in London and the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey was disproportionately high as a percentage of London's working classes. Criminal records for the period 1740\u201390 document only a modest number of instances \u2013 just over a hundred \u2013 where the defendant's nationality is stated specifically as Irish. However, an analysis using the surname of those appearing before the bench may provide greater insight. A basic data search of criminal trials at the Old Bailey using thirty-four common Irish surnames (but excluding 'Smith') indicates that the number of trials that probably involved at least one Irishman or woman was around 4,300, albeit that certain cases are reported more than once and that some of those appearing may not have been Irish or descended from Irish-born parents or grandparents. A second round analysis of the same data using metaphones and phonetic spellings, rather than the modern spelling of each surname, raises the number of relevant cases significantly. Moreover, given that the analysis is with respect to a numerical minority of those surnames commonly linked to Ireland, it may be reasonable to assume that the total number of criminal prosecutions involving an Irish defendant or victim (and often both) would have been considerably in excess of 4,300.\n\nThe majority of Old Bailey trials were for assault, stealing or petty theft. However, a minority were more serious and included breaking and entering, counterfeiting, and robbery and violence, including murder. Of course, Irish defendants were not always found guilty. However, where the Court ruled against them, punishment was often severe, and seemingly more so than in the case of non-Irish offenders. It should be noted that the following analysis excludes all less serious offences which were brought before the magistrates' benches. Were the relevant data to be included, the number of Irish-linked cases would be far higher. To take only one example, the name 'Collins' featured on over 700 occasions in the period 1740\u201390 in the Middlesex Sessions alone.\n\nIt is necessary to emphasise again that the above data is designed only to point towards the probability or strong possibility of Irish nationality; it is not definitive and many of those named may have been English or Scottish. Reliable judicial statistics disaggregated by nationality were not compiled officially before the 1860s. However, an examination of the nineteenth century data indicates that the Irish were five times more likely to be prosecuted and convicted than were the English or Welsh. And it can be argued that the later data provides a reasonable indication of what may have occurred fifty to a hundred years earlier. Public and private attitudes did not alter materially and were not dissimilar in the mid-eighteenth century, nor did the approach adopted by the British judiciary benefit from any fundamental change. Roger Swift, commenting on the mid-Victorian view of the Irish and criminality, might have been speaking of the 1760s when he suggested that 'the link between Irish immigration, crime and disorder... was widely regarded... as axiomatic'. In Swift's characterisation:\n\n[English] society's widespread belief in the innate criminality of the Irish \u2013 and, more particularly, of the Irish poor \u2013 formed an integral component of the negative side of the Irish stereotype.\n\nIndeed, Georgian literature, press and court reports all offer strong confirmation that such views were not new in the 1850s and 1860s but had powerful antecedents a century earlier.\n\nDespite the acquittal for lack of evidence of many of those accused, the general and popular view of the Irish as drunken, lazy and criminal remained disabused: the Victorian view that the London Irish 'lived off thievery' was current in the 1750s. The press added to the prejudices of their readers and a pejorative description of Irish defendants commonly preceded accounts of eighteenth-century cases. Court reports were more factual, often reporting verbatim. However, the extent of anti-Irish bigotry was nonetheless detailed with clarity: 'you Irish bog-trotting dog'; and 'an hundred Irish dogs'.\n\nThree cases from the many thousands that featured at the Old Bailey cannot provide a representative sample of the multitude that involved Irish defendants. However, they do support the argument that discrimination was visibly present on the bench as elsewhere.\n\nIn the first case, Martin Malone and William Bruce had been arraigned for the assault on the public highway of a Post Office employee, Thomas Smith, and accused of robbing him of 'a peruke, a silk handkerchief and 8s 10 _d_ in money'. Witness statements make clear that the accused were present when the crime occurred. The following lines are extracted from the trial record on the final day. The evidence of prejudice is overt: 'I would have paid for lodging but they said I was an Irishman and they would not let me have any'. The poverty and displacement of those accused is equally obvious. Having failed to find work in London, the defendants were seeking employment elsewhere in order to earn sufficient funds to return to Ireland, 'to get what would carry us home'. Martin Malone, was acquitted. William Bruce was found guilty and sentenced to death:\n\nPrisoner: Please your Honour I came out of Ireland to look for work, I was scarce of money and was returning home; I lay at the upper end of Barnet; I would have paid for lodging, but they said I was an Irishman and they would not let me have any. We were very cold when the daylight came; as we were cold we said to one another, we had better be going to Coventry, to get what would carry us home.\n\nIn the second case, Michael Magennis had been indicted for the murder of Richard Shears. Having heard conflicting evidence as to the facts of the charge, the court heard witness evidence attesting to the accused's character. Despite the defendant's referees, he was found guilty and sentenced to death:\n\nMary Callowham: I live servant with the prisoner; I never saw a hanger or cutlass or any such weapon in his house in my life; I did not hear the man was killed till about a month after he was dead and buried.\n\nThomas Reed: I am a milkman, I have known the prisoner between five and six years, I never saw anything amiss of him in my life, he has been a lodger of mine above a year and half.\n\nQ. What business is he of? Reed. He is a milkman.\n\nQ. What country man is he? Reed. He is an Irishman.\n\nMary Palace: I have known him six years, he deals where I deal; I never heard he was quarrelsome in all my life, or to have such arms as he is accused with.\n\nJohn Jones: I have known him about four or five years; I am not greatly acquainted with his life and conversation, I have had dealings with him.\n\nTho. Burchell: I have known him about four years, I never saw anything of him that was like quarrelsome ; he once owed me a debt and when he was in gaol he paid me \u00a33 of it.\n\nOwen Jones: I have known him about a year, he used my house; I never heard anything bad of him.\n\nTho. Richards: I have known him about a year and half, I am little acquainted with his character; I have had dealings with him, he paid me very honestly.\n\nIn the third example, John Barry had been indicted for stealing two guineas, one moidore, and a shirt, with a value of 10s. The goods and money were the property of John Gutteridge, Barry's employer. The following extract is taken from the record of the trial at the Old Bailey. The verdict was guilty and the sentence transportation:\n\nJohn Gutteridge: I am a brush maker and live at the corner of Long Lane, West Smithfield; the prisoner was my journeyman. On Saturday, 14th of June, in the evening, I went out of town and left the prisoner at work in the shop; and the money and shirt mentioned were locked up. I returned on the 16th; I found my till below-stairs broke open and the things above stairs tumbled about; and upon missing the shirt and money I took up the prisner.\n\nMr Pool: I was with the prosecutor and prisoner at the Ram Inn and heard the prisoner confess that he secreted himself in his master's house on Saturday-night and lay there till Sunday at noon; that he robbed him of a moidore, two guineas and eighteen-pence, and a shirt; and he delivered what money he had left back again.\n\nPrisoner: I am an Irishman, a stranger in this country. I leave it to the mercy of the court.\n\nThe benchmark public view of the London Irish was a caricature. But it provides a context for the broader attitude of the English establishment in the early and mid-eighteenth century, including many of those at the Grand Lodge of England and its more influential constituent lodges. London's freemasons had financial, political and social concerns regarding the influx of Irish freemasons, including their reliance on and proclivity for alcohol and gin, in particular. In contrast to what might be regarded as the respectable poor, it was widely if incorrectly held that the London Irish were broadly criminal and probably papist, and the antithesis of deserving. However, even where charitable support might be due, the sheer volume of migration and the rising number of those settling in London posed a threat to the system of poor relief and the financial viability of individual lodge charities and, possibly, that of the central Grand Charity itself.\n\nProviding aid and support for indigent masons had been a tenet of Masonic benevolence for many years, but there were caveats. These were explicit, for example, that a recipient should be a member of a recognised and regular Masonic lodge for at least five years, and implicit, that those destitute should be deserving of Masonic support. Resistance to \u00e9migr\u00e9 freemasons being recognised as genuine masons and therefore legitimate recipients of Masonic charity translated into an effective bar and it was not until 30 November 1752 that the Grand Lodge of England gave permission to its Charity Committee to dispose of up to \u00a35 'to relieve any foreign indigent brother', and only then 'after due examination'. However, although financial concerns may have had resonance, perhaps the crucial factor that determined English and London freemasonry's widespread condescension towards the London Irish was the influence of senior members of the Westminster, Middlesex and City magistracy. Magistrates were positioned on the establishment's front line; their principal function was to deter and punish offences against property and the person, prevent individual and mass disorder, uphold the tenets of parliament's 'wise administration' and castigate sedition.\n\nIn 1738, shortly after his appointment as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Middlesex, Nathaniel Blackerby, a former Deputy Grand Master of English Grand Lodge and its first Grand Treasurer, was elected chairman of the Westminster bench. Blackerby had served as a justice of the peace for over two decades and succeeded in the chair other Masonic colleagues including William Cowper, previously Grand Secretary and Deputy Grand Master, and Leonard Streate, both of whom were members with Blackerby of the duke of Richmond's influential Horn Tavern lodge. Blackerby's speech to the Westminster justices on his election was designed to remind his colleagues of their political and moral obligations:\n\nas you expect a blessing on yourselves, families and posterity... exert yourselves for the preservation of the laws of your country... consider the duty you owe as subjects to your King, under whose mild government and wise administration every man enjoys the fruits of his labour, his liberty, his property.\n\nHis words echoed those of William Cowper a decade before:\n\nIt ought always to be a matter of particular distinction... that justices would be vigilant to detect and produce to punishment all those who... attempt the subversion of the great basis upon which stands all that is or can be dear to England and Protestants... it is... for our religion, our liberty and our property.\n\nIndeed,\n\nthe magistrate... is trusted to uphold the honour, the dignity and the majesty of the state; to see that order is observed; that equal right be done according to known and approved law... and whoever assumes... such powers upon any other principle is and should be treated as a subverter of peace, order and good government... and an enemy to human society.\n\nThe parallels with Desaguliers and Payne's Masonic charges are clear. Each newly-made freemason was obliged to swear an oath to be not only 'a good man and true' but also:\n\nstrictly to obey the moral law... to be a peaceable subject and cheerfully to conform to the laws of the country... not to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against government [and] submit to the decisions of the supreme legislature [and]... the civil magistrate.\n\nAside from the function of the bench in penalising crime and punishing disorder, the barrier between the magistracy and the working classes, and not just the London Irish, was compounded and reinforced by the role of the bench in adjudicating and implementing employment law. This was governed by Master and Servant Acts which were based on the sixteenth-century Statute of Artificers, supplemented by secondary legislation and case law. Together they defined and regulated what was becoming an increasingly fractious relationship between employers and employees. On one side, workers were required to labour diligently and obediently; on the other, the employer, among other matters, was obliged to pay wages when due and give appropriate notice before termination. Under the delegated authority of the High Court, the magistracy had the authority to provide summary judgment on employment matters brought before it and although the Master and Servant Acts provided for fines on employers found to be in breach, action was more usually taken against the servant or employees, including imprisonment for breach of contract, fines and the termination of employment with loss of wages.\n\nPerhaps unsurprisingly, the nature of labour legislation and the manner in which it was enforced became increasingly one-sided in the eighteenth century as successively more onerous employment legislation was passed by parliament as a means of controlling what was seen as an increasingly unruly labour force. In the 1720s, new acts increased the maximum term of imprisonment from one month to three and added hard labour to the penalties available to the bench; and in 1747, parliament added corporal punishment. Most tellingly, as Douglas Hay has noted, 'the worker in breach was often treated as a criminal; the master never was.'\n\nAmong the many influential freemasons who were prominent on the bench in the 1730s and beyond were some of its most rigorous and exacting jurists. They included Sir Thomas de Veil, Henry Norris, Richard Gifford, Richard Manley and Clifford William Philips.\n\nDe Veil (1684\u20131746), a past Master of William Hogarth's lodge at the Apple Tree tavern, was the principal subject satirised by Hogarth in _Night,_ where he was depicted hypocritically drunk and in Masonic regalia on his return home from a lodge meeting. A magistrate on both the Middlesex and Westminster benches throughout the 1730s, de Veil sat at Leicester Fields and in Soho until establishing the first formal magistrate's court in 1739 at his house in Bow Street. His pro-government approach and dedication to enforcing the penal code were such 'that the government turned to de Veil whenever it needed a magistrate's services'. As a reward for his services to the administration, de Veil was given a colonelcy in the Westminster militia, numerous sinecures and, in 1744, was invested a knight. At the time of his death, he was regarded by many as the leading magistrate in London; he also sat as a commissioner for the peace in Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey.\n\nThe wealthy Russia merchant, Henry Norris, a member of the lodge at the Cheshire Cheese in Arundell Street, who had extensive properties in Hackney, as well as the City and Southwark, was the author of the 'justicing notebook' that was the subject of _Justice in eighteenth century Hackney. 30 _At the time, Hackney was still largely agricultural countryside, accessible to the City and popular with wealthy merchants such as Norris. However, a nascent small-scale industry was growing, based around the local brickfields. The area also had a mixed and growing population that combined Protestant dissenters with \u00e9migr\u00e9 Jews and Irish communities, a combination of nationalities that was reflected in the cases brought before Norris and the bench. In her editorial commentary, Ruth Paley noted tellingly that 'all these groups were likely to attract considerable hostility... [but] to be Irish (and even worse to be an Irish Catholic) at this time was to be subjected to stereotypes of irresponsibility, lawlessness and criminality'. Norris was tough on those brought before him and was regarded as 'a man of somewhat harsh and authoritarian views'. In common with most of his judicial colleagues, he was also fervently pro-government. The administration used his magisterial services much as it did those of de Veil: to promote its purposes. In 1731, for example, Norris was selected to participate as a member of the carefully chosen Quarter Sessions jury that convicted Richard Francklin, the publisher of the leading opposition journal, the _Craftsman_ '.\n\nAmong other strongly loyalist magistrates, Richard Gifford was a warden of the lodge at the Castle Tavern in St Giles; Richard Manley a member of Martin Folkes' influential Bedford Head lodge in Covent Garden; and Clifford Philips a member and later warden of the Rose & Crown in King Street, Westminster. Paley has described all three as among the most active magistrates in London, a view substantiated by the multitude of records of the cases they tried. Indeed, the main burden of criminal cases in urban Middlesex appears to have been shouldered by only six justices, including Gifford, Manley and Philips, who were responsible for just under half of the two thousand or so recognizances returned to the General and Quarter Sessions in 1732.\n\nCharles Delafaye, another member of Richmond's Horn, was a prominent figure, influential both masonically and as an active magistrate. A senior civil servant who from 1717\u201339 was under secretary of state at the northern and southern departments, and deputy secretary of state for Scotland, Delafaye was also the government's chief spymaster and coordinator of its anti-Jacobite spy network. He was appointed to the bench in 1714 or 1715 and served as a magistrate for several decades. Like de Veil, he was considered a 'go to' member of the magistracy. A substantial number of the cases brought before him were political; all were found in favour of the Whig administration.\n\nUnfortunately, primary sources listing the membership of lodges warranted by English Grand Lodge are available only for an estimated two-thirds of lodge members and for no more than a handful of years from 1723 to 1730. Data after that point and until the beginning of the nineteenth century is accessible only piecemeal and is more a function of the limited records of individual lodges that have survived rather than the product of a possibly more reliable central database. As a consequence, it is possible to examine the extent to which there was a significant overlap between the magistracy and London freemasonry only within a relatively narrow time from the 1720s to the early 1730s. One of the last occasions within this period on which a new intake was appointed to the bench was November 1727. The list of one hundred and thirty new entrants sworn to the magistracy at that time constituted one of the largest rolls of incoming appointees. It was headed by Charles Lennox, duke of Richmond, Grand Master of England in 1725\u20136, and known and probable freemasons comprised around 15 per cent of the total listed. However, the actual number may have been higher. The proportion of probable freemasons in earlier lists of newly appointed magistrates where lodge membership is more readily documented generally ranged from 20 to 25 per cent.\n\nThe new intake to the bench in 1727 included Sir William Billers (1689\u20131745), and Sir George Cook (16\u2014?\u20131740). Both were members of the aristocratic lodge meeting at the Rummer, Charing Cross. Billers has been portrayed correctly by Nicholas Rogers as a member of the 'big bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London'. He was a stalwart of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers and became a City Sheriff in 1721, an alderman in 1722 and was elected the City's Lord Mayor in 1734. The link with Fotherley Baker, elected Clerk of the Haberdashers' Company in 1741 and later Deputy Grand Master of English Grand Lodge (discussed below) should be noted. Billers commanded the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the British army and considered a principal safeguard against the London mob; he also had command of the Blue regiment of Trained Bands, one of six London militia regiments under the jurisdiction and command of the Lord Mayor. Later sworn to the privy council, Billers' unforgiving judicial approach is detailed in over seven hundred contemporary press reports of court cases from 1727 until his death.\n\nSir George Cook was another mainstay of London's affluent bourgeoisie, holding office as Chief Prothonotary or chief administrator of the Court of Common Pleas from his legal chambers in the Temple. Cook owned a townhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields and substantial estates in Uxbridge. He was close politically to the Whig establishment and gained the duke of Newcastle's political recommendation for the position of knight of the shire for Middlesex, albeit that his election bid was unsuccessful.\n\nFollowing their appointment to the bench, justices might sit individually or more commonly jointly or in committee, especially at the Quarter Sessions. These were local courts, held quarterly, that tried those cases that could not be dealt with summarily by the justices without a jury. At most Quarter Sessions, the jury comprised members of the bench and others considered loyal to the government. A relevant example is the twelve magistrates who presided as a jury at the Middlesex Sessions on 31 March 1733. They included five prominent freemasons: William Cowper, the former Grand Secretary and Deputy Grand Master mentioned above; Alexander Chocke, another former DGM and member of Richmond's Horn tavern lodge; Samuel Saville, a member of the Cock & Bottle lodge in Little Britain; Richard Gifford, a Warden at the Castle Tavern in St Giles; and Thomas de Veil.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest and it would be wrong to argue that there was any explicit conspiracy, government or Masonic, to crowd the bench with freemasons. However, it is reasonable to conclude that many within London's lodges had a social commonality and similar if not identical political and moral outlook to those at the heart of the Whig administration. They were natural and vigorous defenders of the status quo and many sat on or aspired to the government benches in parliament.\n\n**Table 21** The Horn Tavern, 1720\u201335\n\n_Horn Tavern Member_ | _Masonic Rank_ | _Magistracy_ \n---|---|--- \nDuke of Montagu | GM, 1721\/2 | JP \nDuke of Richmond | GM, 1725\/6 | JP \nGeorge Payne | GM, 1718 & 1720; | JP \n| GW, 1724; DGM, 1735 | \nWilliam Cowper | DGM, 1726; GS 1723\u20137 | JP (Chair) \nAlexander Chocke | DGM, 1727; GW 1726 | JP (Chair) \nNathaniel Blackerby | DGM, 1728\u20139; | JP (Chair) \n| GW, 1727; GT 1731 | \nFrancis Sorrel | GW, 1723\u201324 | JP \nWilliam Burdon | GW, 1726 | JP \nCol. George Carpenter | GW, 1729 | JP \nAlexander Hardine | Master | JP \nSamuel Edwards | Warden | JP \nThomas Brereton | Member | JP \nWilliam Burdon | Member | JP \nTheophilus Cole | Member | JP \nCharles Delafaye | Member | JP \nRaphael Dubois | Member | JP \nSamuel Horsey | Member | JP \nCharles Medlicott | Member | JP \nThomas Medlicott | Member | JP \nSimon Mitchell | Member | JP \nCol. Thomas Paget | Member | JP \nCol. Edward Riley | Member | JP \nLeonard Streate | Member | JP (Chair)\n\nCharles, duke of Richmond and Lennox, was an important government supporter and a leading Whig who was close to both Newcastle and Walpole. Richmond had been Grand Master of English Grand Lodge in 1723 and both before and after sat as Master of his own lodge at the Horn tavern in Westminster, close to parliament. Of the lodge's more than seventy members, around a third or more were magistrates, albeit that some were more active than others.\n\nTable 21 is compiled from data drawn from the _Middlesex and Westminster Sessions' Papers, Justices' Working Documents_ and lists those members of the Horn who are known to have sat or been appointed during the 1720s and\/or 1730s.\n\n**Table 22** The Rummer Tavern, 1723\n\n_Rummer Tavern Member_ | _Masonic Rank_ | _Magistracy_ \n---|---|--- \nCol. Daniel Houghton | GW, 1725 | JP \nSir Henry Bateman | Member | JP \nSir William Billers | Member | JP \nWilliam Bucknall | Member | JP \nJames Cook | Member | JP \nSir George Cook | Member | JP \nCapt. Giles Earle, MP | Member | JP \nCharles Hayes | Member | JP \nFrancis Reynolds | Member | JP \nAlexander Strahan | Member | JP \nJoseph Taylor | Member | JP \nRobert Viner | Member | JP \nCol. George Watkins | Member | JP\n\nAs noted, it is not possible to determine with certainty the aggregate number of freemasons among the London magistracy. Partial Masonic records and the phonetic spelling of freemasons and magistrates names alike prevent the data from being sufficiently precise. However, where the data is capable of analysis, it suggests that up to a quarter were or may have been freemasons. The argument is supported anecdotally by an analysis of the membership of a second Masonic lodge, the Rummer tavern at Charing Cross. Like the Horn, the Rummer's membership was drawn from among the gentry and upper middling segment of London society. Of its fifty-six members in 1723, around half were recorded by their surname alone. At least thirteen can be identified as magistrates.\n\nThe level and scale of interaction between the two organisations suggests strongly that the influence of the judiciary on freemasonry and its outlook with regard to the London Irish and the working class more generally, should be considered potentially significant. The Whiggist political characteristics of early eighteenth-century London freemasonry that were central to its success in attracting members from both the gentry and affluent professionals included loyalty, probity and respect for property. They were the same factors as those prized by the government in choosing its appointees to the bench. It is unsurprising that the relatively narrow social composition of mainstream London freemasonry and English Grand Lodge in the 1720s, 1730s, 1740s and thereafter was mirrored within the magistracy. It reinforced the social chasm between Moderns freemasonry and London's lower middling and working class and drew a barrier that prevented interaction. Indeed, the difficulty, perhaps impossibility, of men such Billers, Chocke, Cowper, de Veil and Norris associating masonically and socially with London's working class, especially the London Irish, is perhaps self-evident. Middling merchants, landowners and professionals were accepted into English freemasonry with relative ease, the less affluent, which included most of London's Irish community, were rejected. At odds socially and economically, it should not be a revelation that many chose to strike out independently.\n\n# CHAPTER FIVE\n\n# _An Age of Decline \u2013 English Grand Lodge, 1740\u20131751_\n\nEnglish freemasonry's early and mid-eighteenth century rejection of the working class and lower middling, and what Robert Gould later characterised as its mid-century period of Masonic misrule, was coloured not only by anti-Irish prejudice. During the 1740s, over forty lodges, around a fifth of those on its register of lodges, were expelled by the Grand Lodge of England. Others left of their own accord or chose to operate independently. Cessation and erasure where lodge membership had declined to an unsustainably low level was a relative commonplace. But exclusion for not attending Grand Lodge's set piece Quarterly Communications or the failure to contribute to the Grand Charity (and thus demonstrating insufficient respect for Grand Lodge) was more novel. The policy marked a new and uncompromising approach and was a significant shift compared to the more emollient stance of the preceding two decades. It also provided a context for the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge and the expansion of Antients freemasonry across London and elsewhere.\n\nThe minutes of the lodge at the Shakespeare's Head in Little Marlborough Street give an insight into the deteriorating relationship between English Grand Lodge and at least some of its constituent lodges. On 12 January 1740, a letter from the Grand Secretary was read to the lodge. Referring to the absence of the lodge's representatives from the most recent Quarterly Communication, the Grand Secretary informed the Master that 'unless the officers of the lodge... attend Quarterly Communication... or send in their charity, the [lodge's] constitution would be lost'. The reprimand was intended to be taken seriously and the Master advised the members that he had responded to the letter and on behalf of the lodge had sent half a guinea to the Grand Secretary with a request that it be paid to the Grand Charity 'on behalf of this society' at the next Quarterly Communication. However, at the meeting on 23 February 1740, only six weeks later, the minutes record the receipt of a second letter from the Grand Secretary. Read by the Master to the members, the letter commanded the senior officers of the lodge to attend the Grand Master at the Quarterly Communication to be held the following night. The minutes record that the lodge was reluctant to comply, the Master commenting that 'as the interests of the lodge had been secured [at] the last QC, it was not thought fit at this time to put the society to the charge of this attendance'.\n\nOnly a small number of individual lodge minute books from the early and mid-eighteenth century survive and most are anodyne, listing the names of those members present, the officers of the lodge and the fees paid or outstanding, and few provide detailed reports of individual meetings. Nonetheless, despite the absence of such corroborative evidence, it is reasonable to assume that the letter received by the Shakespeare's Head was probably not unusual and that lodges in a similar position would have received the same or analogous correspondence. It is also clear that the Shakespeare's Head's unease at being obliged to follow the bidding of Grand Lodge was not new. The minutes of 11 December 1738 and 9 April 1739 both record the lodge's disapproval of Grand Lodge's insistence on the central collection of Masonic charity and the members' discomfort over their lack of influence over its disbursement.\n\nThe Shakespeare's Head was not a naturally rebellious lodge; indeed, the opposite was probably the case. Fourteen members, around half the total, were members of the influential and aristocratic King's Arms lodge in the Strand, later the Old King's Arm's, lodge No. 28 (or 'OKA'). A driving force at both was Martin Clare (1688\u20131751). Clare was in several ways the epitome of Masonic loyalty. He had been selected as a Grand Steward in 1734, appointed Junior Grand Warden in 1735 and made Deputy Grand Master in 1741. Clare was also connected to many of freemasonry's elder statesmen. As the founder and headmaster of the well-regarded Soho Academy in Soho Square, he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1735, proposed by a slate of influential freemasons including the pivotal Desaguliers, Sir Richard Manningham, Ephraim Chambers (the publisher of the eponymous dictionary), James Gibbs and Dr Alexander Stuart, among others. Clare was, in addition, the reputed author of _A Defence of Masonry_ and a prolific educational and Masonic lecturer who had been one of freemasonry's principal flag carriers in promoting educational self-improvement and the new body of knowledge that flowed from Newton's scientific Enlightenment. His _Discourse_ on the subject summarised both his approach and that of many within the inner orbit of English Grand Lodge:\n\nThe chief pleasure of society \u2013 viz., good conversation and the consequent improvements \u2013 are rightly presumed... to be the principal motive of our first entering into then propagating the Craft... We are intimately related to those great and worthy spirits who have ever made it their business and aim to improve themselves and inform mankind.\n\nClare had been elected Master of the Shakespeare's Head in 1736. Many of the entries in the minute books are in his handwriting and his lectures appear to have been a mainstay of its activities. Clare was re-elected to the chair in 1738 and again in 1740. However, despite a close association with several prominent freemasons, attendance at the lodge declined. Only five members were left in 1745 and, the following year, Clare was obliged to pay half a guinea to Grand Lodge to ensure that the lodge was not erased immediately. Without an obvious future, the remaining members agreed with Clare that they should seek to identify potential purchasers for the lodge's Masonic furniture and other assets. They were unsuccessful and in the absence of a buyer, Clare agreed to acquire the assets himself in 1747. Two years later and just over a year before his death, Clare agreed to sell the constitution, jewels, furniture and books to the lodge that then met at the George and Dragon in Grafton Street, now the Lodge of Friendship, No. 6. The Shakespeare's Head lodge was disbanded formally at the same time.\n\nIf a lodge such as the Shakespeare's Head was demonstrably unhappy with the strictures of Grand Lodge, it is reasonable to believe that Masonic discontent may have been relatively common, if not widespread. Certainly, other lodges experienced the same or a similar decline in membership numbers. Another lodge with which Clare was associated, No. 185, at the British Coffee House in Cockspur Street near Charing Cross, also failed to survive and was erased in 1745; and lodge No. 63, later the Corner Stone lodge, meeting at the Masons' Arms in Maddox Street, was reduced to only seven active members in 1742 and 1743.\n\nThe response of English Grand Lodge was to encourage ailing lodges to surrender their warrants and merge with those in a better condition. At the Quarterly Communication of 24 June 1742, Lord Ward (1704\u20131774), a Midlands landowner and minor politician who had been appointed Grand Master after inheriting a peerage, 'took notice of the great decay of many lodges'. Ward believed the problem to be caused by an excess number of lodges, in his word, a 'multiplicity', and in response to the merger of the Turk's Head lodge with that at the King's Arms, made it Grand Lodge policy to encourage other unsuccessful lodges to identify prospective partners. Ward also tried to enforce a restriction on the number of lodges to which a London freemason could belong, limiting membership to a single lodge, and to encourage prospective freemasons to join failing lodges rather than support the constitution of new lodges. Both rules had been on the books for many years but had rarely if ever been enforced. There were good reasons not to do so. As with many clubs and societies, the bulk of a lodge's activities was undertaken by a minority of its membership. Moreover, those who were devoted to freemasonry or ambitious for Masonic advancement were often members of more than one lodge and took an active part in each. Richard Rawlinson offers an excellent example of the genre: in the 1730s he was Master of the lodge meeting at the Oxford Arms in Ludgate Street, warden of a second, and a member of two more. Ward's insistence on restricting the number of lodges to which a freemason could belong and the imposition of constraints on the formation of new lodges may have been designed to foster the survival of failing lodges as well as demonstrate Grand Lodge's authority over such matters, but the strictures were also a direct affront to many of the most dedicated freemasons involved in London freemasonry and fell at an early hurdle when it came to guaranteeing the success of ailing lodges.\n\nWard's successor Grand Masters compounded Masonic discontent, most particularly the absentee William Byron, 5th lord Byron (1722\u20131798). During Byron's reign as Grand Master, disaffection and unease percolated out to even the most loyal of lodges, including the Grand Stewards' lodge, which expressed its dissent in 1749 by declining to contribute to the Grand Charity collection and neither attending Grand Lodge nor contributing to charity in succeeding years. Indeed, withholding charity and declining to participate in the formal Masonic processions that accompanied meetings of Grand Lodge became a standard means by which the Grand Stewards registered their opposition.\n\nThe disciplinary procedures adopted by Grand Lodge to enforce its rules were harsh and contentious. On 24 June 1742, Ward ordered that four lodges be erased from the official list for 'not attending the Grand Master in Quarterly Communication pursuant to several notices respectively sent them'. The lodges were No. 37, which at that date met at the Angel & Crown in Whitechapel; No. 60, at the Vine in Long Acre, Covent Garden; No. 161, at the Swan, Fish Street Hill; and No. 165, at the Flower Pot in Bishopsgate. The specific lodges are hard to identify from Lane's _Masonic Records,_ however, lodge No. 37 may have been that which originally met at King Henry VIII's Head in Seven Dials and from there moved to Billingsgate and thereafter Whitechapel, although it is possible that the lodge at Billingsgate was a newly constituted lodge. Lodge No. 60 had met at the Golden Spikes tavern in Hampstead before moving to Long Acre. And it is likely that lodge No. 165 had only been warranted in 1739, taking the place of the lodge that had convened at Cameron's Coffee House.\n\nAt the following Quarterly Communication on 8 February 1743, the masters and wardens of thirteen lodges, including that at the Flower Pot tavern, were summoned to attend the Grand Master to explain their non-attendance for over two years. However, representatives of only four of these lodges attended the following meeting held on 9 April. Two apologised, making 'an excuse for their non attendance and promising to attend more punctually for the future'; and two were given additional time to explain. Ward commanded that the remaining seven be erased:\n\nOrdered that the following lodges be erased out of the Book of Lodges they not attending pursuant to the Summons' directed at the last QC nor any speaking on their behalf:\n\nNo. | 40 | Globe, Fleet Street \n---|---|--- \n| 45 | Globe, Strand \n| 59 | Castle, St Giles's \n| 80 | Three Tuns, Grosvenor Street \n| 145 | Three Tuns & Half Moon, Snowhill \n| 156 | Red Lion, Red Lion Street \n| 165 | Flower Pot, Bishopsgate Street\n\nThe two lodges given dispensation to explain their non-attendance were dismissed subsequently by Ward in April 1744, citing their persistent failure to attend. These were No. 7, at the King's Arms, Temple Bar, originally warranted in 1722, which had previously met at the Devil's Tavern in Temple Bar and at Daniel's Coffee House; and No. 39, at the Mitre in King Street, Westminster. The latter had been established in 1725 at the Golden Lion in Dean Street, Soho, and later met at the Swan in Grafton Street and then at the Swan in Long Acre.\n\nWard's inflexible approach was continued by his successor, Thomas Lyon, the earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1704\u20131753). On 26 February 1745, Lyon, as Grand Master\n\nOrdered that the Secretary do Summon the eight following lodges to show cause at the next QC why they have Omitted to attend the Rt Worshipful GM at the general meetings of the Society for upwards of two years past, viz.:\n\nNo. | 3 | Crown, behind the Royal Exchange \n---|---|--- \n| 9 | King's Arms, New Bond Street \n| 17 | Sun, Holborn \n| 19 | Vine, Long Acre \n| 26 | Forrest's Coffee House, Charing Cross \n| 146 | King's Head, Old Jewry \n| 159 | Gloucester Lodge at Canon, Charing Cross \n| 173 | British Coffee House, Charing Cross'\n\nThe lodge at the Crown had received its warrant in 1721 and had since that time met in the City close to the Royal Exchange building. Although erased, lodge No. 9 was reinstated in 1748 and is the present day Tuscan Lodge, now lodge No. 14. Lodges 17 and 19 were warranted in 1723. The latter had been known as the French Lodge, which had met at the Dolphin in Tower Street before moving to the Swan in Long Acre and then the Vine tavern. The French lodge had enjoyed a close association with Desaguliers and the wider Huguenot community, a group whose support for freemasonry and its Whiggist stance had been unyielding over the years. Although most Huguenots had become by the 1740s more closely integrated into mainstream British society, the erasure of the French lodge can nonetheless be viewed as a serious indictment of Grand Lodge policy. The remaining three lodges had been warranted in 1737, 1738 and 1739. In a footnote to the relevant entry in the QCA reprint of Grand Lodge Minutes, Dashwood, the editor, commented that the lodges summoned had not attended the Quarterly Communication for three years or more. However, 'if the list had been extended to include those who had not attended for two years, twenty-two more summonses would have been sent'. Tellingly, Dashwood also observed that less than seventy of London's remaining 120 lodges were at the time attending Grand Lodge on a regular basis. None of the lodges summoned by Lyon chose to appear before the Grand Master at the next Quarterly Communication, nor was any representation made on their behalf. Consequently, at the following meeting on 25 March 1745, all were ordered erased from the register for non-attendance.\n\nJames Cranstoun, 6th lord Cranstoun (17\u2013?\u2013 _d_.1773), was appointed Grand Master in April 1745. Unlike Lyon for whom Ward deputised on each occasion other than at his installation, Cranstoun personally chaired each of the Quarterly Communications held during his period of office. Those attending his installation were invited to take breakfast at the Braund's Head in New Bond Street and from there go in procession to the Drapers' Hall. The installation was popular and ten days later an advertisement informed 'the Brethren... of the Society' that those intending to join Cranstoun at Bro. Parry's Bowling Green House on Putney Heath should obtain their tickets 'by tomorrow at farthest, that suitable provisions may be made for their reception... dinner to be on the Table at Two o'clock precisely'. Cranstoun also continued the practice of Masonic theatrical evenings and the Masonic pomp that often preceded and followed:\n\nA great number of gentlemen have appointed to meet this evening at five o'clock at the Shakespear's Head tavern in Covent Garden to wait on the Rt Hon the Grand Master and the rest of the brethren of the Antient and Honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons and from thence to proceed in their proper cloathing to see the Old Batchelor which is to be played for their entertainment at Covent Garden Theatre.\n\nOn 21 November 1745 at the first Quarterly Communication at which he presided, eight lodges were ordered to receive summonses demanding their attendance 'to answer for their not attending the Grand Master at the General Meetings of the Society for a considerable time past'. The lodges summoned were:\n\nNo. | 2 | Horn, Westminster \n---|---|--- \n| 4 | Shakespeare's Head, Little Marlborough Street \n| 33 | Sash and Cocoa Tree, Moorfields \n| 68 | Bull's Head, Whitechapel \n| 88 | Hoop & Griffin, Leadenhall Street \n| 133 | Bell, Little Eastcheap \n| 140 | King's Arms, Cateaton Street \n| 153 | Fountain. Bartholomew Lane\n\nCranstoun also commanded that twelve lodges be erased:\n\nOrdered that the twelve following Lodges be Erased out of the Book of Lodges they not having attended the GM at the general meetings of the Society nor regularly met so as to be Summoned for some years past.\n\nNo. | 15 | Bedford Arms, Covent Garden \n---|---|--- \n| 16 | Bear & Rummer, Gerard Street, Soho \n| 25 | Dog, St James's Market \n| 48 | Royal Oak, Earl Street, Seven Dials \n| 54 | George, St Mary Axe \n| 79 | King's Head, St Paul's Churchyard \n| 107 | Fountain, Snow Hill \n| 112 | Horn & Dolphin, Crutched Friars \n| 142 | White Horse, Piccadilly \n| 160 | Horn & Feathers, Doctors' Commons \n| 171 | Standard, Leicester Fields \n| 155 | Mansion House, Steel Yard, Thames street\n\nThe first named lodge in the list of those called before Grand Lodge was the Horn, the duke of Richmond's lodge, _de facto_ the most senior of all London's Masonic lodges and, historically, one of, if not the most influential, whose members had dominated both Grand Lodge and English freemasonry for nearly two decades. The lodge was one of several that predated Grand Lodge; moreover, it had been the principal instrument in its creation. Aristocratic and by a substantial margin the largest of the founding lodges, the Horn's membership throughout the 1720s and 1730s included a mixture of influential aristocrats, ranking army officers, parliamentarians, civil servants, diplomats and scientists, many of whom, around a third, also held positions in the Middlesex and Westminster magistracy.\n\nIn the 1720s, the Horn's seventy plus members included thirteen English and European aristocrats, many with close connections to the British crown, including Richmond, whose father was the illegitimate son of Charles II. The lodge's parliamentary connections were distinguished. Many members were MPs or, like the duke of Richmond, wielded influence over who would be selected for seats within their local jurisdiction. The lodge also had influence within the military, with two generals, ten colonels and other officers below field rank within the membership. The connection with the Royal Society was equally strong. At least eleven were FRSs, including Richmond; John, duke of Montagu; Charles, duke of Queensberry; James Hamilton, Lord Paisley; and the Hon George Carpenter. In addition to Desaguliers, among the lodge's non-aristocratic FRSs were Charles du Bois, the botanist and cashier-general of the East India Company; Nathan Hickman, the physician; Sir Richard Manningham, a pre-eminent male midwife whose clients included the royal family; Charles Delafaye, undersecretary of state and the government's spymaster; and George Stanley, a merchant married to Hans Sloane's daughter. There were also two French FRSs: Jean Erdman, Baron Dieskau, a soldier and diplomat; and Charles du Fay, a member of the Royal Academy of Science. Politically, with few exceptions, the lodge was loyally Whiggist.\n\nThe Horn was probably at its most influential as a spawning ground for Masonic Grand Officers. Table 23 illustrates how many of its members took prominent roles within freemasonry, and how the Horn's members governed the influential Grand Charity Committee to which many of the more sensitive decisions of Grand Lodge were later delegated.\n\n**Table 23** The Members of the Horn Tavern lodge Holding Grand Office, 1718\u201335\n\n_Name_ | _Grand Office_ | _Grand Charity Committee_ \n---|---|--- \nGeorge Payne | GM 1718 & 1720, \nGW 1724 \nDGM 1735 | \nJ.T. Desaguliers | GM 1719, \nDGM 1722\u20133 & 1725 | Yes \nJohn, duke of Montagu | GM 1721 | Yes \nCharles, duke of Richmond | GM 1724 | \nJames, Lord Paisley | GM 1726 | Yes \nWilliam Cowper | DGM 1726 | \n| GS 1723\u20137 | Yes \nAlexander Chocke | GW 1726 \nDGM 1727 | \nNathaniel Blackerby | GW 1727 \nDGM 1728\u20139 \nGT 1731 | \nThomas Batson | GW 1729 \nDGM 1730\u20134 | \nFrancis Sorrel | GW 1723\u20134 | \nSir Thomas Prendergast | GW 1725 | Yes \nWilliam Burdon | GW 1726 | \nCol. George Carpenter | GW 1729 | \nMajor Alexander Harding | | Yes \nThomas Edwards | | Yes\n\nThe Masonic importance of the Horn was without parallel from the 1720s through to the mid-1730s. But although its Masonic star may have been on the wane in the 1740s, the threat of sanction and erasure by Grand Lodge from the list of recognised lodges was probably nonetheless a relatively empty gesture. The Horn had sufficient stature to allow it to function without recourse to or recognition from Grand Lodge. But even where lodges had less eminence and a more middling membership, they were also able to survive independently. Many chose to function as 'St John's' lodges, a generic name given to a lodge not associated with any self-proclaimed ruling body; and, in due course, a number (or their members) chose to affiliate with the Antients. The Horn itself remained unaffiliated for six years until George Payne, then a member of the OKA, interceded on its behalf. Following Payne's compromise agreement that the Horn would pay a contribution of two guineas to the Grand Charity, the lodge was in 1751 reinstated to Grand Lodge's register of regular lodges. That this occurred close to the end of Lord Byron's period as absentee Grand Master is unlikely to have been a coincidence.\n\nIn 1746, Lord Cranstoun was asked to remain in office for a further year. There was a general concern that the numbers attending the Grand Feast would be embarrassingly low. Some members, including many from the nobility, were fighting in Flanders, but the prevalent malaise in freemasonry was equally at fault. In testament, a further four lodges were ordered erased at the same April meeting. Indeed, no further Quarterly Communication was held until a year later when a motion discontinuing the procession to the Grand Feast was passed and Lord Byron proposed as the Grand Master elect. Underlining the Masonic depression, of the new lodge warrants granted by Cranstoun on behalf of Grand Lodge, only two survived to be 'continued in the present list of lodges'. But despite its problems, the imperious attitude of Grand Lodge in the latter half of the 1740s was unrelenting. In March 1748, Ward, chairing a meeting in Byron's absence, ordered the Grand Secretary to write to a further twelve lodges requiring them to explain their failure to attend. Seven of the lodges summoned appeared before him and dutifully 'made their excuses'; the remaining five were erased. As a single offset, Ward reinstated lodge No. 9, then meeting at the King's Arms in New Bond Street, on the grounds that its prior failure to attend the Grand Master had been caused by an alleged mistake.\n\nThe decreasing regard with which Grand Lodge (and freemasonry) came to be held in the mid- and late 1740s was reflected in a change in the general public's attitude towards the annual Masonic Grand Feast. Dating from Montagu's installation in 1721, the installation of a new Grand Master had been preceded by a ceremonial and ornately choreographed public procession. The event had been generally well-publicised with a proliferation of classified advertisements in the press designed to attract attention and raise the profile of freemasonry and Grand Lodge. This had been remarkably successful, and the parade attracted a large audience from the London public and gained positive press comment. Processions comprised, in Anderson's words, 'many Brothers duly clothed [proceeding] in Coaches from the West to the East'. That of the duke of Norfolk in 1730 was preceded by Lord Kingston, the outgoing Grand Master, attending the duke at his London mansion 'with ceremony', together with 'a vast number of brothers duly clothed'. And from his house in St James's Square, the Grand Master elect and his retinue paraded formally to the City led by\n\nsix of the stewards clothed proper with their badges and white rods, two in each chariot... noble and eminent brethren duly clothed... former Grand Officers clothed proper... former noble Grand Officers clothed proper... the secretary alone with his badge and bag, clothed... the two Grand Wardens clothed proper with their badges... the Deputy Grand Master alone clothed proper with his badge in a chariot... and in the final coach, Kingston, Grand Master clothed proper with his badge [and] Norfolk, Grand Master elect, clothed only as a Mason.\n\nThe annual parade and installation dinner was the pinnacle of the Masonic year. So many sought to attend Norfolk's installation and the feast that followed that the venue needed to be relocated to the Merchant Taylor's hall from the Stationers', the latter 'being too small to entertain so numerous'. Indeed, the annual cavalcade was intentionally organised for optimum impact: 'the stewards [halting] at Charing Cross until the messenger brought orders to move on slowly'. In 1734, John Lindsay, earl Crawford's spectacular display included 'trumpets, hautboys, kettle drums and French-horns to lead the van and play at the gate till all arrive'. Two years later, that of John Campbell, earl of Loudoun, was even more elaborate, the Grand Master elect travelling\n\nin a chariot richly carved and gilt drawn by six beautiful grey horses [with three] sets of music... consisting of a pair of kettle drums, four trumpets and four French horns, the others of a pair of kettle drums, two trumpets and two French horns.\n\nAnd the _London Evening Post_ reported that Edward Bligh, earl Darnley's procession in 1737 was\n\nattended by kettle-drums [and] trumpets', with an array of coaches and chariots that culminated in 'the earl of Darnley in a fine, rich, gilt chariot, drawn by six long tail grey horses, with fine morocco harness and green silk reins.\n\nReporting the same event, the _Daily Advertiser_ referred to 'upwards of a hundred coaches' and an estimated cost of \u00a3200 for the pre-installation breakfast alone. This was the zenith. A decade later on 3 April 1747, Grand Lodge passed a resolution discontinuing the event:\n\nThe occasion of this prudent regulation was that some unfaithful Brethren, disappointed in their expectation of high offices and honours of the society, had joined a number of buffoons of the day, in a scheme to make a mockery of the public procession to the Grand Feast.\n\nAnti-Masonic protests had grown over the preceding years and the activities of those such as the Scald Miserable Masons who arranged processions designed to mock freemasonry were duly recorded by the press:\n\nYesterday, some mock freemasons marched through Pall Mall and the Strand as far as Temple Bar in procession; first went fellows as jackasses, with cow's horns in their hands; then a kettle drummer on a jackass, having two butter firkins for kettle drums; then followed to carts drawn by jackasses, having in them the stewards with several badges of their order; then came a mourning coach drawn by six horses, each of a different size and colour, which were the Grand Master and Wardens; the whole attended by a vast mob. They stayed without Temple Bar until the Masons came by and paid their compliments to them, who returned the same with an agreeable humour.\n\nOther mock processions were organized but although favoured by the London mob, they were held in less regard by the authorities, with some prevented and others rerouted. Nonetheless, in response to possibility of ridicule, rather than processing from his townhouse, Lord Byron instead invited those attending his installation to 'meet him at the hall at 12 o'clock at Noon'. Although the press recorded that 'an elegant entertainment was provided', the installation meeting was held in private and appears to have been more prosaic. In his speech to those attending, Byron undertook that 'he would to the utmost of his power promote the benefit of the Craft'. However, his promise was broken almost immediately. Byron was present in Grand Lodge on only one occasion after his installation: on 16 March 1752, when he proposed that Lord Carysfort be installed as his successor. During the intervening five years, Grand Lodge would fall under the domain of Byron's Grand Officers with press coverage muted and public interest at bay. The five year absence of a Grand Master effectively set a seal on English freemasonry's mid-century decline.\n\nByron had inherited his title at the age of 14 and volunteered for the navy two years later, serving in the Mediterranean and off West Africa. He was promoted lieutenant but resigned in 1743 on reaching his majority and returned to England. Byron married in March 1747, a month before he was appointed Grand Master elect. His wife, Elizabeth Shaw, was 'a very beautiful lady with [a] \u00a370,000 fortune' and the wedding took place at his in-laws house in Albemarle Street. Their first son was born the following year but died at eleven months; a second son, William, was born in October 1749 and survived. Outside of family, Byron's principal diversions were gambling and horseracing. They were common to many of his set and he engaged actively in both. A newspaper noted his presence at the Burford races in Gloucestershire shortly after his return to England in 1743 and the report describes clearly the attraction of such events:\n\nThe field was honoured with the presence of the duke of Beaufort, duke Hamilton, earl of Lichfield and brothers, earl of Portmore, earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Gower, Lord Chedworth and brothers, Lord Byron, Lord Castlehaven, Lord Craven, Lord Noel Somerset, Lord Barrington, great numbers of baronets, members of parliament and the gentlemen of the best fashion in all the adjacent counties who diverted themselves with hawking or hind hunting every morning, racing at noon, dining together every day to the number of 200, and concluding their nights at the town hall, where there was a grand ball and entertainment for the ladies, whose beauty, richness of apparel and heights of spirits rendered the whole meeting most agreeable as well as the most magnificent that has been seen for many years.\n\nWithin two years, Byron had moved from spectator to participant. The _London Evening Post_ of 2 April 1745 advertised the forthcoming race between the duke of Kingston, Lord Byron, Sir Charles Sedley and a Mr Parson. Each entered 'a horse, mare or gelding past six years old on the round course carrying fourteen stone, the best of three heats, for fifty guineas a side, sweep stakes'. Apart from Kingston, each competitor rode their own horse. Parson won the first two races with Byron finishing third and second, respectively. He was more fortunate the following year at Northampton when his horse, Quiet Ball, finished first in an eight horse race. Byron's wagers and success or otherwise at or on the track were described throughout the 1740s and into the 1750s and provide the counterpart to his Masonic non-attendance. The _General Evening Post_ of 13\u201315 April 1751 reported him among twenty-eight other peers present at the Newmarket races that week and there are numerous other instances of his exploits at the track.\n\nIt would be an understatement to say that Lord Byron was not regarded as a positive role model. Some two decades later, _The Complete Freemason_ assessed his time in office as 'very inactive' and commented that 'several years passed by without his coming to a Grand Assembly, nay [he] even neglected to nominate his successor'. Indeed, there is evidence of only one instance when he offered his imprimatur to freemasonry or was otherwise supportive. On 11 May 1747, two weeks after his installation, an advertisement appeared promoting a performance of the _Merchant of Venice_ at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane to be attended by the Grand Master and fraternity of freemasons and accompanied by the 'usual masons' songs'. The following week, the advertisement was expanded, noting that 'Mr Custos is to sing a song, who was long confined in the Inquisition in Portugal on account of his freemasonry'. And attendees were invited to 'meet his Lordship clothed' at the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, from where they intended to process to the theatre where 'three rows of the pit will be railed in for Masons only'. But Byron's interest in freemasonry never germinated. And without aristocratic patronage and under the ineffective leadership of his officers, freemasonry's attractions and popularity relentlessly diminished:\n\nWhereas several summons have been sent to the several members of the Society of Free and Accepted Masons, held at the Salutation Tavern lately in Newgate Street, and now in Grey Friars, and several have absented themselves; this is therefore to give Notice to such members as pretend to belong to the said Society that if they do not appear on Monday night, the 13th July instant, they will be excluded any pretensions to the Society or the furniture thereof.\n\nAlthough not relevant to his lack of interest in freemasonry, Byron is probably now known best for his drunken duel in 1765 with his cousin, William Chaworth, which resulted in the latter's death. Byron was arrested and tried by his peers in the House of Lords where he was found guilty of manslaughter; he received a fine and was discharged under the Statute of Privilege. After his trial, his marriage disintegrated and his wife left him. His son, from whom he was estranged, and grandson, predeceased him, and his title and a heavily mortgaged Newstead Abbey, the family seat, were taken over by George Gordon Byron, the poet, who became the 6th lord.\n\nUnder Byron's absentee leadership, Grand Lodge's negative transformation continued to the point where Horace Walpole could comment ironically that freemasonry and freemasons were 'in so low repute now in England, that... nothing but a persecution could bring them into vogue again'. Where English freemasonry had once beguiled, it now alienated. Only two decades earlier, prominent aristocrats, politicians and scientists had placed freemasonry at a social, political and intellectual hub, offering a fashionable club of some consequence that attracted a growing aspirational membership both nationally and internationally. But by the 1740s, freemasonry's defining characteristics had begun to wane. The change in the public's perception was influenced not only by those at its helm but also by a political backlash in Europe where, from the late 1730s, many continental monarchies had adopted an anti-Masonic stance. In 1736, Sweden's Frederick I prohibited freemasons from meeting on penalty of death. France proscribed Masonic assemblies the following year, and in Italy, the Inquisition closed the English lodge meeting in Rome. Pope Clement XII published his anti-Masonic papal bull in 1738 and, that year, Charles VI issued an edict prohibiting freemasonry in the Austrian Netherlands. Poland followed in 1739, when Augustus III interdicted freemasonry. This affected Saxony and the Baltic, since Augustus was Elector of the duchy of Saxony and Grand Duke of Lithuania. And in 1740, Philip V of Spain issued a decree against freemasonry which condemned freemasons to the galleys. These edicts and proscriptions were not filed and forgotten. As late as 1751, a news report from Naples confirmed that 'ever since his Majesty's edict against the free and accepted Masons, it was generally conjectured that there were several persons of distinction possessed of important posts who would be obliged soon to resign'. The threat that freemasonry was perceived to pose to Catholicism and Europe's absolute monarchies were at the root of European concerns. In Protestant England, as Marie Mulvey-Roberts noted with respect to the Moderns, there was simply a 'malaise' that began in the 1730s and endured until the 1760s.\n\nFotherley Baker, DGM, presided in Byron's absence. At his first Quarterly Communication in December 1747, he was supported by several former Grand Officers and members of the OKA including Robert Lawley, Edward Hody and Benjamin Gascoyne. The next meeting on 7 March 1748 was chaired by Ward. The principal business was again largely negative and included the order that twelve lodges be summoned to Grand Lodge for 'not attending... for a considerable time past'. The list was headed by the lodge at the Shakespeare's Head in Little Marlborough Street. Grand Lodge failed to meet again until December, when Baker once again deputised. Seven of the twelve lodges summoned by Ward, including the Shakespeare's Head, appeared before Grand Lodge to 'make their excuses and promise to be more regular in the future'. Their apologies were accepted. The remaining lodges were erased:\n\nOrdered that the five following lodges be erased out of the Book of Lodges none attending for them although duly Summoned as aforesaid\n\nNo. | 41 | Mounts Coffee House, Grosvenor Street \n---|---|--- \n| 70 | Salutation, Newgate Street \n| 83 | Sun, Ludgate Street \n| 125 | Ashley's London Punch House \n| 143 | Swan, Southwark\n\nLodge No. 41 had been established in 1727 at the Mount Coffee House; No. 70, warranted in 1731, had met previously at the Crown in Prujean Court near the Old Bailey; No. 83 dated from 1732 and met at the Oxford Arms in Ludgate Street; No. 125 was constituted in 1736; and No. 143 had moved to Southwark in 1742, having originally been formed at the Westminster Hall Tavern in Bishopsgate in 1737.\n\nThe next Quarterly Communication was held in May 1749, a gap of fifteen months. In prior years, the June meeting would have been the installation meeting and occasion of the annual Grand Feast. Instead, Baker more mundanely\n\ninformed the Lodge that himself and several Brethren intended to dine at Bro. Viponts at Hampstead on Saturday the 17th June & desired the Company of such as it suited to dine with him.\n\nThis was the second year that no Grand Feast had taken place. Grand Lodge met again thirteen months later in June 1750. The lodges were called over, paid their charity and the charity's accounts were examined and approved. The dining arrangements, once the principal attraction, were again informal with Baker advising those attending that he intended to be\n\nat Bro Perry's [at] the Bowling Green House at Putney on Saturday 14 July next and hoped that such brethren as it suited would attend him there.\n\nDiscontent was by now rife.\n\nThe Fraternity, finding themselves entirely neglected, it was the opinion of many old masons to have a consultation about electing a new and more active Grand Master, and assembled for that purpose, according to an advertisement.\n\nThomas Manningham, Sir Richard Manningham's second son, headed off the putative rebellion and Grand Lodge met twice more under Baker in September and October 1751. There was no obvious reason for the short gap between the two meetings and attendance at the latter was sparse with only thirty-three lodges represented. However, Byron's return to Grand Lodge on 16 March 1752 was marked by an upsurge, with fifty-six lodges attending represented by 166 masters and wardens. The Grand Feast was reinstated and scheduled for 20 March. But notwithstanding Lord Byron's return, the treatment of two lodge petitions suggests that attitudes at Grand Lodge remained largely unaltered. The first, an appeal from the brethren meeting at the Crown in Parkers Lane, asked that the lodge formerly held there might be restored and return to its former place in the register of lodges. However, rather than approve the restoration of the lodge with or without its former place of precedence, the request was rejected. A second petition was tabled from lodge No. 83. The lodge had met at the Sun in Ludgate Street prior to being erased in December 1748. The lodge also prayed for reinstatement. But the petition was rebuffed. The autocracy which had alienated so many in earlier years appeared set to be maintained.\n\n# CHAPTER SIX\n\n# _Masonic Misrule, Continued_\n\nThe description of 'misrule' that was appended to Byron's term in office from 1747 to 1752 could also have applied to the preceding years, which included Lord Ward's reign as Grand Master. It was also applicable to the mismanagement of those who presided in Byron's absence: Fotherley Baker, the Deputy Grand Master, a lawyer and semi-professional bureaucrat; John Jesse, the Grand Treasurer, an official at the Post Office; and John Revis, Grand Secretary, a middling linen draper.\n\n# FOTHERLEY BAKER\n\nOne of the most important freemasons in the 1740s, Fotherley Baker ( _d_.1754) held a succession of key grand offices for nearly a decade: JGW in 1744, SGW in the following two years and DGM in 1747, remaining as such until 1752. A City-based lawyer and later Clerk to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, he was a member and later a warden of the lodge at the St Paul's Head tavern in Ludgate Street. The lodge was large, with sixty-four members in the list submitted to Grand Lodge in 1730. Although not obviously aristocratic, it had a relatively wealthy and predominantly City-based membership. On 31 March 1735, for example, the lodge was one of the largest contributors to the Grand Charity with a donation of two guineas, twenty-one of the twenty-three other lodges present at that Quarterly Communication donating either half or a quarter of the amount. The quantum of charity contributed by a lodge was a convenient proxy for the affluence of its membership and a deemed expression of loyalty to Grand Lodge. Another sign of the St Paul's Head's favoured status was that its Master was permitted to carry a sword belonging to the lodge before the Grand Master in formal processions. However, the privilege was lost shortly after the duke of Norfolk presented Grand Lodge with a 'richly embellished' sword of state and appointed his own personal sword bearer. The event triggered a petition in favour of the St Paul's Head continuing in the role but despite the support of sixteen masters and wardens under the lead signatory of John Jesse, the Master of the Queen's Head, and Richard Rawlinson, it was rejected. The Grand Master was considered to have an absolute entitlement to appoint his own officers, including a sword bearer, and no argument to the contrary would be accepted.\n\nAside from the abortive petition, the St Paul's Head had a further claim to notoriety. A relatively large number of its members had been connected to _Philo-Musicae et Architecture Societas-Apollini,_ an irregular Masonic lodge established for the benefit of those who appreciated classical music and architecture. The episode provides an example of the interplay between the centralising tendencies of Grand Lodge and London's independent lodges in the 1720s, and contrasts how Masonic disobedience was handled in earlier years in comparison to the approach adopted two decades later.\n\n# _P HILO-MUSICAE ET ARCHITECTURE SOCIETAS-APOLLINI_\n\nEstablished at the Queen's Head tavern in Temple Bar on 18 February 1725, _Philo-Musicae_ was an independent lodge and art club with an emphasis on Italian music. Eight freemasons were present at the inauguration. Seven were also members of the regular lodge at the Queen's Head in Hollis Street, two of whom had been initiated on 24 December 1724 by the duke of Richmond, then Grand Master. Subsequent members included middling lawyers and merchants, minor gentry, government officials and professional musicians. Andrew Pink commented accurately that notwithstanding its lack of affiliation to Grand Lodge and musical focus, _Philo-Musicae_ was in all other ways a 'regular' Masonic lodge. Its minutes record the usual Masonic proceedings, including a petition on 5 August 1725 from a John Ellam that he be made a freemason in order to be admitted a member of the lodge, and Ellam's subsequent initiation. However, perhaps because of the its Enlightenment nature and the social standing and connections of many of its members, _Philo-Musicae_ 's independence and the absence of formal recognition by Grand Lodge was the source of some friction.\n\nThe mid-1720s was a period of accelerating centralisation by English Grand Lodge as it developed and then sought to impose a federal structure and uniform code of behaviour and ritual across London and later provincial English freemasonry. One component in its strategy was an edict issued unilaterally on 21 November 1724 which deemed unaffiliated lodges within ten miles of London 'irregular' and imposed a penalty for supporting or attending an initiation at any such lodge: a ban on associating with 'regular' lodges and with Grand Lodge itself:\n\nThat if any Brethren shall met Irregularly and make Masons at any place within ten mile of London, the persons present at the making (the new brethren excepted) shall not be admitted even as Visitors into any Regular Lodge whatsoever unless they come and make such submission to the Grand Master and Grand Lodge as they shall think fit to impose upon them.\n\nConsequently, _Philo-Musicae_ and its associates were to be deemed _personae non gratae_ and prohibited from regular London freemasonry. Perhaps to the chagrin of those imposing it, the edict was widely ignored and _Philo-Musicae_ prospered, admitting new initiates and joining members at its popular regular meetings. For Grand Lodge, this was at best inconvenient. At its meeting on 20 May 1725, an order was issued 'that there be a letter wrote to the following brethren to desire them to attend the Grand Lodge viz. William Gulston, Coort Knevitt, William Jones, Charles Cotton, Thomas Fisher, Thomas Harbin and Francesco Xaviero Geminiani'. But despite the appearance of firm authority the true position was more complex. On one hand, Grand Lodge needed to be seen to be exerting control and responding to the alarm of concerned Grand Officers, such as George Payne. On the other, members of _Philo-Musicae_ were well-connected, both masonically and more broadly. The duke of Richmond as Grand Master had initiated at least three members: William Jones, the mathematician and a close friend to both Richmond and Martin Folkes; Coort Knevit, a member of Richmond's own Horn Tavern lodge; and Charles Cotton, a City merchant, later appointed a governor of the Bridewell Hospital.\n\nGeorge Payne had made a point of attending a meeting of _Philo-Musicae_ in order to assess the position for himself. But perhaps more significantly, he had also spent close to eight years designing and implementing the new federal structure and regulations to which _Philo-Musicae_ and other independent lodges posed a threat. None of those summoned to Grand Lodge attended and, offended, Payne insisted that Richmond pursue the matter. A note from Payne to _Philo-Musicae_ enclosing a cease and desist letter from Richmond was dated and delivered on 8 December 1725. _Philo-Musicae's_ minutes for 16 December 1725 record its receipt and their apparent outrage that Richmond 'erroneously insists and assumes to himself a Pretended Authority to call our Right Worshipful and Highly Esteemed Society to account for making Masons irregularly'. However, it is more likely that Richmond's letter was more form than substance and _Philo-Musicae's_ minuted response was ironic. In the event, _Philo-Musicae_ ignored Richmond's missive and Grand Lodge also took the matter no further.\n\nThe context for the exchange is important. Historically, individual lodges had been self-governing with autonomy to make masons as each saw fit. It was only Grand Lodge's edict issued some twelve months earlier that deemed such activity apostasy in the absence of an affiliation with itself. The public censure of _Philo-Musicae_ allowed Grand Lodge to be seen as making a stand on the issue, most probably with the intention of encouraging compliance among London lodges more widely. Privately, it is likely that Grand Lodge allowed matters at _Philo-Musicae_ to proceed more or less unhindered. Richmond's connection to Jones, Knevit and Cotton has been mentioned. All three were members of the Queen's Head in Hollis Street: Knevit its Master and Jones its Senior Warden. By the end of 1725, ignoring Grand Lodge's strictures, eleven of the fourteen members of the Queen's Head had become 'directors' or members of _Philo-Musicae. 13_ They included William Gulston, a wine merchant, the president of _Philo-Musicae_ and its principal guiding hand; Papillon Ball, another wealthy merchant and later a director of Royal Exchange Assurance; Francesco Geminiani, an eminent Italian violinist then living in London; and three gentlemen: Anthony Corville, the Junior Warden, Edward Squire and Thomas Marshall. Two other members, Edward Bedford and Thomas Harbin, completed the group. Even those members of the Queen's Head who were not formally part of _Philo-Musicae_ appear as visitors. Peter Reefer [also written as Reffer] was minuted as a guest on at least three occasions, the last being 30 September 1725, six months after the Grand Lodge edict; Thomas Fisher was present twice; and Thomas Gilbert at least once. Philip Hordern, described as a member of the Queen's Head in _Philo-Musicae's_ minutes but not mentioned in the membership list returned to Grand Lodge, visited on 16 December 1725.\n\nHowever, _Philo-Musicae_ 's circle of influence was far wider than Hollis Street alone. Pink has identified around thirty-five members of the lodge; Gould thought its membership above one hundred. Whichever is correct, the lodge had a substantial loyal following and Francis Sorrel and Alexander Harding, two former Grand Wardens, and Charles Delafaye, another member of the Horn, were all minuted as visitors on 23 December 1725, barely two weeks after the despatch of Richmond's letter. Indeed, had Grand Lodge's official pronouncement been enforced, over thirty lodges would have been compromised by their members' visits to _Philo-Musicae_ between 1 April 1725 and 9 March 1727 alone. The number represented over a third of all regular lodges. Perhaps worse from Grand Lodge's standpoint, Geminiani had been invited to join _Philo-Musicae_ and became its director of music principally in order that the first six of Corelli's violin solos could be made into an orchestral concerti grossi. Dedicated to the king, the works were immensely popular and had a large number of subscribers, including five other members of the royal family and numerous members of the aristocracy.\n\nNonetheless, despite its \u2013 albeit indirect \u2013 royal patronage and a steady flow of potential new members, including four who petitioned for membership in February 1727, _Philo-Musicae_ wound down its activities in early 1727 and its last recorded meeting took place on 23 March. No direct pressure appears to have been exerted by Grand Lodge and it impossible to know whether the organisation had naturally run its course or, as the influence of Grand Lodge expanded, some of _Philo-Musicae's_ members wished to avoid potential acrimony and secure their status in what was becoming a consequential organisation. If the latter is correct, and perhaps as compensation, within a few years, several _Philo-Musicae_ alumni including Fotherley Baker, John Jesse, John Revis and Richard Rawlinson had been appointed to Grand Office. And at least eleven members of _Philo-Musicae_ were later members of the St Paul's Head with several joining the OKA, in the mid-1740s, London's most influential Masonic lodge.\n\n# THE ST PAUL'S HEAD\n\nAlthough conjecture, the substitution of the Master of the St Paul's Head as the Grand Master's sword bearer may have been a factor in the \u2013 perhaps compensatory \u2013 selection on 7 June 1733 of two of its members as Grand Stewards: Fotherley Baker and Richard Rawlinson. The appointments were made less than ten days after the rejection of the St Paul's petition to Grand Lodge. Twelve stewards were responsible each year for arranging the Grand Feast and underwriting any loss that arose. At the time, such losses were a strong possibility. However, in addition to signifying a financial commitment to freemasonry, the role was probably more significant in that it generally presaged higher Masonic rank for those appointed. From around 1730, virtually every Deputy Grand Master and Grand Warden had been chosen from the ranks of the Grand Stewards. Indeed, on 31 March 1735, reflecting what had become established practice, Grand Lodge 'resolved, that for the future all Grand Officers (except the Grand Master) should be selected out of [the Grand Stewards]'.\n\nThe St Paul's Head was honoured again in June 1735, when John Jesse, the immediate past master, also became a Grand Steward, albeit as a replacement. Jesse was later to become treasurer of Grand Lodge, serving from 1739 until his death in 1753. He was friends with Fotherley Baker, who provided his security to Grand Lodge in respect of the Grand Charity's funds. They were both later directors of the Amicable Society, a life assurance company, and sponsored two hospitals: the Small Pox Hospital and the London Infirmary. Their jointly rising Masonic status was marked publicly in the press in 1741:\n\nOn Tuesday Night at the Devil Tavern Temple Bar, was held a Quarterly Communication of the most ancient and Honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, when a handsome contribution was made for the Relief of decay'd Brethren, and the Right Hon the earl of Morton was chose Grand Master Elect for the Year ensuing, who re-elected the former Deputy Grand Master and warden. There were nearly 300 Brethren present, and among them were the Count de Truches the Prussian Minister, the earl of Hyndford, the earl of Loudon, the Lord Ward, the Lord Raymond, George Payne Esq., Fotherby Baker Esq., John Jesse Esq. and other Persons of Distinction.\n\nBaker attended Grand Lodge frequently. He was made acting Junior Grand Warden on 24 June 1741 and appointed to the role formally on 2 May 1744 by the earl of Strathmore, the then Grand Master. The following year, Strathmore's successor, Lord Cranstoun, appointed Baker his Senior Grand Warden and, on succeeding Cranstoun in 1747, Byron appointed him Deputy Grand Master with 'full authority and right' in his absence. Described as a gentleman in the list of subscribers for Bishop Burnet's _History of His Own Time,_ Baker was in 1724 an attorney with an office in Bread Street in the City of London, a secondary road running perpendicular from Cheapside to Watling Street. In 1740 he relocated to the more prestigious Queen Street, a few yards to the east. The St Paul's Head tavern in Ludgate would have been a brief stroll from either location.\n\nBaker's father, Nicholas, had also been an attorney, Solicitor to the Treasury from 1695\u20131700 and then Clerk to the Commission of Lieutenancy for the City of London. In addition to his legal work and perhaps partly because of it, Baker was appointed Clerk to the Haberdashers' Company on 21 October 1741, one of the principal City livery companies. His appointment was recorded in the _Daily Gazetteer_ and _London Evening Post,_ among others. It may not have been coincidental that the annual Grand Feast was held at the Haberdashers' hall in 1740 and for the next five years with the exception of 1743, when a concern over numbers led to the feast being 'deferred to a more proper opportunity'. The event's decreasing popularity is substantiated by a shift to the Drapers' hall in 1745, which held around 250, far less than the number accommodated at the Haberdashers'. The following year, the Grand Feast was cancelled again; that in 1747 went ahead, again at the Drapers'. The next feast would not be held until 1752.\n\nBaker's role as Clerk may not have been particularly remunerative but it carried prestige and provided both accommodation and an office. The Haberdashers' Company was located centrally in the City at the junction of Maiden Lane and Staining Lane, just off Wood Street to the north of Cheapside. Baker took advantage of the location and although he had a country house at Bromley in Kent, classified advertisements and published reports in connection with his charity work gave his address at the 'house at the hall' until his death on 8 May 1754.\n\nBaker's charitable activities would have proved a large financial drain and point to the need for a relatively healthy income. Baker's legal practice and, to a lesser extent, position as Clerk to the Haberdashers' may have produced reasonable earnings. Indeed, Baker was described mid-career, correctly or otherwise, as an 'attorney of great practice'. However, any wealth may have been the product of a dowry from his marriage to the only daughter of Sir Richard Brocas, a City alderman. Brocas, a senior City figure, had been Master of the Grocers' Company (1724); a City sheriff (1729) and, in 1730, was elected Lord Mayor. He was also an exceptionally active magistrate, a role that formed part of his civic duties. The LMA contains records of over seventy hearings at the City of London's Sessions and more than fifty at the Old Bailey. Indeed, Hitchcock made a salient if slightly exaggerated observation that 'for a time in the 1720s and 1730s he seems to have almost entirely monopolized the dispensation of justice in the City'. In keeping with his status, Brocas was also a governor of St Thomas's Hospital and of the Bridewell; and treasurer and later president of St Bartholomew's Hospital.\n\nParticipation in charitable undertakings was a corollary and obligation of wealth and like his father-in-law, Baker embraced the milieu and was heavily involved with the creation, governance and fund raising for the London Infirmary, later renamed the London Hospital.\n\n# THE LONDON INFIRMARY\n\nThe London Infirmary was one of five new general hospitals set up in London between 1720 and 1745. Financed by public subscription and voluntary contributions, it was incorporated in September 1740 with an initial capital of 100 guineas provided by seven founders. At least three were freemasons: Baker, its treasurer; John Harrison, a member of the Lebeck's Head lodge in Maiden Lane and the hospital's first surgeon; and Josiah Cole, Master of the Vine Tavern lodge in Holborn and its apothecary. Baker's influence may have been instrumental in obtaining the duke of Richmond's patronage as the hospital's first president, although no correspondence has been located. Richmond accepted the position in 1741 and in _An Account of the Rise, Progress and State of the London Infirmary_ published the following year, Baker is shown as Richmond's deputy and the sole vice president. The third most senior figure was Thomas Boehm, a City merchant who succeeded Baker as treasurer; Boehm had been elected a Grand Steward in 1736.\n\nAs the number of patients treated by the London Infirmary rose from just over 2,700 in 1742 to more than 8,000 in 1749, its annual disbursements also increased, from c.\u00a31,200 to over \u00a33,000. The workload of the hospital's management committee rose accordingly. By the late 1740s, the committee met at least weekly with Baker presiding as vice president. Richmond was a figurehead; indeed, it had been agreed as early as 1742 that peers could vote by proxy. His presidency was designed to encourage others. And he succeeded. The number of those providing sponsorship grew and by December 1743, numbered around ninety, including three of Baker's current colleagues at Grand Lodge: Benjamin Gascoyne, William Graeme and John Jesse, all past Grand Stewards. Other Masonic supporters were John Hawkins, then Master of the Ship at the Royal Exchange; George Thornborough, a member of the Swan at Greenwich; Major General Williamson of the Horn tavern; and Charles, Lord Baltimore, another from Richmond's inner circle. Baker, Boehm, Jesse and Williamson were all life governors of the hospital, having donated at least 30 guineas to secure the title. Baker extended his commitment to the hospital in 1743 and was one of eight stewards appointed by the governors to organise its annual fund raising anniversary feast. The evening was held at the Haberdashers' hall on 25 March 1743. In addition to Richmond, Baker and Boehm, the stewards that year included John Atwood, a Grand Steward in 1731, a member of the lodge at the Star & Garter in Covent Garden and the Fleece in Fleet Street, and Thomas Jeffreys, a Grand Steward in 1736. Jeffreys was also a member of the St Paul's Head lodge and later Junior Grand Warden under Baker's Deputy Grand Mastership.\n\nThe London Infirmary's profile rose rapidly and the number of contributors supporting the hospital tripled. Among the organisation's new supporters were aristocrats, politicians and the clergy, including the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the late primate of Ireland, and the bishops of Bristol, Chichester and Oxford. Baker remained one of the trustees of the hospital until 1751, receiving, holding and disbursing funds on its behalf and with his name displayed in the financial statements published annually from 1744. But perhaps recognising that his social position and personal wealth were insufficient to command the respect of many of the hospital's new supporters, Baker stood down as vice president in 1747. He was replaced by Sir James Lowther, 4th Bt. (1673\u20131755), and Peter Du Cane (1713\u20131804). Lowther, a coal magnate and one of the wealthiest commoners in England, had estates in Whitehaven, Cumberland which generated an annual income of around \u00a325,000 and were worth above \u00a3600,000 at his death. Du Cane became a governor of the hospital in 1743 and treasurer in 1746. A Huguenot City merchant, he had estates at Braxstead in Essex and a house in St James's Square. Du Cane was a governor of the Bank of England, a director of the Honourable East India Company and a member of the Court of St Thomas's Hospital. He was married to Mary Norris, the daughter of Henry Norris.\n\n# THE AMICABLE SOCIETY FOR A PERPETUAL INSURANCE UPON LIVES\n\nBaker was elected a director of the Amicable Society in 1736 and served initially for a year. Unlike many of his co-directors, he had been a subscribing member of the Society since 1730, described in the members' register as a gentleman. Baker was re-elected in 1739 and remained on the Court or board until 1753, taking periodic one-year statutory breaks between each three year term. In 1743, Edward Hody joined the board, and in 1746, John Jesse. The three served together continuously until 1753. Freemasons had a notable presence on the Court. In the 1740s and into the early 1750s, and in addition to Baker, Jesse and Hody, the Society's directors included Thomas Cuthbert, a warden at the Nag's Head lodge in Prince's Street and Ambrose Dickens, probably the 'Mr Dickens' of the Vine Tavern lodge in Holborn. Five directors were merchants: Jonathan Ewer, Isaac Hunter, Elijah Impey, John Ridge and Thomas Symes; and five attorneys, Baker, Samuel Calverley, Robert Handley, Robert Michel and Robert Waddilove. An average of around ten directors served annually.\n\nThe Amicable was Britain's first mutual life assurance society. Incorporated by charter of Queen Anne in 1706 with a slate of prominent sponsors including William Talbot, later Bishop of Oxford, the Society was structured such that a maximum of 2,000 members would each pay initial fees of 10 _s_ and a fixed annual contribution of \u00a36 4 _s. 61_ Subscribers owned both their policies and a stake in the Society, with membership open to anyone aged between 12 and 45. Each year, the members' annual contributions less operating costs were divided between the representatives of those members who had died. The arrangement avoided actuarial risk, high mortality in any year resulted in a lower payout rather than in a reduction in reserves, but there were commercial risks, including fraud and losses on investments. Indeed, embezzlement occurred virtually from inception.\n\nA history of the Society published in 1732 indicated that the value of its stock rose from \u00a325,000 in 1710 to \u00a334,000 in 1715, and to over \u00a345,000 immediately prior to the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. In 1731, asset value had declined to just over \u00a327,300, mainly due to the fall in value of the South Sea stock which caused a drop of some \u00a313,000 alone. However, fraud was at the root of other losses. An accountant, 'Mr Wall', had fled with \u00a3300; a prior treasurer, 'Higgs', had 'lost' \u00a32,500 in 1713; and perhaps most egregiously, Mr Hodgson, another former treasurer, had absconded in 1730 after embezzling \u00a34,400. Whiston also calculated that a failure to collect full annual premiums on outstanding policies caused additional losses of \u00a38,200. However, better management, improved investment returns and the absence of further fraud turned matters around. By 1742, finances had improved sufficiently for the Court to reduce annual subscriptions to \u00a35, payable quarterly. Geoffrey Clark has noted that a number of companies, including the Amicable, had intended that income from accumulated assets would allow them to become self-financing without the need for annual contributions. This almost occurred. The bull market in the second decade of the eighteenth century saw individual policy interests sold at a premium as the value of the portfolio rose; and even after losses on the South Sea stock, by the second half of the century, the Society set a minimum payout on death notwithstanding actual mortality rates.\n\nBoth superficially and at its core, the Amicable embodied the bourgeois virtue of prudence. Clark was correct in noting that by agreeing to an association with other professional households 'the middling sort could lay claim to the political virtue and moral legitimacy that had generally been regarded as the preserve of landed families'. In Clark's words,\n\nto the many urban households of middling means lacking the security of landed wealth, the prospect of acquiring part-title to a growing fund of money (and of doing so while actually reducing their financial exposure) must have seemed a golden means to entrench their economic position against mortal risks while also providing an enduring vehicle for the conveyance of their fortunes down the generations.\n\nOf course, the words 'many' and 'middling' need defining. The number of households able financially to take advantage of mutual societies such as the Amicable, probably represented at most around 10 per cent, perhaps less, of London's population. Membership was inevitably tilted towards professional men, merchants and the more affluent who could afford the annual fee, a bias substantiated by the _List of the Members of the Corporation_ which gives both occupation and address. (The difference that existed between such middling associations and their Moderns members and the more accessible mutual support framework offered by the Antients is self-evident.) Moreover, unlike a friendly society, the Amicable also offered an opportunity for financial speculation. Because there was no restriction on the lives insured nor any requirement to substantiate an insurable interest, policies were often written as wagers. The presence of assorted dukes and other prominent public figures among the lives insured provides evidence that gambling was prevalent. The only barrier to fraud was the acceptance of the policy by the Court. As Gary Salzman noted, such arrangements remained unchanged until 1774, when parliament eventually acted to regulate the industry and require that there be an insurable interest in order for a policy to be valid. The purpose was squarely to remove the temptation to gamble and reduce the risk of fraud; in its own words, the Act '[regulated] insurance upon lives... prohibiting all such insurance except in cases where the persons insuring shall have an interest in the life or death of the person insured'.\n\nIt is impossible to know whether Baker had a financial motive to accepting a position on the Amicable's Court rather than enhancing his social status or exercising his public spirit. The board's remuneration, at least in the 1730s, was modest, with direct payments amounting to only around \u00a3100 in total and covering expenses and disbursements approved by the Court. However, the first mention of an independent audit was not until the late 1740s when five gentlemen were chosen as auditors: Thomas Rawling, John Read, Charles Cotton, James Cole and John Unwin'. Several had links to Baker, Jesse and Hody. Cotton had been a member of the Queen's Head lodge in Hollis Street and a member of _Philo-Musicae;_ Read a past Grand Steward, appointed in 1732; and John Unwyn (or Unwin), a member of the lodge at the Ship behind the Royal Exchange. Cole may have been the then Master of the lodge at the Vine in Holborn.\n\n# THE SMALL POX HOSPITAL\n\nBaker was also instrumental in the development of London's Small Pox Hospital. Established by subscription in 1746, sufficient seed funds had been raised by 1749 to allow inoculations to commence later that year. Baker was elected a governor in 1750, chairman of the Court the following year and the hospital's treasurer in 1752. The Court was responsible for collecting and supervising the disbursement of close to \u00a36,000, the majority of which was linked to property improvements, and Baker's role would have been time intensive. It may also have been profitable. Conventionally, the treasurer had control of the whole of an institution's funds.\n\nLike the London Infirmary, the Small Pox Hospital held anniversary feasts as annual fund raising events and as with the Masonic Grand Feast, stewards were appointed to underwrite the dinner and encourage ticket sales by example or persuasion. That in 1752 was held on 5 March after a sermon preached at St Andrew's church in Holborn before the duke of Marlborough and the Court. The sermon, by the Bishop of Worcester, was reported in the press and 'answered the objection to inoculations... showed the salutariness of that method... and took notice of how great use this Hospital was to the poor'. The _London Daily Advertiser_ wrote that the church service was 'accompanied by a full band of vocal and instrumental music' and _The London Magazine_ praised 'a very fine performance of music vocal and instrumental by above 70 performers'. At its end, a parade of carriages processed from Holborn to the Drapers' hall, carrying the governors, the stewards and their supporters. In addition to its value as a spectacle, the event was a financial success:\n\nthere was collected at the church \u00a3225 16s and the collection at the hall after dinner, and the several benefactions then given to that charity, with what was received at the church, amounted to \u00a3820 and upwards.\n\nSuch events were designed to appeal to both the gentry and the aspirational middling classes. The _London Daily Advertiser_ noted the presence of 'a very numerous company of the Nobility, Gentlemen and Merchants' at the dinner. And the _London Magazine_ recorded the attendance of some '3,000 ladies' at the church service, for which event tickets were available specifically. The stewards ranged across a narrow spectrum from the aristocracy to affluent City figures and included the 4th earl of Cardigan, George Brudenell, the son-in-law of the duke of Montagu, the first noble Grand Master; and George Parker, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, the Teller of the Exchequer and another prominent freemason. Among the other grandees who lent their names and pocket books were Sir William Beauchamp, a lawyer and Whig MP for Middlesex; William Calvert, Master of the Brewers' Company and Lord Mayor in 1748; John Hopkins who had inherited a \u00a3300,000 estate from his cousin of the same name; and Moses Mendes, a successful stockjobber.\n\nThe fund raising the following year was even more substantial and married dinner at the Merchant Taylors' hall with a performance of Handel's _Alexander's Feast_ at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket. The evening was bisected by a carriage procession from the theatre to the Merchant Taylors' in Threadneedle Street. It was promoted heavily with daily press advertisements and in addition to the monies raised from ticket sales, the collection at dinner brought a further \u00a3600 to the hospital with a second taken the following day. Money-raising advertisements nonetheless continued:\n\nYesterday the Committee of the Small Pox Hospital met at the Hospital in Cold Bath Fields (where they met every first Thursday in the Month in the Morning) and upon viewing the Patients, twelve Men and Boys, and twelve Women and Girls, by Inoculation, with twelve Men and Boys, and twelve Women and Girls, in the natural Way, appeared perfectly cured, and will be discharged in two or three days. The Public may observe by this, the great Benefit of this most useful Charity. Benefactions and Subscriptions are received by Sir Joseph and Sir Thomas Hankey & Co., Bankers in Fenchurch Street; Messrs Ironside, Belchier and How, in Lombard Street; Mr George Campbell, Banker, in the Strand; Andrew Drummond Esq., & Co. at Charing Cross; Fotherley Baker, treasurer to the Hospital, at Haberdashers' hall.\n\nThe likely impact on Baker of his portfolio of activities and interests can be imagined. As a practicing City solicitor, Clerk to the Haberdashers', a director of the Amicable Society and an active governor, treasurer or trustee of two expanding hospitals, each of which was busy fund raising and developing their respective properties, Baker would have had only limited time for administrative duties as Deputy Grand Master. But this would have been a matter of choice. It can be assumed that the kudos and responsibilities attached to his extra-Masonic activities were more attractive and gave greater opportunities for networking. He was also following an established trend for many men to express their benevolence less through freemasonry and more directly by serving as governors and subscribers to specific socially attractive causes. Moreover, London freemasonry was in decline. With Baker focused elsewhere, Byron's non-attendance at Grand Lodge between 1747 and 1752 was marked by an absence of aristocratic patronage and of anyone willing to pick up the pieces. Baker's substitute leadership was ineffectual. Quarterly Communications were irregular and problematic, and formal set piece events, including the annual Grand Feast, absent. Press coverage, let alone positive coverage, was nonexistent.\n\n# JOHN JESSE\n\nJohn Jesse (\u2014?-1753), a second member of the St Paul's Head lodge and a Grand Steward in 1735 was elected Grand Treasurer in January 1739. His predecessor, Nathaniel Blackerby, had resigned after seven years, piqued at a resolution that he now be required to provide security for the funds he held on behalf of the Grand Charity.\n\nThe Treasurer then stood up & thanked the Brethren for the honour they had done him in continuing so long their Treasurer but told them that he could not be insensible of the Indignity offered him in the Resolutions & the ill treatment he had met with in the Debate & he resented the same in the highest manner And then resigned his Office of Treasurer & promised to send the next morning to the Grand Secretary a Draft on the Bank for the Balance in his hands.\n\nAlthough absent at the time of the meeting, John Revis, the Grand Secretary, was proposed as Blackerby's replacement. The proposal was agreed but at the next meeting Revis asked to be excused from holding both posts. His request was accepted and on 28 June at the next Quarterly Communication, Lord George Graham informed Grand Lodge that he had the Grand Master, Lord Carnarvon's command to propose John Jesse for the office. What occurred next provides an insight into the inner workings of Grand Lodge.\n\nJesse's nomination as prospective treasurer did not move as planned. Samuel Righton [Wrighton] handed up a written objection to proceeding to an immediate election and announced that he wished to propose an alternative. Asked to name the person, Wrighton initially prevaricated but 'after many times called upon for that purpose, proposed John Horne of Newport Market, poulterer, to serve the said office'. Horne was divisive, and not merely because his proposal went against the wishes of the new Grand Master. In December 1730, when Horne had been Master of the lodge at the Crown & Sceptres in St Martin's Lane, No. 27 in the 1729 register of lodges, he had been one of five who had volunteered to serve as a Grand Steward. So small a number was thought to be inadequate to underwrite the cost of the Grand Feast, and it was instead proposed that the six junior stewards who had served the previous year should attend the Deputy Grand Master (Nathaniel Blackerby) at the Horn tavern 'who is desired to fix this affair in such manner as he shall think fit'.\n\nAt that meeting, Horne and two others who had volunteered were excluded from the new list of prospective Grand Stewards that was presented to the next meeting of Grand Lodge on 29 January 1731. The amended list was headed by James Chambers, a City banker, who had been asked to encourage volunteers and had invited five members of his own lodge to join him. Not only was Horne aggrieved at being excluded, he had also been insulted by Chambers' somewhat gratuitous assertion that 'the stewards would not have such a fellow amongst them'. The aspersion led to the Crown & Sceptres lodge refusing to attend the Grand Feast; they instead dined separately. Grand Lodge's minutes record the debate that followed and the dispute between Horne and Chambers was referred to the Charity Committee to be resolved. In the meantime, it was agreed that in future no lodge should arrange a dinner that coincided with the Grand Feast. However, perhaps inevitably, no report from the Charity Committee was ever minuted as having been presented to Grand Lodge; and only two months later in March 1731, Chambers was appointed Junior Grand Warden.\n\nThe declaration that Horne was willing to stand against Jesse resulted in 'great debates arising', a reflection that at least some of those present considered that he had an arguable case. Critically, Wrighton had stated that Horne 'would not only give land security of a sufficient value in the county of Middlesex for what he should be entrusted, but would also allow interest at the rate of four per cent per annum'. In short, should Horne be elected treasurer, he would agree to forego any personal financial benefits that might otherwise be obtained from holding the Grand Charity's funds. This was a considerable give up: holding such financial assets was a standard means of earning income and amassing capital. But rather than debate and deliberate, Graham ended the discussion and 'it being high twelve, the Lodge was closed without coming to any determination'.\n\nThe next Quarterly Communication was held on 31 January 1739 and the turnout was substantial. Carnarvon was present with his Grand Officers, who were accompanied by eight past Grand Masters and Grand Officers, together with the representatives of just under one hundred lodges. In a pre-arranged move, Desaguliers proposed that it should be the Grand Master's right to name the person to serve in the office of treasurer. It being agreed, Carnarvon named Jesse without further debate and ordered that the charity's funds be paid across. That the transfer of monies took place before any security had been provided by Jesse underlines the desire that the matter be resolved immediately. It was only at the following meeting that Fotherley Baker's bond was 'read, approved of and ordered to be engrossed and executed'. Jesse was re-elected annually and served as treasurer until his death in 1753. Horne's lodge, then meeting at Forrest's Coffee House in Charing Cross, ceased to attend Grand Lodge and was erased in March 1745.\n\nJohn Jesse was a minor bureaucrat who held a middle-ranking administrative position at the Post Office. He first appeared in the press in 1729 on succeeding to his father's position:\n\nwe hear that Mr John Jesse, only Son to Mr John Jesse who died last Tuesday, will succeed his Father in the Post Office, said to be worth \u00a3100 per Annum.\n\nHis father featured in the Post Office accounts in 1718 as an Assistant Comptroller of the Inland Office earning \u00a375 per annum. The 1723 edition of John Chamberlayne's _Magn\u00e6 Britanni\u00e6 notitia_ noted that his salary had increased to \u00a3100 per annum five years later and that he was now occupied in 'overlook[ing] the mis-sent, overcharged and dead letters'. His son's position and remuneration were similarly modest. However, the receipt of an inheritance in 1733 almost certainly accelerated his Masonic profile and his career. It was also sufficient to attract press comment:\n\na few days since died at Deptford, Mrs Grace Jesse, a maiden lady, worth upwards of \u00a310,000, the bulk of which she has left to her nephew and sole executor, Mr John Jesse of the General Post Office.\n\nA year later following the death of Charles Peal, his former superior, Jesse was promoted to the position of first clerk to the Postmaster General and under secretary to the Post Office, a position commanding a salary of around \u00a3200 per annum. He became Deputy Cashier in 1737 and was later promoted to Cashier. From this point onward, Jesse's profile rose as he became the signatory to numerous formal announcements issued by the Post Office and appeared at magistrates' courts and the Old Bailey to give evidence on behalf of his employer. Jesse's involvement with the judiciary also took a more personal turn. In June 1747, suspecting a theft, Jesse took direct action, seized the suspect 'and dragged him into the lodge [at Newgate]... whereupon... six handkerchiefs were found in his pockets besides Mr Jesse's. He was immediately charged in the custody of a constable, to be confined'. Jesse was equally robust in the case of a courier who was charged and sentenced to two weeks hard labour for failing to deliver a letter. The justice trying the case in 1751 was Henry Fielding, then London's chief magistrate:\n\nYesterday one Williams, a Porter, was committed to Bridewell for a fortnight to hard labour, by Justice Fielding, on the statute made in the 20th year of his present Majesty against labourers who are guilty of any misdemeanour in their employment for the following fact. He received eighteen-pence of John Jesse, Esq., of the Post Office to carry a letter to Mrs Jesse at Bayswater but instead of delivering it, thought proper to throw it away.\n\nJesse was promoted again in 1747, succeeding Edmund Barham as Accomptant General, the second most senior position at the Post Office after that of Postmaster General, then as now a political appointment. Coincidentally or otherwise, the joint Postmaster General from 1733 until his death in 1759 was another prominent freemason, Thomas Coke, Lord Lovell, a loyal supporter of Sir Robert Walpole. Coke had been raised to a peerage in 1729 and his political allegiance rewarded further with elevation to Viscount Coke and earl of Leicester in 1744. Lovell had succeeded the duke of Norfolk as Grand Master of English Grand Lodge in 1731. He had been initiated in the 1720s and was part of the duke of Richmond's social and Masonic set.\n\nUntil his marriage in 1744, Jesse lived in Clement's Lane, a small street off Eastcheap in the City, close by the Post Office's headquarters in Lombard Street, his office for some twenty-five years. Stow's comment on the efficacy of the postal service in the eighteenth century reflects the respect in which the institution was held and its importance 'for the advancement of trade and commerce as well as the convenience of all other business'. In the light of modern postal and courier services, it demands repetition:\n\nThe conveyance of all domestic letters is so expeditious that every 24 hours the Post goes 120 Miles... for a letter containing a whole sheet is conveyed 80 Miles for 2d, if a double letter for 6d, one ounce of letters for 10d; but if above 80 Miles, a single Letter 4d, if doubled 6d and an ounce 14d.\n\nThe Post Days to send letters from _London_ to any part of _England_ and _Scotland_ are _Tuesdays,_ Thursdays, and _Saturdays:_ and the returns certain on _Mondays, Wednesdays_ and _Fridays_... to _Wales_ and _Ireland,_ the Post goes only twice a week; _viz_ on _Tuesdays_ and _Saturdays,_ and comes from _Wales_ every _Monday_ and _Friday;_ but from _Ireland_ the Return is uncertain, because it (as all other foreign Letters do) depends upon Winds.\n\nFor foreign Intelligence in Times of Peace, _Mondays_ and _Thursdays_ are the Posts for _France, Spain_ and _Italy;_ and _Tuesdays_ and _Fridays_ for _Holland,_ _Germany, Denmark_ and _Sweden._ On _Mondays_ and _Fridays,_ the Post goes also for _Flanders_ and from thence to _Germany, Denmark_ and _Sweden_... for the further encouragement of trade and commerce, the late Queen Anne appointed boats to carry letters and pacquets from England as far as the West Indies... the rate for every letter is 9d a sheet.\n\nJesse's marriage to Esther Wood, the daughter of Christopher Wood, described as a gentleman of Norton, Staffordshire, was reported in several newspapers, including the _Daily Post_ of 1 October 1744. No dowry was mentioned and it is possible that his wife's family was even then in financial difficulty. The _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer_ of 14 November 1749 recorded that Christopher Wood of Norton under Cannock in Staffordshire, now a 'dealer and chapman', had been declared bankrupt. He died soon after and a private act of parliament in 1750 ordered that his estate be sold to repay his debts. The _General Advertiser_ on 28 July 1752 set out the particulars of the estate which included several farms amounting to some 400 acres, pools and ponds, two-thirds of the manor of Norton and a further 3,000 acres 'with coal mines in them'. One of the four attorneys appointed to handle the sale was Fotherley Baker. The estate was almost certainly heavily mortgaged and no purchasers were forthcoming; in 1757, the Court of Chancery ordered that the estate be auctioned.\n\nFollowing his marriage, Jesse moved from the City, acquiring a house in Bayswater on a recently built development at Craven Hill on Lord Craven's estate. A similar property was advertised in March 1749, described as containing 'all sorts of conveniences' and considered entirely suitable for a middling family, being 'pleasantly situated at Craven Hill... adjoining to Kensington gravel pits, opposite Kensington Gardens and at a distance from the road'. Jesse's affluence was marked not only by his new house but also the coach and staff that he maintained.\n\nHis association with Fotherley Baker almost certainly originated within freemasonry. Both were successively members of _Philo-Musicae_ and the St Paul's Head lodges; each was appointed a Grand Steward, Baker in 1733 and Jesse in 1735; and both served as Grand Officers throughout the 1740s and early 1750s. Over time, their relationship developed extra-masonically. Probably at Baker's invitation, Jesse became a director of the Amicable Society; he was first elected in 1746 and, with a statutory one-year gap, served two successive three years terms until 1752. Jesse also became a governor of the London Infirmary in 1742, a life governor the following year and, in 1752, a trustee; he also subscribed to become a governor of the Small Pox Hospital in 1750.\n\nJesse served as Grand Treasurer until his death in 1753. The minutes for 6 March that year note his inability to attend due to illness and those of 14 June record that 'the DGM acquainted the Brethren with the death of Bro John Jesse Esq'. His will was proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 13 June 1753.\n\n# JOHN REVIS\n\nIn 1723, John Revis (\u2014?\u20131765) was Junior Warden of the Crown & Anchor lodge close to St Clements Church, a few steps away from Jesse's house in Clement's Lane. Two years later, the lodge had moved to the Star and Garter in Covent Garden and Revis had become Senior Warden. In 1728, the lodge relocated to the Globe in the Strand and Revis had become its Master and a Grand Steward. Revis also featured in the minutes of Grand Lodge three years later on 24 June 1731, described as the Master of the Queen's Head, Great Queen Street, in connection with a petition seeking relief for a fellow mason \u2013 North Stainer \u2013 who had been imprisoned for debt. Revis supported the petition and had 'taken the trouble of going to [Stainer's] creditors'; he reported that they would accept 2 _s_ 6 _d_ in the pound in full discharge of their debts. An enthusiastic freemason, Revis was appointed Grand Secretary on 30 March 1734. He held the position for twenty-three years until 1757, when he was appointed DGM, serving until 1763. He held active office eighteen years longer than any of his peers.\n\nRevis was born in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, the son of an apothecary. He moved to London and worked, apparently successfully, as a lace and linen draper. However, he was not a member of the Drapers' Company. The electoral roll confirms his address near Charing Cross and that he voted for Sir George Vandeput, a candidate for the Independent Electors of Westminster in the 1749 elections. Revis was also one of several signatories who testified to the effectiveness of 'Mr Godfrey's Fire Machines' in extinguishing a fire in Charing Cross on 2 August 1724; a certificate to the effect was published in the _London Gazette_ on 8 and 11 August 1724. There is no record of a marriage. Obituary notices following his death on 3 September 1765 confirm his occupation, residence and charitable activities:\n\nTuesday night last died, at Rochester, [on] his way to London, John Revis, Esq.; formerly a linen draper at Charing Cross; much esteemed for his honesty and integrity while in business, and whose death will be severely felt by many people, as he always took delight in relieving the distressed, and has left the most convincing proof of his humane and charitable disposition towards the poor, having for many years since built alms houses at Newport Pagnell, Bucks., the place of his nativity, with a generous endowment: but too sensible will the poor in general be of the loss of so good a friend to enumerate his many other amiable qualities would exceed the bound of this paper.\n\nThe seven almshouses in Newport Pagnell financed by Revis in the mid-1750s still stand and the charity he founded and endowed continues. His bequest and the death of his mother and sisters are commemorated in the parish church of St Peter and St Paul and the underlying conveyances, trustees and value of the endowment, then some \u00a33,700, are described in _A History of Newport Pagnell. 121_\n\nUnlike Baker, Jesse and other Masonic colleagues, Revis appears not to have engaged with any of the more popular London charities but instead maintained a low public profile. His freemasonry and business may have absorbed the majority of his time. Indeed, freemasonry may have become a substitute for family. Revis received no financial reward for his role as Grand Secretary and self-financed his expenses for nearly two decades, including paying the salary of an assistant. When in 1752, it was proposed somewhat belatedly that his costs be reimbursed, Revis declined, 'generously waiving all pecuniary advantages'. Nonetheless, it was agreed that he should be allowed a stipend of three guineas for each meeting, including the Grand Feast, in order 'to defray his expenses of an assistant secretary and the expenses of printing and sending out the Summonses together with every other incidental charge and or expense'.\n\nWithin Grand Lodge, Revis appears to have been regarded as little more than a functionary, rather than a colleague on equal terms. It is difficult otherwise to explain how he came to be nominated for the post of Treasurer in 1738 while he was already Secretary without having been consulted, let alone the matter of his funding Grand Lodge's operating costs and expenses for twenty years. If this were so, he would have been out of step with many of his Moderns contemporaries who treated freemasonry as a continuation of their associational life. And it may explain his absence from the later membership list of the OKA which in the 1740s harboured many of Grand Lodge's leading figures. In 1728, when Revis was Master of the Globe, it was common for Grand Stewards and other senior freemasons to be members of more than a single lodge and he is listed as a member of the OKA, then lodge No. 43. No minute books pre-dating 1731 survive and Revis is not mentioned in the list of members submitted to Grand Lodge in 1725 or 1730. Had he had been a member of the OKA in 1728, it would appear that he later ceased to attend. He would otherwise have been mentioned in the OKA minutes given his subsequent positions as Grand Secretary and Deputy Grand Master. One reason may have been the shift in the character and membership of the lodge, which was becoming increasingly socially exclusive. Indeed, the OKA became so important in the 1740s, it was almost an inner core of Grand Lodge \u2013 a grand lodge within.\n\n# CHAPTER SEVEN\n\n# _The King's Arms Lodge_\n\nIn the 1720s and early 1730s, the duke of Richmond's Horn tavern had dominated Grand Lodge and a few key members substantially controlled the direction of English freemasonry. By the late 1730s, the position had changed to the extent that within a decade, the Horn had ceased to be recognised as a 'regular' lodge. A catalyst was the appointment in 1735 of the 2nd viscount Weymouth as Grand Master of English freemasons. Weymouth had been initiated into the OKA the prior year and in deference to his rank, if not to his age, he was 25, he was elected Master of the lodge in March 1735. Two short months later, Weymouth was installed as Grand Master.\n\nSir Cecil Wray, the Master of the OKA at whose invitation Weymouth had joined, had been Deputy Grand Master the prior year and was instrumental in arranging Weymouth's accession within Grand Lodge. The appointment cemented a connection between the OKA and Grand Lodge that would last more than fifteen years. In 1735, Martin Clare, who for many years had deputised for Wray at the OKA, was appointed Junior Grand Warden; in 1736, both Grand Wardens, Sir Robert Lawley and William Graeme, were sourced from the OKA. Other members of the lodge were also given grand rank over the next decade, including Benjamin Gascoyne and Edward Hody, who became Grand Wardens in the early 1740s. But perhaps most impressively, in virtually every year between 1738 and 1752, a member of the OKA occupied the pivotal position of Deputy Grand Master. By the mid-1740s, the lodge had established itself as London's best connected and most exclusive lodge. Indeed, if further evidence were required, Anthony Sayer, Grand Master in 1717, was employed as the lodge's tyler in 1735, a post he retained until his death in 1742.\n\nTable 24 demonstrates the level of interconnectivity between the OKA and Grand Lodge. This had been orchestrated. Where in the early 1730s the OKA was positioned as one of the leading Enlightenment lodges, the lodge minute book hints that by the mid- and late 1740s the lodge operated almost as an exclusive outpost of Grand Lodge and a grand dining club. The lodge had a policy of inviting members of Grand Lodge to join and to attend its meeting and dinners. Eccleshall notes the OKA minutes of 15 March 1736, which record that the guests that evening included John Ward, the Deputy Grand Master and acting Grand Master; Sir Edward Mansell, the Senior Grand Warden; and Lord Loudon, the prospective Grand Master. On occasions such as this, the main emphasis was on dining and drinking, and '[Masonic] business was adjourned', albeit that 'the Society did not break up until after midnight'. The practice continued into the 1740s. Edward Hody's year as Master concluded with the lodge entertaining the then Lord Ward, now Grand Master in his own right, and his principal officers. Eccleshall records that 'the lodge was clearly anxious to preserve its close contact with Grand Lodge' and in 1746 it was resolved that 'any former or present Grand Officer... shall be admitted (without the form of a ballot or the usual fee) by a majority of the brethren then present'. That year, five Grand Officers joined: George Payne, the oldest and most senior surviving non-aristocratic Grand Master; Lord Cranstoun, the immediate past Grand Master; the Hon Robert Shirley, later Senior Grand Warden; Fotherley Baker, Deputy Grand Master; and Daniel Carne, the Grand Sword Bearer. Baker, Payne and Carne were elected Master of the OKA in 1748, 1749 and 1750, respectively. The association ceased to be positive for the OKA in the 1750s, once Lord Carysfort had replaced Byron as Grand Master and a new slate of Grand Officers had been appointed. Many members left or ceased to attend and the lodge regressed, beginning, in Eccleshall, words 'a much quieter period':\n\n**Table 24** The Members of the OKA Holding Grand Office, 1730\u201352\n\nthe great names of those who directed the lodge during its close association with Grand Lodge disappear from the minutes. The number of members declined, as did the attendance, most meetings being attended by 15\u201320 brethren [and often less] and on occasions the three principal officers were all marked _pro tem_.\n\nOf the handful of lodge minute books from the 1720s and 1730s that have survived, most are formulaic, detailing the names of attendees, the ritual undertaken but often little else. Covering the period from 1733 to 1756 and beginning at the time the lodge moved from the Cross Keys in Henrietta Street to the King's Arms tavern in the Strand, the first extant minute book of the OKA offers greater insight. In the 1730s, the OKA's members were primarily middling and professional, with a small number of landed gentry. At the time, the OKA was renowned as one of, if not the leading Enlightenment lodge in London and under Martin Clare's _de facto_ leadership, members and guests gave lectures on a diversity of subjects in which they were either practitioners or hobbyists. The lodge encapsulated Edward Oakley's dictum that freemasonry should be at the forefront of education, providing 'proper lectures... in such of the sciences, as shall be thought to be most agreeable to the Society, and to the honour and instruction of the Craft'. Indeed, the OKA in the 1730s provides one of the clearest examples of what Clare, its acting Master and Senior Warden, had termed 'useful and entertaining conversation' and under his guidance the OKA promoted rational analysis of the natural world: 'the grand design'.\n\nSome thirty-six lectures were given in the decade 1733\u201343, the majority in the early years. These included the practical application of recent scientific discoveries, with three lectures based on different industrial processes and nine that examined new scientific inventions, techniques and apparatus. Other talks explored architecture, art, ethics, history and mathematics. Speakers included Robert West, a portraitist, who spoke on 'some evident faults in the Cartoons of Raphael', and Isaac Ware, the architect and later Secretary of the Board of Works, on Andrea Palladio. Ware, a member of James Thornhill's St Martin's Lane Academy, re-founded by Hogarth in 1735, gave his lecture immediately after he had been initiated, suggesting that this was the principal reason for him having joined.\n\nAt that time, the OKA combined Masonic ritual and dining with educational entertainment. The formula followed the approach pioneered by Desaguliers and other fashionable peripatetic lecturers who popularised science and gave it a cultural status. Clare was one of their number. A successful educator and mathematician, he had established his Soho Academy in 1717 and his pupils were 'fitted for business' rather than given a purely classical education. Clare's textbook, _Youth's Introduction to Trade and Business,_ around which the Soho Academy operated, was considered path breaking and ran to twelve editions through to 1791. The school itself was regarded as one of England's leading educational establishments \u2013 'one of the most celebrated and successful of private boarding schools'. Reflecting this, its students came from affluent and well-connected families. They included John Murray, later the 3rd duke of Atholl; John Christopher Smith, the composer; and sons of parliamentarians, including Arthur Onslow, then Speaker of the House of Commons.\n\nClare had been elected FRS in 1735, proposed by a raft of freemasons including Desaguliers and Sir Richard Manningham of the Horn; Dr Alexander Stuart of the Rummer in Charing Cross; and Robert Hart of the Mitre in Covent Garden. Support for his election was probably linked to the publication of _Motion of Fluids. 13_ Clare's aims were at one with Desaguliers and the scientific Enlightenment: to use 'experiments performed with accuracy and judgment' and to create\n\nprinciples... built on the strongest and most rational basis, that of experiment and fact; which cannot but be acceptable to those, who admire demonstration, and delight in truth.\n\nThe papers in _Motion of Fluids_ had been given by Clare as lectures to the members of the OKA: 'a set of gentlemen who were so indulgent both to their matter and form as to encourage their publication'. And the book was dedicated to Lord Weymouth, the then Master of the OKA and later Grand Master. Subscribers included members of the lodge and many other freemasons, and the second and third editions were dedicated respectively to Richard Boyle, Lord Burlington, and Henry Herbert, 9th earl of Pembroke, also freemasons.\n\nClare's standing in Masonic circles was underpinned further by his _Discourse,_ a lecture given to the Grand Stewards' lodge and again at Grand Lodge, and its central message became a tenet of eighteenth-century freemasonry:\n\nThe chief pleasure of society \u2013 viz., good conversation and the consequent improvements \u2013 are rightly presumed... to be the principal motive of our first entering into then propagating the Craft... We are intimately related to those great and worthy spirits who have ever made it their business and aim to improve themselves and inform mankind. Let us then copy their example that we may also hope to attain a share in their praise.\n\nSir Cecil Wray, elected Master of the OKA in 1730, had agreed to accept the chair on the express understanding that Clare would act as his Senior Warden and preside in his place during Wray's regular absences from London. This Clare did, and the OKA's minutes record how the lodge attracted numerous applications for membership. A few were contentious and after several eminent prospective joiners had been blackballed, a new structure was introduced to allow 'members of ability and consequence... being generally acceptable to the lodge' to join with a lower risk of rejection. Thus from 4 March 1734, and in contrast to what was set out in the regulations issued by English Grand Lodge, three blackballs would be required for exclusion from the OKA. The following week, on 11 March, Viscount Weymouth and Viscount Murray, the 2nd duke of Atholl, were admitted members. Each gave six guineas towards the cost of the evening's entertainment. Two weeks later on 27 March, Lord Vere Bertie and William Todd Esq., the latter a member of the Rummer, were made members. The evening was financed by Todd and the minutes note the cost at \u00a38 4 _s_ 10d.\n\nIt was from about this time that the lodge began to develop more as a dining club. The annual membership fee was increased to five guineas for gentlemen but remained at three guineas for artisans, notwithstanding that this was still high. The OKA also modified its admission rules further such that gentlemen would require the approval of a simple majority but a two-thirds majority would be required otherwise. With an increasingly exclusive membership, the lodge began to consolidate its connections to Grand Lodge. Members promoted colleagues and enhanced the OKA's influence through invitations to other Grand Officers. The lodge's reputation was rising and many did join. But as the links to Grand Lodge grew stronger and its members more gentrified, the frequency with which lectures were given declined. On 2 February 1743, the minutes noted that the lodge had been disappointed by brethren failing to provide their promised lectures, and at the meeting on 7 December the same year, the Master 'called upon several brethren to oblige the lodge with a lecture upon any useful subject'. No-one complied and Sir Robert Lawley was prevailed upon 'to offer a further continuance of a lecture in Masonry either on the next or the succeeding lodge night'. By the end of the 1740s, the practice of offering lectures had atrophied and was largely discontinued, replaced principally by dining.\n\nAmong the visitors to the OKA and, in 1744, a joining member, John Ward, by then Lord Ward, was unique in being the first (later noble) mason to rise through the ranks to become Grand Master. Ward was an avid freemason: a founder, the first Master and sometime Secretary of Staffordshire's earliest recorded lodge, the Bell and Raven in Wolverhampton; and a member of the aristocratic Bear and Harrow lodge in London, among others. He had been appointed a Grand Steward in 1732; was Junior Grand Warden and Senior Grand Warden from 1732\u20134; and sat as Deputy Grand Master from 1735\u20137. He was to rise higher. In 1740, Ward succeeded his cousin to become 6th baron Ward of Birmingham and, two years later, he was selected as Grand Master.\n\nWard had inherited estates in Sedgeley and Willingworth in Staffordshire, to which his cousin's death in 1740 added property at Dudley as well as the title. His marriage to Anna Maria Bourchier of Clontarf, Co. Dublin, produced a son, John, later 2nd viscount of Dudley & Ward. His wife died within a year of the birth and Ward married again in 1745. His second marriage to Mary Carver, heir to a Jamaican plantation fortune, brought another son, William, who later inherited the title from his half brother. Ward was elected an MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1727 but lost the seat in 1734. This would have been a disappointment given that his father had been an MP for Staffordshire from 1710 to 1713 and again in 1715 until his death. Nonetheless, he was appointed Sheriff for Northampton in December 1729 and subsequently made Lord Warden of Birmingham, Recorder for Worcester and sworn to the privy council. In common with many in freemasonry, Ward was also a magistrate, appointed to the bench in 1729. Politically, he initially tended to the opposition, first a Tory, then a Country Whig, and later a Patriotic Whig and deemed ally of William Pitt. However, before the 1745 rebellion, Ward may have been associated with the Jacobites and his name was communicated to the French and ostensibly noted as an influential and wealthy supporter. In the election of 1747, Ward campaigned against the Leveson Gowers, one of the more politically influential families in Staffordshire and then supporters of the administration, leading to a complaint from Lord Gower to the duke of Newcastle that Ward was undermining the family's interest in the county 'by all the little low dirty tricks you can imagine'.\n\nWard's political and judicial activities reflected above all a self-interested desire to protect and add to his property and financial assets. The House of Commons' parliamentary papers mention him once, on 18 May 1733, and only then in relation to his own estate:\n\na Complaint being made to the House, that Jonah Persehouse, of Wolverhampton, in the County of Stafford, John Green, William Mason, Daniel Mason, Thomas Mason, William Goston, Samuel Mason and Benjamin Whitehouse, of Sedgeley, in the said County, having sunk a coal pit adjoining to the Estate of John Ward, esquire, a member of this House, have entered upon his said estate, and taken coals therefrom; in breach of the Privilege of this House.\n\nAlthough the second viscount was more celebrated and successful as an industrialist and politician, Ward was aware of the commercial value of his inheritance which generated an annual income of around \u00a310,000 and contained numerous broad coal seams interspersed with iron ore, brick clay and limestone. He maintained and expanded coal mining and iron smelting on his estate, especially at Dudley, which comprised one of the most significant holdings in the Black Country and had been one of the earliest to install a Newcomen engine. Ward also safeguarded his commercial interests in the House of Lords where he supported and promoted road construction. But his son did more, sponsoring a succession of bills that advanced enclosures, facilitated extraction and connected the family's mines to the growing network of canals that served the area and in which he was a prominent shareholder. During Ward's lifetime, the income generated from the Dudley & Ward estates increased more than fivefold. However, they rose a further tenfold by the late nineteenth century.\n\nAlthough motivated by the prospect of amassing more wealth, Ward's financial resources were also expended in social self-promotion. The development of his mines and natural resources in Staffordshire took second place to expenditure on the demolition of the family's mediaeval mansion at Himley and its replacement with a large Palladian house within ornamental grounds. The scale of the development was such that the local village required relocation. In London, Ward's townhouse was in fashionable Upper Brook Street in Mayfair where he owned two houses, numbers 35 and 36. But they too were considered insufficiently grand and, in the 1750s, construction began on the first Dudley House, one of the precursors to the later Park Lane palaces, completed in 1757.\n\nWard's belief in wealth being the mark of a man and property as personal aggrandisement partly explains his doctrinaire approach as Grand Master. He understood the role of Grand Master principally to be to maintain and protect the authority of Grand Lodge, and thereby his own status. The developments taking place in society more widely were ignored or not understood. In this, Ward epitomised the unreconstructed agricultural landed interest to which his mining activities were an adjunct. Reflecting this, the large-scale development of the industrial aspects of his estate occurred only after the 1760s, when his agents and sons pursued the enclosures, turnpikes and canals that were to increase its value almost exponentially. For Lord Ward, mineral resources were the milk cow that supplied funding to support an ostentatious lifestyle; for his sons, they were the more the foundation of a commercial dynasty.\n\nOne of Ward's Staffordshire neighbours was Sir Robert Lawley (17\u2014?\u20131779), 4th Bt., of Canwell Hall in Staffordshire. He succeeded to the title and estates in 1730. Lawley's marriage in 1726 to Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Lambert Blackwell, with its \u00a330,000 dowry, featured prominently in the society press. Lawley also had political ambitions but failed in a bid to become MP for Bridgenorth. His appointment as high sheriff of the county a decade later in 1744 may have been part compensation. Lawley was close to Sir Cecil Wray and in the same social set in London. He joined the OKA at the time it transferred to the Cross Keys tavern when Wray became Master. Lawley became a Grand Steward in 1735 alongside William Graeme and Martin Clare and later that year became Master of the Stewards' Lodge. An avid attendee at Grand Lodge, Lawley sat as Senior Grand Warden from 1736\u20138, and as Deputy Grand Master from 1742\u20133. He was Master of the OKA in 1738, again in 1741, and from 1745 until 1747, when he consolidated the OKA's connections to Grand Lodge with the admission of the principal Grand Officers.\n\nOther Grand Officers linked to the OKA during the 1740s were Robert Shirley, William Graeme and Edward Hody. The Hon Robert Shirley (1723\u20131787), was the son of the Hon Laurence Shirley, the fourth son of Robert, 1st earl Ferrers. The absence of any male heirs to succeed the 2nd and 3rd earls allowed Shirley's eldest brother, also Laurence, to inherit the title and estates in 1745. He is best known as the last peer in England to be hanged: tried and convicted for murder in 1760. The title passed to Washington Shirley and, at his death in 1778, to Robert. The family owned large estates in Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, where their principal house was Staunton Harold Hall. Shirley was appointed a Grand Steward in 1745\u20136 and served as Senior Grand Warden from 1747\u201351 under Baker's Deputy Grand Mastership.\n\nWilliam Graeme (1700\u20131745), a Scottish surgeon, was educated at Leyden (1720) and St Andrews (1724). He taught surgery in Edinburgh until 1726 but subsequently moved to London to practice and lecture. Other than with regard to freemasonry, Graeme had a modest public profile and his Masonic status at Grand Lodge appears to have been linked solely to the OKA's patronage. He was appointed a Grand Steward in 1735, promoted to Grand Warden the following year (1736\u20137) and sat as Deputy Grand Master in 1739 and 1740. In 1744, he was recalled to become SGW to Baker's JGW. Perhaps reflecting his modest social status, Graeme was not elected Master of the OKA. However, in April 1730, he was elected FRS, proposed by Martin Folkes, another former Deputy Grand Master and the leading figure at the Bedford Head lodge in Covent Garden. Graeme's other proposers included Alexander Stuart of the Rummer, Charring Cross, and John Ranby and Sir Edward Wilmot, two eminent surgeons.\n\nGraeme's introduction to the OKA may have been via Edward Hody (1698\u20131759), a fellow physician. Hody, specialised in the lucrative area of midwifery. Born at Spettisbury House in Dorset to a wealthy landed family, he was educated at Charterhouse and St John's, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1716. He subsequently studied at Leyden (1719), where he may have met Graeme, and Rheims (1723), where he received his MD. Hody's revision and publication of Giffard's _Cases in Midwifery_ 'printed by subscription... for the benefit of the Widow and her Children' was advertised widely from 1732 and it was possibly a consequence of the more than thirty press advertisements for the book that his election as FRS in 1733 was considered newsworthy. His main proposer was Thomas Pellet, a member of the Bedford Head lodge and later President of the Royal College of Physicians.\n\nHody's election notice described him as 'a Gentleman well skilled in Physick, Anatomy and Natural Sciences' and he was in several ways an Enlightenment figure. A subscribing governor of St George's Hospital, Hody was subsequently appointed its chief physician. His book subscriptions reveal non-medical interests that ranged from Martin Clare's _Motion of Fluids_ to John Miller's _Poems on Several Occasions,_ and he was an antiquarian and a member of Stukeley's Society of Antiquaries. Hody was additionally a governor of the Bridewell Hospital and, alongside Baker, a director of the Amicable Society. Masonically, he was appointed a Grand Steward in 1735, Senior Grand Warden in 1742 and 1743, and Deputy Grand Master in 1745 and 1746. Hody was Master of the OKA in 1735 and again in 1739 and 1742. His association with Lawley and Clare was not limited to the OKA; all three had also been members of the Shakespeare's Head lodge in Little Marlborough Street.\n\n# CHAPTER EIGHT\n\n# _The Anglo-Irish: Ascendancy and Alienation_\n\nOur final chapter explores the economic and political alienation of the Anglo-Irish, an issue that motivated the earl of Blessington to agree to become the Antients' first noble Grand Master and politicised those in the Grand Lodge of Ireland at the loyalist heart of the Protestant Anglo-Irish community and persuaded them to recognise the Antients to the exclusion of the original Grand Lodge of England. The disaffection of the Anglo-Irish from Britain is not widely understood and this chapter explores the context and draws the development of patriotic nationalism from the end of the seventeenth century to the mid- and late eighteenth.\n\nThe Treaty of Limerick ended the Irish rebellion against William and Mary's accession to the English throne. But the settlement did more than conclude the Williamite-Jacobite War; it also entrenched the political dominance of Ireland's minority Protestant elite. By the 1740s, the Anglo-Irish ascendancy had been in place for over fifty years. England's subjugation of Ireland was not new. Suppression dated back to the eleventh century and boasted an honour roll of subsequent English rulers. Henry VIII had declared himself king of Ireland in 1542; and James I, and later Elizabeth I, had consolidated English power with a campaign of repression that culminated in the 1594\u20131603 Nine Years' War. Another rebellion in 1641 triggered the Confederate Wars. On this occasion, Ireland's insurrection was halted by Cromwell's invasion and a four-year military campaign. The punitive sanctions that followed reinforced English domination: the colonial Plantations were extended; Catholic estates confiscated to compensate Cromwell's officers and soldiers; and Irish insurgents imprisoned, transported overseas or executed. Peace in Ireland was not negotiated; it was inflicted. And in the wake of the large-scale conveyance of land and assets to the Protestant minority came a further transfer of political authority through the introduction and application of a discriminatory anti-Catholic legal code. But Ireland's opposition was not destroyed; it was in abeyance. In 1689 and 1690, the Glorious Revolution that took William and Mary to the English throne triggered another conflict as James II's Irish Catholic supporters attempted to leverage the country into a base from which to launch his return to power. They failed. Irish Jacobitism was eviscerated at the Boyne in 1690 and buried at Aughrim in 1691. Subdued, disarmed and cowed, Ireland's Catholic opposition was unable to recover and not even the Scottish risings of 1715 and 1745 triggered active Jacobite support for the Stuart Pretenders in Ireland, far less rebellion.\n\nRegardless of the military reality, Ireland's Catholic majority continued to be viewed as a potential threat with the danger from its rebellious youth probably the source of greatest fear. In such a context, it is easy to understand why _de facto_ permission to recruit in Ireland for service in foreign regiments remained substantially in place until 1745. There were obvious positive benefits in allowing Ireland's otherwise unemployed young Catholics to emigrate to join French and Spanish regiments rather than remain at home where they could and would constitute a more immediate prospective problem. The same argument applied to the exiled 'Wild Geese', those Irish soldiers who had fought with the Jacobites against William. Under the terms of the peace treaty they had been transported to exile in France where many served in Louis XIV's Irish brigades. The expatriate Irish also served in other continental armies, including Spain's, which mustered with five Irish regiments. Estimates vary but it is probable that during the course of the eighteenth century, at least several hundred thousand Irishmen were recruited and left for overseas service. Basil Williams has quoted one estimate of 450,000 in the period to 1745; other commentators have put forward figures as high as 500,000.\n\nWith London's acquiescence, Ireland's parliament executed a range of additional measures to reduce the risk of dissent, including active support for forcible impressment in the British army and navy. Three examples from three consecutive months in 1726 involving over five hundred Irishmen suggest the policy would have had a considerable cumulative impact.\n\nOn 8 March 'came in His Majesty's Ships, _Lively_ and _Success,_ Men of War from Ireland, having on board 220 impressed seamen for the fleet'.\n\nOn 13 April 'the _Drake,_ Man of War, sailed from Cork for Portsmouth, with 130 men impressed for the service of the Navy'.\n\nOn 31 May 'came in the _Lively_ Man of War, from Ireland, with 170 men impressed for Sir John Jenning's fleet'.\n\nSuccessive tranches of sometimes-savage anti-Catholic legislation were enacted and although legislation was in practice often enforced with some moderation, both old and new penal laws were deployed to reinforce the dominance \u2013 political and economic \u2013 of Ireland's minority ruling elite. Catholics and non-conforming dissenters who together represented more than 80 per cent of the population were disenfranchised and excluded from standing for parliament or public office. Restrictions on access to mortgage funding and land ownership reduced by two thirds the acreage of estates held by Catholics from an already modest 25 per cent of aggregate landholdings to between 5 and 10 per cent. The prohibition of leases longer than thirty one years intentionally limited Catholic security of tenure and, on inheritance, unless the eldest son abjured Catholicism and converted to the Church of Ireland, land would be divided equally among the deceased's heirs as a means of limiting the influence of any single landowner.\n\nOther sanctions targeted the more middling, with Catholics being excluded from many professions and the magistracy and judiciary. The ability to access secondary and tertiary education was curbed:\n\nno person of the popish religion shall publicly teach school or instruct youth, or in private houses teach youth, except only the children of the master or mistress of the private house, upon pain of twenty pounds and prison for three months for every such offence,\n\nwith Catholics prohibited from matriculating at Trinity College, Dublin.\n\nPerhaps more intrusively and in an echo of the restrictions enforced on the Huguenots in France the previous century, the Irish parliament banned inter-marriage between the faiths:\n\nwhereas many Protestant women, heirs or heirs apparent to lands or other great substances in goods or chattels, or having considerable estates for life, or guardianship of children entitled to such estates, by flattery and other crafty insinuations of popish persons, have been seduced to contract matrimony with and take to husband, papists, to the great ruin of such estates, to the great loss of many Protestant persons to whom the same might descend, and to the corrupting such Protestant women that they forsake their religion and become papists, to the great dishonour of Almighty God, the great prejudice of the Protestant interest, and the heavy sorrow of all their Protestant friends.\n\nA few loopholes nonetheless remained available. Affluent Catholic landed gentry were permitted to send their sons abroad to be educated in continental Europe; and although Catholics were prevented from possessing arms or owning horses suitable for cavalry use, defined as 'worth more than \u00a35', 'papist gentlemen who can prove themselves comprised under the Articles of Limerick may have a sword, a case of pistols, and a gun for defence of their house or for fowling'.\n\nThe suppression of Irish culture and Catholicism was considerable but it was not complete. In the face of sustained legal prejudice and widespread antipathy, many landed Catholic families ensured that at least one son would become a Protestant, even if only in name, in order to preserve the family's remaining estates intact. And Catholic worship continued, although priests were meant to be approved and registered; local 'hedge row' rural education failed to be wholly displaced by the new centrally funded Protestant schools that were becoming established across the country; and substantial elements of Gaelic culture and language survived, particularly in the west and north west of Ireland.\n\nBritish colonial rule in Ireland was directed by an administration led by the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary. In formal terms, the Lord Lieutenant represented the crown \u2013 the king of Ireland \u2013 and in that capacity was head of both the executive and judiciary. In practice, the position was given in the name of the king to a prominent British politician, often one who was out of favour or seen as a potential political threat. Nonetheless, the Lord Lieutenant was generally a significant member of the government with a political remit to preserve stability in Ireland, keep London informed of domestic Irish politics (although there were multiple communication channels between the two countries) and ensure the smooth passage of the finance bills that allowed the Irish establishment to function.\n\nFrom a Catholic standpoint, notwithstanding any laxity in enforcing the penal laws, the Protestant ascendancy would have been regarded as virtually absolute. But despite the form, the substance of political and administrative authority in Ireland was absent. It remained in London. Indeed, in recognition of the political and economic reality, many Irish landowners and merchants employed lobbyists to protect or advance their interests and frequently travelled to England or sent family members to live in London for the same purpose. Reflecting the lack of primacy of Ireland's domestic parliament and administration, and the pre-eminence of that in London, until 1767, the Lord Lieutenant was usually in occupation at Dublin Castle and resident in Ireland only during the two or three months of the biennial Irish parliamentary sittings. In his absence, Ireland would be ruled by three lord justices, usually the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the Irish chancellor and one of Ireland's primates. Whichever authority was in place, the government of Ireland was undertaken in conjunction with the Irish privy council, the Irish parliament and devolved in part to a network of Anglo-Irish landed magnates appointed to oversee each of Ireland's counties. At least until the mid-eighteenth century, Ireland's aristocracy and ruling elite were in the main highly anglicised and regarded correctly as a virtual instrument of British imperialism.\n\nPoynings' Act of 1495, known as Poynings' Law, had made Ireland subservient to England in matters of parliamentary legislation over two centuries earlier. Instigated and encouraged by Sir Edward Poyning, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, Ireland's parliament had enacted a law voluntarily restricting its powers to the approval or rejection of bills drawn up in London. Although by the seventeenth century, an informal procedure had evolved in which Dublin had the capacity to draft a summary of proposed legislation, or the 'heads of bills' as opposed to the actual bills or legal text, such documents remained subject to further amendment or rejection by the English privy council. The preparation of parliamentary propositions in Dublin allowed the Irish parliament some influence and encouraged a somewhat more meaningful political dialogue, but there were limits. Nonetheless, if Ireland's proposals were approved, and many were not, the formally drafted bills would then be returned by London for passage through the Irish parliament. The system more or less worked and, as James Kelly noted, postrestoration, parliamentary cooperation between London and Dublin developed to a point where such interaction was considered normal, reasonable and practical. Moreover, despite the formal position set out in Poynings' Law, England's constitutional sovereignty was often more nuanced than absolute, and minor \u2013 and sometimes major \u2013 conflicts between London and Dublin had a habit of emerging. One of the more contentious issues concerned the entitlement of the Irish commons to initiate finance legislation. In 1692, the Ireland's parliament had rejected an English privy council money bill and the relevant parliamentary session had ended in failure with the issue unresolved. In response, an informal political trade-off emerged that allowed Ireland to take the lead in bringing forward revenue measures but with the English privy council retaining and exercising the right of amendment or rejection. The counterpart to the consensus was that Dublin was allowed greater leeway to proceed with its slate of domestic anti-Catholic legislation.\n\nThe compromise was viewed as representing a minimal risk to London's authority. After all, the Irish parliament was dominated by Protestant landowners and the Church of Ireland, whose bishops London appointed. In addition, parliamentary business was managed by usually dependable parliamentary 'undertakers': influential members of the Irish commons and lords who undertook to steer the required government legislation through to a successful conclusion. Their loyalty to successive administrations in London was bought and maintained via an extensive and expensive system of British and Irish government patronage and sinecures. The alternative to accommodation was the potential risk of a parliamentary stalemate and the possibility that necessary financial legislation could stall or fail. In broad terms, albeit with exceptions, this political cooperation lasted for much of the first half of the eighteenth century. But even before the 1750s' money bills crisis and 1760s' constitutional disputes discussed below, signs were emerging that Protestant Ireland was increasingly less willing to remain legislatively supine.\n\nThroughout the eighteenth century, Anglo-Irish discontent was driven by antipathy to Britain's mercantilist legislation and compounded by concerns over Ireland's financial exploitation and what was viewed as administrative incompetence and corruption at Dublin Castle. Politically and economically, the seeds of Anglo-Irish unhappiness, Tony Stewart's 'grievances of the Protestant nation', were sown at the end of the seventeenth century and harvested in the eighteenth. The starting gun to Anglo-Irish unease was the passage of the Wool Act in 1699, designed to shield English sheep farmers and woollen manufacturers from external competition:\n\ngreat quantities of... manufactures... [that] have of late been made and are daily increasing in the Kingdom of Ireland and in the English Plantations in America and are exported from thence to foreign market heretofore supplied from England which will inevitably sink the value of lands and tend to the ruin of the trade and woollen manufactures of this realm.\n\nFrom an Irish standpoint, the Act was ruinous. It became obligatory for wool and wool products to be exported via England, with excise duty levied at export and on re-export. The cost was onerous, Irish (and American) wool production was penalised and a brake placed on intra-colonial trade between Ireland, the Americas and the Caribbean. Before the Act, the price of Irish wool had been as much as a third below comparable prices in England, with both the raw material and processed woollen yarn at a significant competitive advantage given Ireland's lower labour costs. After the Act, although the overall volume of Irish woollen exports was broadly maintained, prices fell absolutely and potential profits and export markets evaporated. Neither was capable of offset either by the switch to linen exports, which remained free of excise duty, nor by what evolved into the widespread smuggling of fleeces to France and elsewhere.\n\nAlthough smuggling has been proposed by a number of historians as a (major) mitigating factor, it is doubtful that the illegal export of wool from Ireland successfully circumvented Britain's excise duties and trade restrictions, nor that the suffering experienced by Ireland's agricultural communities was significantly more moderate in practice than the level of tariffs would otherwise suggest. Although the eighteenth century has been referred to as a golden age in Irish smuggling, the statement demands qualification. The very illegality of smuggling translates into an absence of reliable records and it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess either directly or accurately the extent to which smuggling occurred, let alone any possible financial contribution. Besides, notwithstanding the argument that smuggling will generally focus on products with a small volume in relation to their value, something not often encountered in agricultural goods, perhaps the most significant argument against its benefits to Ireland was its high attendant costs. Not the least of these included bribing customs and other officials, and the additional expenses associated with transporting goods illegally. Both would have reduced the profitability of smuggling to exporter and importer alike. However, any discussion that focuses on the relative effectiveness or otherwise of Irish smuggling as a means of alleviating Ireland's rural poverty risks missing the key point. Despite the ebb and flow of advantage in the war between customs evasion and enforcement, Ireland's economy suffered considerably and measurably as a result of British mercantilism. Moreover, even if smuggling was widespread, there was every chance that it would have had the perverse effect of increasing rather than reducing Irish resentment given the high risk of fines, imprisonment and the seizure or destruction of the goods involved. Indeed, it was a sign of how widely British trade policies were especially disliked in Ireland that unlike in England, the death penalty for smuggling was not provided for in Irish law until 1785.\n\nFurther restrictive trade legislation was passed in the wake of the Wool Act. Irish enterprises came to be regulated across a spectrum from baking, curing and butter making, to salmon fishing and the control of street markets. Others laws levied additional duties on 'wine, silk, hops, china, earthen, japanned, or lacquered ware' and on 'beer, ale, strong waters, wine, tobacco, and other goods and merchandises'. Although a small number of industries, including flax, hemp and linen, were encouraged and promoted with modest financial bounties from the Irish or British Treasury, whenever there was the prospect that Irish manufactured or agricultural products might out-compete their British counterparts, they were suppressed or contained and obliged by legislation to remain little more than nascent.\n\nReinforcing Ireland's second tier status, in 1720, the emasculating Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act reversed Ireland's 1689 Declaratory Act. That Ireland was subordinate to the British crown, and that the king via the British parliament had 'full power and authority to make laws and statutes to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland', was neither contentious nor an issue for debate among many if not most within Ireland's Anglo-Irish elite. But the Dependency of Ireland Act went further, legislating that the Irish House of Lords had no jurisdiction to judge, affirm or reverse any judgment made in any Court within Ireland. Instead, only the British House of Lords was to hold such authority. The lack of consideration with which Ireland was viewed in Britain was epitomised by the contrast in Britain's response to the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 and the Irish famines a decade earlier. Although public sympathy in Britain generated donations totalling an estimated \u00a3100,000 to relieve the survivors of Lisbon's earthquake, virtually nothing was raised to alleviate the Irish famines of the early 1740s, the result of which was to kill around a quarter of Ireland's rural population.\n\nThe first stirring of Protestant political opposition in Ireland was set out in William Molyneux's _Case of Ireland's being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England. 24_ His argument was contentious but based on the constitutional illegitimacy of England's legislative approach. However, despite its later popularity, with demand such that subsequent editions of the book were printed in 1705, 1706, 1720 and 1725, the prevailing view among the Anglo-Irish elite was for many years at odds with that of Molyneux. The majority of Irish Protestants considered Ireland a legitimate dependency and were fiercely loyal to the British (and Irish) Crown:\n\nThe present Protestant Inhabitants are the descendants of Britons, either transplanted into Ireland as military adventurers, or allured over by the profits of employments and the prospects of trade, or else by misfortune in their own country. The Protestant interest of Ireland has thus grown under the wings of England and does now and ever must exist by her protection, consequently Ireland is a dependant Kingdom.\n\nAnglo-Irish hostility nonetheless for a short time became almost _de rigeur_ in the 1720s, initiated by the furore over the corrupt grant of a patent to William Wood, a Wolverhampton iron manufacturer, to mint copper coinage for Ireland. Jonathan Swift's _Drapier's Letters_ gave a powerful populist voice to Irish objections to 'Wood's Halfpence' and raised the spectre of independency, albeit under the rule of the Irish Crown and thus the British monarch.\n\nWe, your Majesty's most dutiful subjects, the Commons of Ireland in parliament assembled, find ourselves indispensably obliged to represent to your Majesty our unanimous opinion that the importing and uttering of copper farthings and halfpence by virtue of the patent lately granted to William Wood, Esq.... will be highly prejudicial to your Majesty's revenue, destructive of the trade and commerce of this nation and of the most dangerous consequence.\n\nBut despite Swift's eloquence, the upsurge in anti-British feeling among the Irish public at large was relatively brief and obviated by Walpole's replacement of the duke of Grafton as Lord Lieutenant by Lord Carteret and the withdrawal of Wood's patent in 1725. Nevertheless, the large-scale popular demonstrations that preceded the climb-down had a potent impact. And at the same time and more worryingly for London, there had also been effective opposition from within the Irish establishment. Both houses of parliament had passed condemnatory resolutions and the Irish privy council and even the lord justices and revenue commissioners had offered resistance. Walpole's response was to be tactically emollient but strategically to ensure that in future most of Ireland's key posts would be held by loyal placemen. The episode also demonstrated the importance to London of maintaining an effective parliamentary management system and underlined in bold the usefulness of Ireland's parliamentary undertakers.\n\nSwift's stance against William Wood and other British impositions was echoed powerfully and almost as emotionally in the writing of Samuel Madden, Thomas Prior and other Protestant Irish patriots, who argued in defence of the country's economic interests and against unalloyed British mercantilism:\n\nit is notorious that... a great part of the Irish trade is carried on by English merchants, the profit of which, with the money paid for freight of most of our commodities in British bottoms, evidently centre in England.\n\nThere was nevertheless a continuing philosophical and political problem in reconciling Anglo-Ireland's systemic need for military protection with its desire for economic self-determination. Although it was clear that trade restrictions were 'another cause of our poverty', in the light of English military support, there was almost an obligation to acknowledge that 'some limitations on the trade and manufactures of Ireland' could be considered just:\n\nwhen we consider that both the power and riches of England are owing to the flourishing of her trade and manufactures, and at the same time our own state of dependency, we cannot with reason expect encouragement for any trade or manufacture which the English may apprehend to be injurious to their own staple; if they are mistaken, it is our duty, by fairly stating the case [to persuade them] that it is equally their interest to promote the trade and manufacture of Ireland as that of any city or shire of England.\n\nThe justification for the subsidiarity of England's relationship with Ireland was outlined with some force from England's standpoint by John Cary in the mid-1690s. Cary accepted that the economic threat from Ireland was potentially considerable, in his words, 'most injurious to the trade of this kingdom'. And he argued, as did others with a vested interest, that there was no reason to allow Ireland 'greater liberty than our other plantations', which were recognised as having the desire to trade free of constraints. However, in Cary's view, any such aspiration should and must fall at the first hurdle. The function of any colony was not to benefit the colonists, 'the first design... was to advance the interest of England'. Ireland was, in Cary's words, 'settled from England [and] supported and defended at England's expense'. It should accordingly remain subordinate.\n\nCary's views were those of the mainstream, both in England and Ireland. At the time, almost no-one among Ireland's ruling Anglo-Irish elite leaned towards independence. Irish dependency, the counterpart to English military protection, was considered essential to the survival of Protestant minority rule. Ireland's Anglo-Irish were also necessarily in favour of the Protestant succession, arguably more so than many in England, let alone Scotland. The Hanoverian dynasty provided a political bulwark against Jacobitism and Catholicism; without it stood the abyss. But as London's economic yoke of trade constraints and excise duties increasingly began to chafe, the Anglo-Irish slowly came to understand that dependency had an escalating cost. Ireland was prevented from operating freely. Domestic production, both agriculture and manufacture, was shackled and exports depressed. Indeed, Ireland suffered almost precisely in line with Charles Davenant's perceptive analysis written at the turn of the seventeenth century:\n\nthe price of land, value of rents, and our commodities and manufactures rise and fall, as it goes with our foreign trade... for the profit of trade is not the advantage the merchant makes at home, but what the whole nation gets clear and net upon the balance in exchange with other countries of its commodities and manufactures.\n\nCompounding the predicament, Britain not unintentionally also depleted Ireland's capital surplus: 'the kingdom is quite drained of money... and where all this will end I cannot tell'. Payments from the Irish Treasury that had originally been ordered by the Crown to finance the Irish military establishment alone were unilaterally expanded to cover contributions to the British navy, regiments posted overseas and to cover the salaries of an inflated number of absentee colonels and staff officers. An additional and possibly more onerous financial burden was imposed on Ireland by repeated extensions to the Irish pension list. Although a small proportion of those funded through the list lived in Ireland, including retired military officers and Huguenot refugees of rank who had settled in the country, the bulk was awarded as patronage by the Crown and lay in the hands of absentee English and foreign, mainly German, recipients. Added to payments to English-resident owners of Irish estates, which were understood to approach _c_.\u00a31 million annually in a country whose total output was probably less than \u00a35 million, the expatriation of civil and military payments overseas was abhorred in Ireland and recognised as key contributor to lower money supply and the meagre availability of domestic funding. Adding to the melancholy, London appended political condescension, filling the most prestigious and lucrative civil, military and ecclesiastical positions in Ireland with British nominees.\n\nFor London none of these issues were seen as potential problems. Notwithstanding the protestations of otherwise loyal Anglo-Irish, successive British governments, when they considered Ireland, viewed it through a principally mercantilist lens and saw a subservient not a co-equal state. The Anglo-Irish might aspire emotionally to the entitlements and rights of freeborn Englishmen in a sister country but in English eyes, Irish sovereignty had been compromised. Ireland could not be both a dependency under the protection of Britain and a sovereign nation (albeit with the same king) of equal economic standing within its empire. Viewed from London, Ireland could be seen as a colony and the Anglo-Irish Protestants simply colonists. Most importantly and as Cary had proclaimed, colonialism served the commercial and political purposes of the colonial masters, not the colonists. There could be few reasons to advance solutions to political and financial problems that in England were considered irrelevant or barely existed.\n\nIn such a context, British disdain quickly became social and among the aristocracy and gentry, Irish accomplishments and titles commanded limited respect. Toby Barnard's comments that Sir John Perceval, 1st earl of Egmont, alongside other Irish peers, was callously 'shouldered aside' in the procession marking the wedding of the prince of Orange to George II's eldest daughter, and that Irish peers were unable to obtain proper recognition of the precedence due to their rank, encapsulates the position. Simultaneously, the British view of the working-class Irish, whether in Ireland or Britain, became embedded in the caricature of a feckless and violent drunk. Ironically, Irish alienation led to greater self-reliance, one later expression of which was Antients freemasonry.\n\nDespite the mounting financial and later social pressures on Ireland, an effective opposition took time to develop and resentment was initially 'kept within tolerable bounds'. Delay was a function of many causes, including the generational legacy of traditional Protestant Anglo-Irish loyalty to Britain and the power of British patronage. Nonetheless, over the first half of the eighteenth century, Britain's mercantilist policies slowly herded the once steadfast Anglo-Irish towards patriotic Irish nationalism. As the eighteenth century progressed, irritation at English condescension and revulsion at the opportunity cost of playing economic second fiddle began to translate into demands for greater self-determination.\n\nThe counterpoint to England's economic and financial success and London's mercantilist policies was Irish economic subservience. The cost of dependency, although once accepted, had become more stark:\n\nwe are daily running in debt; our public funds prove deficient; our trade is diminished; our farmers are breaking condition; the value of land is lessened; money is scarce to a degree, and consequently our credit sinking.\n\nIndeed, by the 1750s, the patriotic faction in parliament could achieve a majority. In what was or could be described as a period of economic Enlightenment, trade had become both a moral and a financial imperative. As Dobbs commented,\n\na flourishing trade gives encouragement to the industrious... increases the power of the nation; [and] puts it in the power of every prudent and industrious man in it to enjoy more of the innocent pleasures of life.\n\nDifferent colonies would take their own routes to modify or escape Britain's mercantilist harness from the purchase of parliamentary seats by West Indian planters to the declaration of independence by the American colonies. However, all were looking at the same or similar goals: 'to promote the happiness of [their] nation... [and] to increase its power and wealth'.\n\nAt first, the Irish argued that notwithstanding their need for military protection, their financial interests were and should be seen as inseparable from rather than subservient to those of England. Indeed, Dobbs wrote that treating Ireland as a competitor to England was as unsophisticated as comparing 'the rest of England against London... as there are several trading towns in Britain very rich besides London... [and there is thus no reason] why Ireland might not have a share in the trade of the world, though never come into competition'. But it was Dobbs who was politically naive and in England his words fell on barren ground.\n\nIreland nonetheless bristled. When Swift wrote of Lemuel Gulliver in Brobdingnag and his 'hope which never left me, that I should one day recover my liberty', he wrote of the inequity of the Anglo-Irish relationship. Notwithstanding his Tory politics, Swift was at one with many of his Whig compatriots. Their frustrations were penned clearly in the _Drapier's Letters_ and set an example to others who criticised the constitutional shackles that bound Ireland, denounced their unfairness and argued that the Protestant Anglo-Irish had a right to share the liberties enjoyed by their neighbours on the other side of the Irish Sea. But if Ireland could be regarded as a colony, it lacked any context for the claim 'that by the laws of God, of Nature, of Nations, and of your Country, you are, and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England'. What was perceived in Dublin as the exploitation of Ireland by a protectionist English administration was viewed through a different prism in London. The rights attributable to an independent state and freedom from external trade constraints were not on offer.\n\nThere were exceptions, albeit not many. Giles Earle, MP for Chippenham from 1715\u201322 and thereafter Malmesbury from 1722\u201347, appointed a commissioner of Irish revenue in 1728 and a lord of the treasury in 1737, was one of few who on 12 February 1734 supported a British parliamentary proposal for the duty on Irish yarn to be removed. Earle considered the matter 'an affair of the greatest consequence to the trade and well being of England; the laws are already as severe as can be, and make what other you will, the people of Ireland will not execute them, the penalties are so severe, no jury in Ireland will find a person guilty, as was the case in England when it was made death to run'. He continued, 'the only method to prevent it is to let Ireland into some small share of the trade, for their poor must be subsisted'. Earle was unsuccessful.\n\nThe intellectual origins of England's mercantilist policies towards its colonies and the wider world lay in the new economic analysis that Charles Davenant developed and popularised at the end of the seventeenth century. Drawing on Gregory King's _Observations_ and other contemporary work, Davenant built on King's fledgling theory of supply and demand and the positive impact of economic self interest. His insights into the relationship between the responsiveness of the supply of goods to variations in price \u2013 price elasticity \u2013 allowed Davenant to set out an embryonic theory of comparative advantage in international trade a century before David Ricardo. It also marked him as a significant voice on tax and finance. Notwithstanding the imperatives that flowed from war against the regime in France, a struggle he termed the obligation to defend 'this almost only spot of ground which seems remaining in the world to public liberty', Davenant argued that taxation could be ruinous for a nation's commercial health unless structured to reinforce or at least not harm management of the nation's economy. But it was Davenant's insight that trade was the key component to a nation's commercial and financial well being that gave him later political influence. Davenant identified international commerce as the principal method of sustaining the war effort and, at the same time, a means of delivering economic growth and wealth creation through the application of comparative advantage: '[as] the price of land, value of rents and our commodities and manufactures rise and fall'. Four years later, his _Essay upon the Probable Methods of Making People Gainers in the Balance of Trade_ argued for and demonstrated the advantages of free trade, suggesting that duties should be reduced: 'with submission to better judgments, the trade thither can never hurt England'. His arguments were repeated in other works that promoted British joint stock companies operating in India, Africa and elsewhere:\n\ngold and silver are indeed the measure of trade, but the spring and original of it in all nations, is the natural or artificial product of the country; that is to say, what their land, or what their labour and industry produces.\n\nAlthough expelled from his government positions under William and Mary as a suspected Jacobite sympathiser, Davenant returned to office in June 1703, when he was briefly secretary to the commission considering a union between England and Scotland. However, it was his subsequent appointment as Inspector General of Exports and Imports, a role with an annual salary of \u00a31,000, that allowed him influence. Julian Hoppit has suggested, correctly, that Sydney Godolphin, the then Lord Treasurer, took account of Davenant in formulating Britain's subsequent trade policy and, over time, Davenant's theories and approach fed into the mainstream of political thought as successive governments followed his pragmatic tradecentric approach. However, there was a problem: Ireland. Davenant's analysis provided a theoretical framework that suggested that all countries would benefit from extending trade, including Ireland. But given its climactic and other similarities to England and its lower wage rates, this would place Ireland in direct competition to England. Despite his theory of comparative advantage, for Davenant as for others, 'it is a very great question whether there are not weighty reasons to apprehend... the people of Ireland'. The issue was that:\n\nIreland abounds in convenient ports, it is excellently situated for trade, capable of great improvements of all kinds, and able to nourish more than treble its present inhabitants... its soil, sward and turf are in a manner the same with ours, and proper to rear sheep, all [of] which... beget a reasonable fear that in time they may come to rival us in our most important manufacture.\n\nHowever, despite the concerns, Davenant could not ignore the benefits of trade to both sides:\n\nthat they should increase in people, that their land should be drained and meliorated, that they should have trade, and grow wealthy by it, may not peradventure be dangerous to England; for it is granted, their riches will centre at last here in their mother kingdom.\n\nIndeed, he went further:\n\ncolonies that enjoy not only protection but are at their ease and flourish, will, in all likelihood, be less inclined to innovate or receive a foreign yoke than if they are harassed and compelled to poverty.\n\nUnsurprisingly, unreconstructed self-interest dominated London's political considerations, not economic and philosophical niceties. The planters of Ireland would be encouraged to prosper but with the caveat that such prosperity would be permitted only in so far as was consistent 'with the welfare of England'. There were risks to this approach and Davenant noted that:\n\nif through a mistaken fear and jealousy of their future strength and greatness, we should either permit or contrive to let [Ireland] be dispeopled, poor, weak and dispirited, or if we should render them so uneasy as to incline the people to a desire for change... they must be prey to an invader.\n\nIreland's 'invader' would not be the physical assault of a foreign power but rather the more insidious and powerful philosophy of patriotic nationalism. Ireland's deteriorating relationship with Britain spurred the development of Irish intellectual thought. Irish patriotism and nationalism, not always overt, was articulated through pamphlets, books and in the formation of organisations such as the Dublin Society, where its founders and members promoted national improvement and the Irish manufacture of goods to offset the nation's economic dependency. A new thesis was advanced by Madden, Dobbs, Prior, Berkeley and others in favour of an equal place for the Irish goods within Britain's imperial framework. And support for domestic products and a common objection to English goods became synonymous with Irish patriotism, particularly during what were frequent periods of economic depression:\n\nA mob of weavers of the Liberty rose in order to rifle the several shops in the city for English manufactures, and stopped at the houses of Messrs Eustace and Lindsay, woollen drapers... They forced off the hinges of [the] shop windows with hammers and chisels... The army [was] brought against them, and a fight ensued, in which one of the weavers was killed.\n\nGoing further, the climate changed to the extent that wearing Irish linen became a recognised political statement:\n\nYe noblemen in place or out,\n\nYe Volunteers so brave and stout,\n\nYe dames that flaunt at ball or rout,\n\nWear Irish manufacture.\n\nThus shall poor weavers get some pence,\n\nFrom hunger and from cold to fence\n\nTheir wives and infants three months hence,\n\nBy Irish manufacture.\n\nIrish concerns percolated back to London through both formal and informal channels. Ireland may have been a relative backwater but it could not be ignored. The antipathy in relations between the two countries was recognised and Clark's argument that the lack of common political ground between the Irish and British establishments had an increasingly high political cost was correct. Notwithstanding the self-interested rivalries of the Irish oligarchs, hostility to the Dublin Castle administration and its parliamentary allies developed into a succession of constitutional quarrels that dominated Irish politics throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century.\n\nA second major constitutional crisis occurred in the 1750s, a generation after Wood's Halfpence, concerning the passage through parliament of a money bill dealing with the allocation of Ireland's tax surplus. Irish opposition to the bill hinged nominally on an arcane constitutional issue. The heads of bill as drafted in Dublin was considered to pose a challenge to the royal prerogative: the king's prior consent was required formally in order for surplus revenue to be applied to retiring public debt. The bill was returned by London for acceptance or rejection having had the appropriate new language inserted by the privy council. However, the amended language was unacceptable to Dublin and under Poynings' Law, since it was not open to the Irish parliament to amend the bill further, on 17 December 1753, it was rejected. Ireland's dispute with Britain's economic policies was gathering momentum.\n\nIn her 2006 article, Jacqueline Hill pointed to the extra-parliamentary aspects of the money bills dispute and the manner in which the Irish press, pamphlets, open meetings and well-advertised dinners were used by the patriotic opposition to assemble and demonstrate widespread support within the Anglo-Irish elite and more extensively among middling Protestants across Ireland. There were of course precedents to this approach, most notably in the mid-1720s, when Harding and Swift drove opposition to Wood's copper coinage and created a vehicle for Irish political nationalism and opposition to British parliamentary dominance. However, since that time, for almost three decades, opposition in the press and elsewhere had remained relatively dormant.\n\nUntil the 1720s, Irish newspaper content had been dominated by material reprinted from London and the continental gazettes of Amsterdam, Leiden, Paris and The Hague. But as the Irish press began to benefit from the more stable financial footing created by local advertisers and a larger and wealthier subscriber base, it grew more capable as a source of local news and independent editorial. Recognising this, the administration encouraged the press not to take an opposition line. Anti-British comment was considered treasonous and the threat of censorship and prison, compounded by parliamentary and Court investigations with their attendant fees and fines, provided an effective disincentive to newspaper proprietors and printers. The administration's policy was complemented by the financial carrots offered to newspapers by government advertising and the direct and indirect sponsorship of Dublin Castle. Consequently, and with limited exceptions such as Harding's _Dublin Impartial News Letter,_ the press was substantially pro-government and by the 1730s, largely because of such sanctions and incentives, dissent was contained. Indeed, even Tory-leaning papers were partly dependent on government advertising and correspondingly guarded in the views expressed. Others, such as _Pue's Occurrences,_ slid from an opposition stance to support Dublin Castle as their proprietors shifted political allegiance, motivated by financial returns.\n\nIt is in the context of decades of press subservience that the impact and scale of newspaper and pamphlet opposition to the Castle faction in the 1750s should be viewed. Although the majority of anti-government articles and pamphlets were written anonymously, sedition still being a crime and Dublin Castle continuing to favour prosecution and imprisonment on conviction, dissent was widespread. In short, Irish patriotism appeared to have entered the mainstream. The dispute with Britain and its placemen was now at the heart of Irish public debate. _Honesty the Best Policy or, the History of Roger,_ satirising the clash between Henry Boyle, then Speaker in the Irish parliament and a lord justice, and the Ponsonby family, a rival oligarchy, ran to seven editions in 1752 with massive sales: 'I am well assured over five thousand copies are gone off'. But hostility to Dublin Castle did not equate to anti-monarchism among the Anglo-Irish. Irish patriotism and nationalism were fully compatible with and part of Irish loyalty to the Crown. Indeed, for the British government, one of the more worrying aspects of Irish patriotism was the espousal of loyalty to the king of Ireland and to Irish parliamentary rights as opposed to the exercise of power by Dublin Castle and the Church of Ireland on behalf of the London administration.\n\nThe character and composition of the Anglo-Irish elite and its political and social connections with England had evolved; and they were at the heart of change. That the relationship between Dublin and London had deteriorated over the course of the eighteenth century is axiomatic. It was a progression dictated by Britain's economic domination and the financial opportunity cost of restrictive trade legislation. In such a context, the parliamentary dispute over the money bills was a symptom rather than a cause of discontent. Indeed, as Beckett has commented, the Irish commons had a tendency to reject bills merely because they had been amended by the privy council in England rather than for any substantive reasons. The issue was one of perception. But Beckett's observation that 'there was never any question of taxing Ireland by British legislation; and in even less vital matters ministers were very unwilling to [use] a British statute to over-ride the will of the Irish parliament' reflected a view from London's vantage point, not that of Dublin. Britain may have considered its imposition of legislation as being principally administrative and economic, and not an exercise in political subjugation. But even if this had been objectively accurate from a British viewpoint, Ireland's perspective differed. Dublin saw an intolerable administrative straightjacket that reinforced a sense of national political and economic inferiority.\n\nPitt the Younger's later analysis of the issue in his correspondence with the duke of Rutland, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, contained insights that his predecessors lacked. And his statement of the necessity for any settlement or accommodation with Ireland to be reciprocal in nature was accurate:\n\nIn the relation of Great Britain with Ireland there can subsist but two possible principles of connection. The one, that which is exploded, of total subordination in Ireland, and of restrictions on her commerce for the benefit of this country, which was by this means enabled to bear the whole burden of the empire; the other is, what is now proposed to be confirmed and completed, that of an equal participation of all commercial advantages, and some proportion of the charge of protecting the general interest. If Ireland is at all connected with this country and to remain a member of the empire, she must make her option between these two principles, and she has wisely and justly made it for the latter... the great advantage that Ireland will derive is from the equal participation of our trade and of the benefits derived from our colonies.\n\nAlbeit that Pitt was unwilling to relinquish any 'control on the executive government of the empire, which must reside here', he was willing to offer other concessions. Earlier administrations had been less open to compromise and what was on offer in the 1780s was politically too little and too late. Before it was 'exploded', British subordination of Ireland had changed the political psychology of the Anglo-Irish, opening the gate to patriotic nationalism. The underlying terms of Ireland's dependency had become capable of challenge. The money bills crisis in the 1750s was followed in the 1760s and 1770s by effective resistance to Townshend's plans to reform the parliamentary undertaker system to the benefit of the British administration and the passionate and successful patriotic opposition of Henry Flood and Henry Grattan. Concerned that what had occurred in the Americas might also occur in Ireland, trade dispensations were eventually agreed by Britain, as was the new constitution of 1782, which largely removed Poynings' Law and repealed the 1720 Declaratory Act. Indeed, Britain became far more circumspect in its use of its parliamentary powers from the mid-1770s onward, and a large proportion of legislation was directed either to conferring benefits on Ireland or on repeal of restrictive legislation. But despite British attempts to control and contain Irish disquiet, concessions would be short lived. Ireland's parliament would be subsumed by the Acts of Union less than two decades later and, in its wake, everything that followed became almost inevitable.\n\nAlthough understanding the political and economic context in which the leadership of Irish Grand Lodge operated provides a guide to the development of Irish freemasonry, something explored at greater length in Appendix V, it is also important to examine the composition of Irish freemasonry as a whole and its evolution over less than thirty years as it developed to encompass a broad social spectrum. Surviving lodge records, subscription lists for Masonic books and contemporary press reports confirm how the public profile of Irish freemasonry altered in the mid-eighteenth century from what had been a predominantly Protestant and relatively exclusive organisation in the 1730s, to become a more socially inclusive movement by the 1750s and 1760s with an increasingly interdenominational membership.\n\nA range of factors drove the process. As in England, one motive for joining a Masonic lodge was the forum that freemasonry provided for association on a local level. For many, an invitation to fraternal drinking and dining would have been attractive as an end in itself, notwithstanding any potential benefits offered by networking opportunities. Freemasonry's tolerance towards different religious groups was another positive aspect that encouraged some men to join who may have been unable or unwilling to commit elsewhere. The spirituality of a quasi-religious ritual may also have had appeal, particularly in Ireland, where Catholic worship was relegated to a proscribed activity and nonconformist religious dissent penalised and discouraged. And there were other influences. Fraternal benevolence did not only equate to giving charity; it also included its receipt. Complete financial security may not have been on offer but lodge funds were available to assist distressed members and their families, particularly after the death or during the illness, incapacity or unemployment of a lodge member. The importance of this aspect of Irish freemasonry was reflected in the weight attached to Masonic funerals and underlined by the prominence of their reporting in the Irish press. And a similar if not identical approach was followed by the Antients in England:\n\nThat upon the death of any of our worthy brethren whose names are or may be hereafter recorded in the Grand Registry &c., the Master of such lodge as he then belonged to shall immediately inform the Grand Secretary of his death and the intended time for his funeral, and upon this notice the Grand Secretary shall summon all the lodges to attend the funeral in proper order, and that each member shall pay one shilling towards defraying the expenses of said funeral or otherwise to his widow or nearest friend.\n\nIn Ireland as in England, the patronage of prominent aristocrats provided political cover for freemasonry, which was far from being a secret society. Indeed, the pomp and ceremonial attached to its regular parades, dinners and public entertainments may have been a more effective draw than any supposed Masonic signs, tokens and other secrets that might be communicated privately in the lodge. Public Masonic processions accompanied by music, sometimes the military, and with all lodge members in full regalia, included not only the annual church parade to celebrate St John's Day but were often arranged to accompany the laying of civic foundation stones and would proceed or follow Masonic evenings at the theatre, where plays, concerts and other entertainments might be given a Masonic theme and be accompanied by Masonic verse and song.\n\nSuch events occurred regularly across Ireland, both in Dublin and at a local level:\n\nLoughrea [Co. Galway], June 25th, 1755. Yesterday being St John's Day, the Patron Saint of the Most Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, the Free Masons of this Town, of lodge No. 248, met at some distance from the town from whence they marched in procession preceded by a band of music to the Fountain Tavern where they dined, and after dinner drank all the toasts peculiar to Masonry, the Royal Family, the Glorious Pious and Immortal Memory of King William, and other loyal toasts. At six in the evening, they marched to the Assembly Rooms where they gave an elegant Ball to the Ladies and Gentlemen. The Ball was opened by the Master; the first set consisted of twenty couple, the Men all Masons, and the Ladies (to do honour to the Fraternity), wore blue ribbons, and particularly a blue rose on each of their left breasts.\n\nAt the dinner that followed, the lodge 'agreed unanimously to subscribe for a prize of fifty guineas, to be run for next August, at the course of Loughrea, by four year-old horses, etc., the property of Freemasons of any regular lodge whatsoever'.\n\nIn Dublin, the more elevated social and financial status of those attending such Masonic events allowed the entertainments to be commensurately greater:\n\nBy Command of the Right Worshipful and Rt Hon Ford, earl of Cavan, Grand Master of Ireland. For the benefit of distressed Free and accepted Masons.\n\nOn Thursday the 22nd of June, will be a Grand Concert of vocal and instrumental music. The Grand Master, with the Grand Officers and brethren, will appear in their jewels and proper clothing, according to ancient customs; [Ranelagh Gardens] will be illuminated, and a large additional band of music provided to attend the grand procession round the gardens.\n\nIn common with other Irish clubs and societies, Irish freemasonry afforded in John Money's words, 'a bridge between the different ranks of society'. It would be appropriate to add 'and religious denominations', given that freemasonry included dissenting and conformist Protestants, Quakers and Catholics. Although the Irish freemasonry of the 1720s and early 1730s was dominated by the gentry, as it expanded across Ireland it absorbed a wide cross section of Irish society.\n\nThe membership of the Grand Lodge of Munster demonstrates the exclusive social characteristics of freemasonry in the 1720s. The lodge met at the house of Herbert Phaire, a wealthy landowner, and among those holding office were Hon James O'Brien; Springett Penn, the grandson of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania; and Colonel William Maynard, JP, MP for Waterford, a past high sheriff of Cork and colonel of the county's militia dragoons. Other lodge members included Walter Gould, an attorney and land agent for the earl of Orrery; Samuel Boles, land agent for Lord Middleton; and two landowners, Robert Longfield and William Galway. Munster freemasonry was already interdenominational and its members included Quakers and wealthy Catholics. Indeed, English and Irish membership lists indicate that from the 1720s, a member's social and financial status and potential business relationships were, in the more exclusive lodges, a more important determinant for membership than religion.\n\nBy the latter part of the century Irish freemasonry had opened its doors more fully, and comprised both urban and rural lodges and members across the social and financial spectrum from Anglo-Irish landed gentry to the Protestant and Catholic working class. This is not to argue that every Masonic lodge was universally and uniformly open to all. In many lodges class remained an important divider and lodge fees and expenses, whether for admission, dress, dining or the annual levy, were used as a barrier to preclude and discourage the membership of those considered socially unsuitable. There is also evidence that religious discrimination remained an issue in certain lodges. Nonetheless, Irish freemasonry was far less socially stratified than elsewhere in Europe. And by the end of the eighteenth century it had become the most popular form of civil association in Ireland.\n\nTwo academic studies have shed light on this aspect of Irish freemasonry: Lisa Meaney's unpublished MA thesis and Petri Mirala's _Freemasonry in Ulster. 78_ Mirala's paper, published in _Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland,_ also provides a comparative analysis within a European context. He suggests that in relation to its population, Irish freemasonry had a larger footprint than in any other European country with nearly four times as many members in proportion to its population as compared to England. A total of around seven hundred lodges were warranted in Ireland between 1730 and 1790, which encompassed an estimated forty thousand or more members in an adult male population of just over one million. The comparable figures for England were around 20\u201325,000 masons in an adult male population of about 2 million; France had roughly 50,000 masons in an adult male population of about 7 million.\n\nMany Irish lodges tended to guard their independence jealously, especially those based some distance from Dublin and outside the immediate orbit of the influence of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. As a consequence, early attempts by the Irish Grand Lodge in Dublin to impose a federal structure over its notionally subordinate lodges failed. As Meaney observed, lodges in Munster resented interference from any central authority and often took an independent stance. Some fifty-eight lodges were warranted in Munster between 1726 and 1760. The majority were in Co. Cork, which had twenty-two lodges. Limerick and Waterford had ten each; Tipperary nine; and Clare and Kerry one apiece. Several lodges may have pre-dated the establishment of Irish Grand Lodge in 1725 but even after 1730 when Grand Lodge was more fully operational, there is no evidence of anything other than a limited line of communication between Dublin and its outlying lodges for at least several decades. An instructive incident was the request in May 1748 that John Calder, then Grand Secretary of Ireland, compile a report on the condition of the lodges in Munster (the province most closely allied to grand lodge) and that he collect the outstanding dues. The exercise was an attempt by Dublin to exert its authority. However, Calder's report the following year suggests that its authority was more likely to be exercised in the breach. Calder outlined the practical problems encountered in Dublin's attempts to exercise governance over the lodges it nominally regulated, including a comment from one provincial lodge that it would 'never pay any dues, except a shilling from each Master and sixpence from each Warden, on the commencement of their officers and secretary's fees for registry'. In the event, an informal but effective accommodation was reached whereby Irish Grand Lodge chose largely to ignore most provincial irregularities and most dues went unremitted.\n\nEvidence of a growing number of Irish Catholic freemasons from the mid-eighteenth century onward is apparent from the membership lists of individual lodges. The rise predated Catholic emancipation, which was then almost absent from the political agenda. Of course, Catholic freemasons were not present uniformly across Ireland and not all lodges were inter-denominational. Indeed, some lodges excluded Catholics either formally or less formally. However, many were open to both religious communities and the Masonic practice of inter-visitation, that is, visiting different lodges within a given area, helped to expand the level of contact between the two. Given the restricted circumstances in which the Catholic Church operated in Ireland, the papal bulls of 1738 and 1751 and canon law against freemasonry were more or less ignored until Catholic emancipation was more firmly rooted in the second decade of the nineteenth century. The rationale was clear. Irish Catholicism had been constrained by penal legislation for decades and any attempt to impose strict papal doctrine on freemasonry could have affected the Catholic Church's emergence from proscription. Perhaps more worrying for Rome, many Catholic priests were themselves freemasons, as were a number of bishops, and as Mirala noted, Ireland's archbishops even petitioned Pope Pius VI in 1788 to withdraw the penalty of automatic excommunication.\n\nWith the acquiescence of the Irish episcopality, the popularity of freemasonry among Catholics expanded, most particularly in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. By the early 1790s, a number of lodges advertised openly that they welcomed both Protestant and Catholic members, and freemasonry was held up and publicised as an example of an inclusive and non-sectarian organisation. Freemasonry was also popular in the non conformist and conformist Huguenot \u00e9migr\u00e9 community who, as in England, were well represented in the upper ranks of Irish Grand Lodge. George Boyde, originally from Bordeaux, was Grand Treasurer from 1732 until 1735; Captain John Arabin became Grand Treasurer in 1736; and Captain John Corneille was made JGW in 1735 and SGW the following year. Later, in the 1760s, David, Peter and John La Touche, the eminent Dublin-based Huguenot financiers, were elected Grand Wardens, and in 1767, David La Touche became Deputy Grand Master. The commonality of interest in freemasonry across the religious and social divide in Ireland spoke to a key factor that promoted the Craft across Ireland as a whole in the latter half of the eighteenth century and was shared by aristocrat and artisan alike: the outrage and national patriotism that was the response to British mercantilism.\n\n# _Conclusion_\n\nIn some ways, the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge in 1751 and the decades of internecine Masonic disaffection that followed can be traced back to the Glorious Revolution that exiled James II and brought William and Mary to the English throne. Ireland's Williamite-Jacobite war and the Treaty of Limerick that concluded the fighting crushed Irish Catholic opposition and brought in a century of Anglo-Irish Protestant minority government and punitive anti-Catholic legislation that only began to be repealed and amended in the 1780s. But it was not the opposition of the Irish Catholic majority that caused a rift to open between Dublin and London but the mercantilist legislation that was imposed with growing force and effect from the late seventeenth century and into the eighteenth. Until that time, no laws had regulated Ireland's foreign trade more onerously than that of England, and no duties or tariffs had been imposed that affected Ireland alone. In short, apart from the relatively benign Navigation Acts of 1663, until the introduction of the onerous Wool Act and the anti free trade legislation that followed, Ireland's exports and manufactures had been virtually free of restrictions. Moreover, although there was a long history of seasonal workers travelling to England from Ireland to work on the harvest, more permanent settlement was relatively uncommon, especially among the lower middling and working classes.\n\nMercantilism changed everything. As the financial and opportunity cost of trade controls became apparent, and as the tariffs and duties imposed on Irish agriculture and industry were sustained, Ireland was divided economically from Britain and forced into a subsidiary position. Irish alienation was reinforced by London's growing political and later social disdain, an attitude epitomised by the arrogant imposition of the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act in 1720 and the massively unpopular grant to William Wood of a patent to coin Irish copper currency some two years later. Opposition Anglo-Irish commentators such as William Moylneux may have been lone voices in the 1690s but three decades later, Jonathan Swift was able to rouse Ireland to widespread resistance and the risk of Irish nationalism was forestalled only by Walpole's tactical retreat. By the 1750s, despite Dublin's parliamentary 'undertakers' and the waterfall of patronage and sinecures that lay at the heart of London's control of Ireland, the cost of economic repression, the draining of Ireland's capital and increasing British condescension combined to give Ireland's patriotic opposition a voice that would remain at the forefront of parliamentary debate until temporarily extinguished by the Acts of Union. With some irony, over little more than three or four generations, Britain's economic policies and political and social conceit pushed many of its most loyal Irish Protestant supporters from advocates of dependency and promoters of empire to staunch patriotic activists. It also triggered a near exodus of long-term economic migration from Ireland.\n\nFor Britain, mercantilism worked, but only in so far as its economic interests could be managed against those of its colonial dominions. In the Americas, arguments concerning citizens' rights and the appropriate responsibilities of government eventually led to insurgency. But the drive for political independence masked what was at its core more a commercial disagreement over the spoils of trade and competing pecuniary self interest. The same political and financial imperatives drove West Indian plantation owners and merchants to purchase British parliamentary seats and the Irish and others to finance extensive lobby interests in London.\n\nDespite colonial disquiet, in the second half of the late eighteenth century Britain was approaching industrial take-off. An expanding empire and burgeoning global companies sustained growth in international trade which transformed the prospects and realities of economic growth at home and abroad, symbiotically feeding and being fed by revolutions in agriculture, demography, finance and science. But there was an exception: Ireland. In contrast to Britain, the Caribbean and the Americas, trade benefited few in Ireland. The country's economic prospects remained lean and its treatment by Britain was punctuated by domestic resentment. Dobbs' comment that 'a flourishing trade gives encouragement to the industrious... increases the power of the nation; [and] puts it in the power of every prudent and industrious man in it to enjoy more of the innocent pleasures of life' had become a global theme of empire, adopted by Britain and its colonies and dependencies alike. In effect, trade was recognised as both a moral and a financial imperative. For politicians in London to seek to prevent or curtail Ireland from trading was to dismember the intellectual basis on which economic and political policy was founded and to ride against what might be termed the economic Enlightenment. The Irish railed. In Swift's words:\n\nIreland is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of, either in ancient or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their native commodities and manufactures wherever they pleased, except to countries at war with their prince or own state, yet this privilege by the superiority of mere power is refused us in the most momentous parts of commerce \u2013 beside an Act of Navigation, to which we never consented, pinned down upon us and rigorously executed, and a thousand other unexampled circumstances as grievous as they are invidious to mention.\n\nAs Britain and the bulk of its empire benefited with agriculture and industry no longer geared simply to meet local demand but directed towards both national and international markets, Ireland was largely excluded. Constraints on trade and the expatriation of domestic capital overseas impeded Irish agriculture and hampered its emergent industries. It was recognised at the time. For Swift, Irish economic inefficiency was not a function of the lack of any 'industry of the people'; Ireland's 'misfortune is not altogether of our own fault, but to a million of discouragements'. Spurred by vested interests at home, Britain would not accept competition from Ireland in either agriculture or industry. But where this might have been justified in the late seventeenth century as appropriate retribution against what was popularly portrayed as Ireland's papist Jacobite-supporting majority, it was perhaps less appropriate for Ireland's pro-Hanoverian Anglo-Irish Protestants. Indeed, as the century progressed, the Anglo-Irish gradually came to perceive that Britain's attitude had transitioned to disdain towards Ireland and the Irish as a whole, whether Catholic or Protestant.\n\nAlthough one might argue whether Swift's analysis of British economic policy was essentially correct or otherwise, this is less important than the intellectual and emotional schematic that he and others imposed on Irish thinking. The rapid evolution of trade in eighteenth-century Britain laid the foundations for industrialisation and a concomitant social transformation. Technological progress transformed what had once been relatively isolated sectors. Practical inventions such as the Newcomen engine and hydraulic pump multiplied labour productivity and drove down costs and prices; and the impact on economic growth rippled out to become a continuous and self-reinforcing process. Over time, labour, especially segments of the urban workforce, benefited, as primary production was substituted in part by value added manufactured goods and an emerging service economy.\n\nThe contrast with Ireland was extensive, obvious and unfortunate. Revisiting Swift once again:\n\nI would be glad to know by what secret method it is that we grow a rich and flourishing people without liberty, trade, manufactures, inhabitants, money or the privilege of coining, without industry, labour or improvement of land, and with more than half the rents and profits of the whole kingdom annually exported for which we receive not a single farthing, and to make up all this, nothing worth mentioning except the linen of the north, a trade casual, corrupted, and at mercy, and some butter from Cork. If we do flourish, it must be against every law of nature and reason.\n\nIreland foundered. And as William Hewins noted, its failure was a direct consequence of the 'narrow conception of national interests which then... dominated English economic policy'. Swift's polemic was on balance correct and his arguments resonated within his Anglo-Irish audience in Ireland \u2013 both Whig and Tory \u2013 and echoed elsewhere, including among the Catholic majority. Even allowing for exceptions in the textile industries and in small-scale paper and glass making, Irish commerce was strangled by legislation and made uncompetitive by excise duties.\n\nUnder-invested, over-regulated and unable to export freely, Ireland's agriculture was incapable of taking up the economic slack or even providing adequately for the domestic market. Despite the endeavours of the Dublin Society and other organisations that hoped to improve Ireland's cultivation, husbandry and manufacture, potential success on anything like the necessary scale was penalised by insecurity of land tenure, the excessive rents demanded by landowners and onerous British tariffs. Ireland's core agriculture \u2013 dairy, grain and wool production \u2013 all suffered. Where in Britain agricultural output tripled between 1700 and 1800 and industrial output accelerated from the 1760s, in Ireland neither occurred. And in the light of the failed harvests that resulted in dislocation and despair across almost the whole of the country, it was ironic that the victualling yards that supplied the British navy and the Caribbean colonies \u2013 Swift's 'butter from Cork' \u2013 gave rise to a conceit that Ireland as a whole produced a food surfeit.\n\nUsing Alice Murray's well-placed adjective, British mercantilism gave rise to 'melancholy' in Ireland and famine and economic hardship drove both Catholic and Protestants to seek alternatives, including enlistment in the British and foreign armies and emigration. Those that were able to do so left for the Americas and other colonies. But many of the more impoverished and desperate made their way to England and Scotland, in Ruth-Ann Harris' memorable phrase, 'the nearest place that wasn't Ireland'. That the St Giles rookery was built on the site of a former leper colony offers an allegory that is in many ways only too obvious. The London slums represented not only social exclusion and economic deprivation but were also a testament to the consequences of famine and the political and trade policies that proscribed or prevented alternative employment in Ireland. The entry ports of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, and emerging industrial towns in the north and midlands, including Bradford, Leeds and Manchester, all had their own small or large Irish ghettos. But it was the slums of St Giles, St Martin's, Rosemary Lane and the Ratcliffe Highway that embodied the initial and often enduring poverty of the Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9. Many lived in what became dystopian Irish ghettos, lodged in insanitary and overcrowded tenement houses where eighty or more beds might be let out at _3d_ or _4d_ a night, or a shilling or two per week. Roger Swift's characterisation of this swathe of migrants as the 'outcast Irish' was apposite and life for most would have been unforgiving.\n\nIn comparison to the avalanche of studies of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century working class, research into the condition of the London Irish in the mid-eighteenth century has been sparse. There are occasionally hints that the Irish had a presence beyond the minority of affluent middling traders, merchants, artists and lobbyists that were at the heart of recognised Irish society in the British capital. Eoin Kinsella's work on hurling in London in the eighteenth century, for example, opens a window on the popularity of the Gaelic game in London which appears to have attracted both gentlemen players and large audiences of working class and lower middling Irish spectators. In August 1733, for example, 'a game called hurling was played for 50 guineas a side in Hyde Park by gentlemen of Ireland, the county of Kildare, against the county of Meath'. Its popularity suggests a relatively large expatriate Irish population in London willing to pay for traditional entertainment; indeed, a second match took place the same month at the Bell Inn in Paddington with a combined Meath and Queen's County side taking on Wicklow and Wexford. By the mid-century, hurling matches were regularly held elsewhere, including the Artillery Grounds to the north of the City of London, an area marked by a large Irish colony. In 1748 and in 1749, Munster took on Leinster; and two years later, demand within London's Irish community was apparently sufficient to justify a pair of back-to-back matches between the counties.\n\nTraditionally, historical analysis of the London Irish has spoken to the upper and middling segments of that population. With respect to the far larger number of Irish working class in the many rookeries across the city and the aspirational lower middling seeking to climb out of poverty \u2013 and succeeding in so doing \u2013 there is relative silence. Some progress has been made in recent years. The digitisation of trial records and sessions' papers of the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court and the magistrates' courts of Middlesex and Westminster, provide accessible source material. And there are other data sources, including the primary records of the Antients Grand Lodge and its constituent Masonic lodges. This material offers a unique and informative testimony that opens up for review the different dimensions of the urban working class and most especially details of residence, occupation and association.\n\nAlthough Antients freemasonry and the formation of the Antients Grand Lodge can be viewed, if one dimensionally, as a function of the alienation of the London Irish from mainstream English freemasonry, there were other more important economic, political and social drivers. Unlike the original Whiggist Grand Lodge of England established in 1717, Antients freemasonry and its Grand Lodge were moulded chiefly by working class and lower middling freemasons from London's Irish diaspora. However, although the two grand lodges were largely at opposite ends of the social spectrum, there were similarities in their development. Most notably, each was controlled in its formative years by a small group of dynamic and highly effective principals. In the 1720s until the early 1730s, John Theophilus Desaguliers was the primary driving force at English Grand Lodge, albeit supported by a core group of like-minded men including George Payne, Martin Folkes, William Cowper and others from their circles in the magistracy, the professions and among parliamentarians and the Court. Within the Antients, Laurence Dermott was dominant for three decades from the early 1750s into the 1780s. Both Desaguliers and Dermott set their marks on their respective organisations and each propelled it forward in their image. However, where Desaguliers and his colleagues retired in the late 1730s and early 1740s to be replaced a bureaucratic leadership that presided over Masonic stagnation and decline, Dermott's influence was longer, positive and far more indelible.\n\nAs the original Grand Lodge of England succumbed to a 'Masonic malaise', membership of the Antients grew rapidly, particularly once it enjoyed the patronage of the 1st earl of Blessington and other members of the Anglo-Irish and Scottish gentry. The imprimatur of recognition by the Grand Lodge of Ireland followed.\n\nDespite earlier opposition to Wood's Halfpence and the money bills dispute of the 1750s, relatively few of Ireland's oligarchs and Anglo-Irish aristocracy and gentry were willing to oppose British policy overtly. London's patronage and power were too substantial to be countered head on. Indirect and more oblique resistance was preferable, whether expressed through the Dublin Society or via support for and recognition of Antients freemasonry. And although perhaps superficially inconsequential when viewed in a broader framework, in the light of the proximity of association between the original Grand Lodge and London's political establishment, the subtext of a cessation of fraternal Masonic relations should not be underestimated.\n\nIreland's Masonic break with Britain was followed by a _volte face_ by members of the Scottish aristocracy and, in the early 1770s, Scottish Grand Lodge recognised the Antients as the only legitimate Masonic authority in England. The joint recognition of the Irish and Scots was particularly important in consolidating the Antients' reputation and facilitating membership growth overseas, especially in the Americas and other colonies where military expansion and trade had introduced and embedded freemasonry into the local culture. Dermott was able to take advantage. His public promotion of Antients freemasonry and overt control of news management was similar to the strategy adopted by Desaguliers some three decades earlier. And as the Antients developed a higher profile and attracted patrons, Antients Grand Lodge posed an unequivocal challenge to the authority of the now derogatorily termed 'Moderns' and to the prestige of those in its senior ranks.\n\nMembers of Masonic lodges in dispute with the original Grand Lodge of England had an alternative course open to them. And even where there was no difference of Masonic opinion, the Antients beckoned as a preferred alternative, offering a supposedly more traditional form of ritual to that of the Moderns, equal aristocratic provenance, active mutual support and the frisson of an establishment yet anti-English establishment organisation.\n\nThe background to the schism in English freemasonry and to Ireland's crucial support was the politicisation and alienation of the Anglo-Irish elite and of the middling Irish more widely. But although such support may have been a key factor, Antients freemasonry had a more immediate British context. It was a direct response to the prejudice and intolerance of the English 'Moderns' towards not only the London Irish but also many among its own ranks. Freemasonry was a product of its milieu. The associational culture of the early eighteenth century had previously been restricted principally to the upper and middling classes and was encapsulated by the fraternal drinking, dining and self-improving conversation that was at the heart of many Moderns lodges. But towards the middle of the eighteenth century the socio economic environment was changing. By the late eighteenth century, perhaps a third or more of the five hundred or so Masonic lodges in England lay within the orbit of Antients freemasonry and had predominantly lower middling and working-class members. And with that impetus, Britain's associational culture metamorphosed to extend towards the lower strata of society.\n\nFrom the early 1750s, Antients freemasonry and lodge activity moved beyond simple Masonic ritual to incorporate a broadly based form of mutual financial assistance. In doing so, it helped to set the foundations for working-class self-help in England's urban and industrial communities.\n\nThe schism in English Freemasonry was a consequence of the deterioration in England's economic and political relationship with Ireland and of the social condescension with which Ireland and the Irish were viewed. The split was also a metaphor for Irish alienation and their burgeoning disaffection. But it was more. Antients freemasonry was integral to the economic and social development of both the London Irish and a significant minority of the urban working class and lower middling. Masonic lodges carried forward and extended the concept of mutual benefit societies, provided a fraternal social nexus beyond the church and alehouse, and offered social access to many otherwise excluded. Of course, Antients freemasonry also fulfilled emotional and spiritual needs, but beyond this, it reflected and contributed to the transformation taking place within urban society and to the changing relationship between labour and capital. Above all, it was a symbol of aspiration and, over time, would mark what was a period of transition from alienation to assimilation.\n\n# _List of Abbreviations_\n\n1723 Constitutions | James Anderson, _Constitutions of the Freemasons_ (London, 1723). \n---|--- \n1738 Constitutions | James Anderson, _The new book of constitutions of... free and accepted masons_ (London, 1738). \nAntients Grand Lodge | The Antients Grand Lodge of England, established 1751. \nAntients Grand Lodge Minutes | Minutes of the Antients Grand Lodge, 1752\u201360, reprinted as QCA, vol. XI (London, 1958). \nBurney | The Burney newspaper collection at the British Library, London. \nCC Transactions | Transactions of the Lodge of Research, No. 200, Ireland. \nCUP | Cambridge University Press. \nDGM | Deputy Grand Master. \nDIB | Dictionary of Irish Biography. \ned(s) | Editor(s). \nedn. | Edition. \nFCP | Four Courts Press. \nFRS | Fellow of the Royal Society. \nGrand Lodge of England | The Grand Lodge of England (formerly 'of London', later the 'Moderns'), established 1717, also 'Grand Lodge'. \nGrand Lodge of England Minutes | 1723\u201339: reprinted as QCA, vol. X \n(London, 1913). \n1740\u201358: reprinted as QCA, vol. XII \n(Margate, 1960). \nGM | Grand Master. \nGS | Grand Secretary. \nGSt | Grand Steward. \nGT | Grand Treasurer. \nHC | House of Commons. \nHL | House of Lords. \nHRI | Humanities Research Institute. \nIHR | Institute of Historical Research. \nJW | Junior Warden. \nJGW | Junior Grand Warden. \nLMA | London Metropolitan Archives, London. \nMS(S) | Manuscript(s). \nMUP | Manchester University Press. \nSPCK | Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. \nODNB | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. \nOKA | Old King's Arms Lodge, No. 28. \nOUP | Oxford University Press. \nQC | Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge. \nQCL | Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076. \nQCL Transactions | Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076. \nQCA | Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha. \nQUB | Queen's University, Belfast. \nRCP | Royal College of Physicians, London. \nrev. | revised. \nRS | The Royal Society, London. \nSackler Archives | The Sackler Archive of the Royal Society. \nSW | Senior Warden. \nSGW | Senior Grand Warden. \nUGLE | United Grand Lodge of England.\n\n# _Appendix_\n\nAPPENDIX I\n\nAntients Grand Lodge, Principal Grand Officers, 1751\u20131780\n\nAPPENDIX II\n\nGrand Lodge of Ireland, Principal Grand Officers, 1725\u20131770\n\nAPPENDIX III\n\nGrand Lodge of England, Principal Grand Officers, 1717\u20131770\n\nAPPENDIX IV\n\nMilitary Lodges Warranted by the Irish and Antients Grand Lodges\n\nAPPENDIX V\n\nAn Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Irish Freemasonry\n\nAPPENDIX VI\n\nThe First Irish lodge in London \u2013 the Ship behind the Royal Exchange\n\n# APPENDIX I\n\n# Antients Grand Lodge, Principal Grand Officers, 1751\u20131780\n\n# APPENDIX II\n\n# Grand Lodge of Ireland, Principal Grand Officers, 1725\u20131770\n\n# APPENDIX III\n\n# Grand Lodge of England, Principal Grand Officers, 1717\u20131770\n\n**Appendix 3: Grand Lodge of England, Principal Grand Officers, 1717\u20131770**\n\nNote: The above dates do not always correspond to calendar years; appointment and election to officer was often mid- or part way through a year.\n\n1. Later Earl of Tyrone.\n\n2. Until 24 June\n\n3. From 24 June\n\n4. Created Earl of Blessington in 1745. Sworn a Privy Councillor (Ireland) in 1748 and made Governor of Co. Tyrone.\n\n5. Succeeded Pennell on his death\n\n6. Resigned, succeeded by Anthony Relham\n\n7. Sometimes written as 'Pentland'.\n\n8. Later 1st viscount Sackville. Sackville was the son of the 1st duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1751\u20135, and served as his father's Chief Secretary.\n\n9. Succeeded as the 3rd baron Southwell in 1766.\n\n10. Succeeded as 2nd earl of Lanesborough in 1768; honorific title from 1755.\n\n11. Later 6th earl of Drogheda; subsequently 1st earl of Charleville.\n\n# APPENDIX IV\n\n# Military Lodges Warranted by the Irish and Antients Grand Lodges\n\n# **Irish Warranted Military Lodges**\n\n| _Lodge Numbers and Warrant Dates_ \n---|--- \n**Cavalry** | \n2nd The Queen's Bays | 960 (1805\u201334) \n4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards | 295 (1757\u201396) \n5th (Princess Charlotte of Wales) Dragoon Guards | 277 (1757\u20131818) \n| 570 (1863\u2013...) \n6th Dragoon Guards, the Carabiniers | 577 (1780\u201399) \n| exchanged for 876, (1799\u20131858) \n7th (Princess Royals) Dragoon Guards \u2013 the Black Horse | 305 (1758) \n| exchanged for 7, (1817\u201355) \n1st or Blue Irish Horse, later 4th Dragoon Guards | 295 (1758\u2013...) \n2nd or Green Irish Horse, later 5th Dragoon Guards | 277 (1757\u20131818) \n| 570 (1780\u20131824 ) \n| 44 re-issued (1863\u2013...) \n3rd or Irish Horse, later 6th Dragoon Guards | 577 (1780) \n| 876 issued 1799 \n| in lieu of 577, lost 1794 \n4th or Black Irish Horse, later 7th Dragoon Guards | 305 (1758 \n| exchanged for No. 7, 1817) \n4th Dragoons \u2013 Queen's Own Hussars | 50 (1815) \n| exchanged for No. 4, 1818 \n| cancelled 1821 \n5th Dragoons \u2013 Queen's Own Hussars | 289 (1757\u201396) \n| 297 (1758\u20131818) \n5th Royal Irish Lancers | 595 (1914\u20131922) \n8th Dragoons \u2013 Kings Royal Irish Hussars | 280 (1757\u20131815) \n| 646 (1932\u201380) \n9th Dragoons \u2013 Queen's Royal Lancers | 158 (1747\u20131815) \n| 356 (1760\u20131818) \n12th Dragoons \u2013 Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales) | 179 (1804\u201317) \n| exchanged for 12 (1817\u201327) \n| 179 (1868\u201391) \n| 255 (1755\u20131815) \n13th Dragoons \u2013 Hussars | 234 (1752\u20131815) \n| 400 (1791\u20131849) \n| 607 (1782\u201389) \n14th Dragoons \u2013 King's Hussars | 273 (1756\u20131827) \n16th Dragoons \u2013 Queen's Lancers | 929 (1803\u201321) \n17th Dragoons \u2013 Lancers (Duke of Cambridge Own) | 218 (1873\u201383) \n| 478 (1769\u20131801) \n18th Lord Drogheda's Light Dragoons \u2013 1st Squadron | 388 (1762\u20131813) \n18th Lord Drogheda's Light Dragoons \u2013 2nd Squadron | 389 (1762\u20131821) \n20th Jamaica Light Dragoons | 759 (1792\u20131815) \n23rd Light Dragoons (1794\u20131802) | 873 (1799\u20131802) \n23rd (26th) Light Dragoons (1802\u20131817) | 164 (1808\u201317) \n**Artillery Regiments** | \n7th Battalion, Royal Artillery | 68 (1813\u201334) \n| 226 (1810\u201325) \n9th Battalion, Royal Artillery | 313 (1823\u201328) \nRoyal Irish Artillery | 374 (1761\u20131818) \n| 528 (1781\u201387) \nCorps of Artillery Drivers | 241 (1811, but not issued) \n**Regiments of the Line** | \n1st Foot, Royal Scots 1st Battalion | 11 (1732\u20131847) \n| 381 (1762\u20131814) \n1st Foot, Royal Scots 2nd Battalion | 74 (1737\u20131801) \n2nd Foot, Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) | 2 (1818) \n| in lieu of 244 (1754\u20131825) \n| 390 (1762\u20131815) \n4th Foot, King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) | 4 (1818) in lieu of 50 \n| 91 (1857\u20131876) \n| 522 (1785\u20131823) \n5th Foot, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers | 86 (1738\u20131815) \n6th Foot, Royal Warwickshire | 45 (1735\u20131801) \n| 643 (1785\u20131800) \n| 646 (1785\u20131818) \n7th Foot, Royal Fusiliers (City of London) | 231 (1752\u20131801) \n9th Foot, Royal Norfolk | 246 (1754\u20131817) \n10th Foot, Lincolnshire | 177 (1748\u201355) \n| 299 (1758\u20131803) \n| 378 (1761\u20131815) \n11th Foot, Devonshire | 604 (1782\u201394) \n13th Foot, Somerset Light Infantry | 637 (1784\u20131818) \n| 661 (1787\u20131819) \n14th Foot, West Yorkshire (Prince of Wales Own) | 211 (1750\u20131815) \n15th Foot, East Yorkshire | 245 (1754\u20131801) \n16th Foot, Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire | 293 (1758\u20131817) \n| 300 (1758\u20131801) \n17th Foot, Leicestershire | 136 (1743\u20131801) \n| 921 (1802\u20131824) \n| 258 (1824 in lieu of 921, 1847) \n18th Foot, Royal Irish | 168 (1747\u20131801) \n| 351 (1760\u20131818) \n19th Foot, Green Howards | 156 (1747\u20131779) \n20th Foot, Lancashire Fusiliers, 1st Battalion | 63 (1737\u20131869) \n20th Foot, Lancashire Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion | 263 (1860\u20131907) \n21st Foot, Royal Scots Fusiliers | 33 (1734\u20131801) \n| 936 (1803\u20131817) in exchange for \n| 33 (1817\u20131864) \n22nd Foot, Cheshire | 251 (1754\u20131817) \n23rd Foot, Royal Welsh Fusiliers | 738 (2) (1808\u20131821) \n| revived (1882\u20131892) \n25th Foot, King's Own Scottish Borderers | 92 (1738\u20131815) \n250 (1819\u20131823) | \n| exchanged for 25 (1823\u20131839) \n26th Foot, 1st Battalion, The Cameronians | 309 (1758) \n| exchanged for 26 (1823) \n26 (1810\u20131823 and 1823\u20131922) | \n27th Foot, 1st Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers | 24 (1734\u20131801) \n| 205 (1750\u20131785) \n| 528 (1787\u20131815) \n| 692 (1808\u20131818) \n28th Foot, 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire | 35 (1734\u20131801) \n| 510 (1773\u20131858) \n28th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Gloucestershire | 260 (1809\u201315) \n29th Foot, 1st Battalion, Worcestershire | 322 (1759\u2013...) \n30th Foot, 1st Battalion, East Lancashire 85 (1738\u20131793 | exchanged for No. 30, 1805\u20131823), 535 (1776\u2013...) \n32nd Foot, 1st Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry | 61 (1736\u20131801) \n| 617 (1783\u20131815) \n| 524 (1921\u201337) \n33rd Foot, 1st Battalion, Duke of Wellington's | 12 (1732\u20131817) \n35th Foot, 1st Battalion, Royal Sussex | 205 (1749\u201390) \n36th Foot | 542 (1770\u201380) \n| 559 (1778\u2013...) \n38th Foot, 1st Battalion, South Staffordshire | 38 (1734\u20131801) \n| 441 (1765\u20131840) \n| \n39th Foot, 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire | 128 (1742\u20131886) \n| 290 (1758\u20131815) \n40th Foot, 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales Volunteers (South Lancs.) | 204 (1810\u20131813) \n| 284 (1821\u20131858) \n42nd Foot, 1st Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) | 42 (1809\u20131840) \n| 195 (1749\u20131815) \n44th Foot, 1st Battalion, Essex | 788 (1793\u2013...) \n45th Foot, 1st Battalion, Sherwood Foresters | 445 (1766\u20131815) \n46th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry | 174 (1896\u20131921) \n| 227 (1752\u20131847) \n47th Foot, 1st Battalion, The Loyal Regiment (North Lancs) | 147 (1810\u20131823) \n| 192 (1748\u20131823) \n48th Foot, 1st Battalion, Northamptonshire | 86 (1738\u20131784) \n| 218 (1750\u20131858) \n| 631 (May-Aug 1784) \n| reissued (Oct. 1784\u20131818) \n| 982 (1806\u201317) \n49th Foot, 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire | 354 (1760\u20131851) \n| 616 (1783\u20131817) \n50th Foot, 1st Battalion, Queen's Own Royal West Kent | 58 (1857\u20131876) \n| 113 (1763\u20131815) \n51st Foot, 1st Battalion, King's Own Yorks. Light Infantry | 94 (1761\u20131815) \n| 690 (1788\u201396) \n52nd Foot, 2nd Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry | 244 (1832\u20131845) \n| 370 (1761\u20131825) \n53rd Foot, 1st Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry | 236 (1773\u20131815) \n| 950 (1804\u201324) \n56th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Essex | 420 (1765\u20131817) \n58th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Northamptonshire | 466 (1769\u20131816) \n| 692 (1789\u20131808) \n59th Foot, 2nd Battalion, East Lancashire | 219 (1810\u20131819) \n| 243 (1754\u20131815) \n62nd Foot, 1st Battalion, Wiltshire (Duke of Edinburgh) | 407 (1763\u201386) \n63rd Foot, 1st Battalion, Manchester | 512 (1774\u20131814) \n64th Foot, 1st Battalion, North Staffordshire (Prince of Wales) | 130 (1817\u201358) \n| 686 (1788) \n| exchanged for No. 130, 1817) \n65th Foot, 1st Battalion, York and Lancaster | 631 (1784\u20131818) \n66th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire | 392 (1763\u20131817) \n| 538 (1777\u20131811) \n| 580 (1780\u20131817) \n66th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire | 656 (1808) (not confirmed) \n67th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire | 388 (1762\u20131813) \n68th Foot, 1st Battalion, Durham Light Infantry | 714 (1790\u20131815) \n69th Foot, 2nd Battalion, The Welsh | 174 (1791\u20131821) \n| 983 (1807\u201336) \n70th Foot, 2nd Battalion, East Surrey | 770 (1871\u201375) \n71st Foot, 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry | 895 (1801\u201358) \n72nd Foot, 1st Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders | 65 (1854\u201360) \n75th Foot, 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders | 292 (1810\u201325) \n76th Foot, 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders | 359 (1760\u20131763) \n77th Foot, Atholl Highlanders | 578 (1780\u20131818) \n82nd Foot, 2nd Battalion, Prince of Wales Volunteers | 138 (1817\u201358) \n83rd Foot, (1758 \u2013 1763) | 339 (1759\u201364) \n83rd Foot, 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles | 435 (1808) \n| exchanged for 83, (1817) \n83rd Foot, 16th Service Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles | 420 (1915\u201321) \n87th Foot, 7th Service Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers | 415 (1915\u20131924) \n88th Foot, 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers | 19 (1907\u201320) \n| 176 (1821\u201371) \n89th Foot 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers | 538 (1811\u201315) \n| 863 (11798\u20131818) \n92nd Foot, Donegal Light Infantry | 364 (1761\u201363) \n96th\/97th Foot, Queen's Germans | 984 (1807\u20131818 \n| exchanged for 176, (1818\u201319) \n103rd Foot, Bombay European Regiment | 292 (1834\u201356) \n112th Foot, Lord Donoughmore's | 815 (1795\u20131815) \n4th Foot, Garrison Battalion | 986 (1810\u201315) \n5th Foot, Garrison Battalion | 125 (1808\u201314) \n7th Foot, Garrison Battalion | 992 (1808\u201315) \n8th Foot, Garrison Battalion | 995 (1808\u201314) \n4th Foot, Veteran Battalion | 988 (1808\u201315) \nCommissariat Corps | 203 (1809\u201315) \nWest Africa Regiment | 157 (1908\u201328) \nWest India Regiment | 390 (1905\u201327) \nColonel Pool's Regiment | 177 (1748\u201355) \nColonel Folliott's Regiment | 168 (1747\u201301) \nHon Brigadier Guise's Regiment | 45 (1801), but no GLI record. \nColonel Hamilton's Regiment | 23 (1733\u20131801) \nColonel Lascelle's Regiment | 192 (1749\u20131823) \n**Militia Regiments** | \nAntrim | 289 (1796\u20131856) \nArmagh | 888 (1800\u201345) \nCarlow | 903 (1801\u201316) \nCavan | 300 (1801\u201316) \nSouth Cork | 495 (1794\u201315) \nCity of Cork | 741 (1806\u201317) \nDonegal | 865 (1798\u20131821 \nDownshire | 212 (1795\u20131813) \nSouth Down | 214 (1810\u201315) \nCity of Dublin | 62 (1810\u201321) \nFermanagh | 864 (1798\u20131830) \nKerry | 66 (1810\u201329) \nKildare | 847 (1797\u20131825) \nKilkenny | 855 (1797\u20131825) \nKing's County | 948 (1804\u201316) \nLeitrim | 854 (1797\u20131868) \nLongford | 304 (1807\u201326) \nLouth | 10 (1809\u201349) \nMayo South | 79 (1810\u201330) \n| 81 (1812\u201325) \nMeath | 50 (not issued) \n| 898 (1801\u201349) \nMonaghan | 200 (1801\u201316) \n| 552 (1796\u20131816) \nQueen's County | 398 (1805\u201310) \n| 857 (1797\u20131832) \nRoscommon | 242 (1808\u201317) \nSligo | 837 (1796\u20131835) \nSouth Lincoln | 867 (1799\u20131813) \nTipperary | 856 (1797\u20131825) \nTyrone | 225 (1808\u201314) \n| 562 (1797\u20131817) \n| 846 (1796\u20131818) \nWaterford | 961 (1805\u201316) \nWestmeath | 50, 791 (1793\u20131826) \nWexford | 935 (1803\u201324) \nWicklow | 848 (1796\u20131815) \n| 877 (1800\u201318) \nRoyal Independent Dublin Volunteers | 620 (1783\u2013...) \n**Fencible Regiments** | \n1st Fencible Light Dragoons | 384 (1799\u20131802) \nUlster Provincial Regiment of Foot | 612 (1783\u2013...) \nBreadalbane | 907 (1801\u201313) \nElgin | 860 (1798\u20131813) \nEssex | 852 (1796\u20131813) \nFife | 861 (1798\u20131804) \n_Sources:_ | \nGrand Lodge of Ireland, Register of Warranted Lodges. | \nGould, _Military Lodges._ | \nLane, _Masonic Records._ |\n\n# **Antients Warranted Military Lodges**\n\n_Lodge Numbers and Warrant Dates_ \n--- \n**Cavalry** \n3rd Dragoons, R A Union | 197 (1806\u2013...) \n6th Dragoons | 123 (1763\u2013...) \n6th Dragoons | 311 (1797\u20131837 \n7th Dragoons | 262 (1807\u201324) \n9th Dragoons | 284 (1794\u20131813) \n11th Dragoons | 339 (1807\u201310) \n17th Dragoons | 285 (1794\u20131828) \n**Artillery Regiments** | \n1st Battalion Royal Artillery, Scotland | 134 (1764\u201374) \n1st Battalion Royal Artillery, Chatham | 187 (1774\u201377) \n1st Battalion Royal Artillery, Gibraltar | 230 (1785\u2013...) \n2nd Battalion Royal Artillery, Perth | 148 (1767\u2013...) \n4th Battalion Royal Artillery, New York | 213 (1781\u2013...) \n4th Battalion Royal Artillery, New York | 144 (1804\u2013...) \n4th Battalion Royal Artillery, Gibraltar | 209 (1779\u2013...) \n4th Battalion Royal Artillery, Gibraltar | 345 (1809\u201327) \n5th Battalion Royal Artillery, Eastbourne | 101 (1812\u201323) \n6th Battalion Royal Artillery, Ceylon | 329 (1802\u201330) \n9th Battalion Royal Artillery, Gibraltar | 187 (1812\u201322) \n10th Battalion Royal Artillery, South Africa | 354 (1812\u201351) \n10th Battalion Royal Artillery, Gibraltar | 356 (1813\u201321) \nRoyal Horse Artillery, Colchester | 156 (1809\u201328) \nRHA, Woolwich | 86 (1761\u2013...) \nCapt. Webdell's Company | 183 (1773\u2013...) \nQuebec, St John | 241 (1787\u2013...) \nPort Royal, Jamaica | 262 (1790\u20131805) \nCalcutta | 317 (1798\u2013...) \nQuebec | 40 (1804\u201314) \n**Infantry Regiments** | \n3rd | 170 (1771\u201392) \n5th, St George | 353 (1812\u201362) \n7th | 153 (1804\u2013...) \n9th | 183 (1803\u201329) \n11th | 72 (1758\u201367) \n11th | 313 (1798\u20131813) \n13th | 153 (1768\u201376) \n14th | 58 (1759\u20131813) \n14th, Union | 338 (1807\u201330) \n14th, Officers' Lodge | 347 (1810\u201313) \n17th | 237 (1787\u201392) \n18th | 335 (1806\u201313) \n23rd | 252 (1788\u20131822) \n33rd | 90 (1761\u20131813) \n34th | 340 (1807\u201332) \n37th | 52 (1756\u20131813) \n40th | 42 (no date) \n45th | 272 (1792\u20131807) \n50th | 112 (17763\u20131830) \n51st, Orange | 94 (1763\u20131805) \n52nd | 309 (1797\u20131801) \n52nd | 170 (1801\u201313) \n57th | 41 (1755\u2013...) \n58th | 332 (1805\u201323) \n65th | 191 (1774\u2013...) \n67th | 175 (1772\u2013...) \n68th, Durham Light | 348 (1810\u201344) \n72nd | 75 (1759\u201364) \n76th | 248 (1788\u20131828) \n78th | 322 (1801\u201330) \n79th, Waterloo | 191 (1808\u201338) \n85th | 298 (1801\u201346) \n91st, Argyle | 321 (1799\u20131828) \n92nd | 333 (1805\u201332) \n96th | 170 (no date) \n**Royal Engineers** | \nArtificers, Jersey | 293 (1795) \nRM Artificers, Jersey | 350 (1810)\n\n_Sources:_\n\nGrand Lodge of Ireland, Register of Warranted Lodges.\n\nGould, _Military Lodges._\n\nLane, _Masonic Records._\n\n# APPENDIX V\n\n# An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Irish Freemansonry\n\nThe popularisation of modern freemasonry and its introduction into eighteenth-century Ireland lagged developments in England by around four years. The Dublin press first mention the subject in 1721, when the duke of Montagu's decision to accept the position of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England pushed freemasonry into the public's consciousness and led to its renaissance. At the time, London freemasonry appears to have attracted broad interest in Ireland and featured across the political spectrum in articles in both pro-government and opposition newspapers. John Whalley's loyalist _Dublin News Letter_ carried a typical description of Montagu's installation in July 1721; and the following month, John Harding's opposition-leaning _Dublin Impartial News Letter_ wrote an account of the initiation of Viscount Hinchingbroke, Sir George Oxenden and Sir Robert Rich at the King's Arms tavern at St Paul's Churchyard 'where they had a very handsome entertainment'. However, it was probably reports of the mercurial and sometime pro-Jacobite duke of Wharton's decision to join the Craft later the same year that catalysed a more widespread interest among the Irish gentry and middling class.\n\nMany Irish newspapers reproduced accounts carried in the London press that the duke of Wharton had become a freemason, alerting their readers that\n\nhis Grace, the duke of Wharton, was admitted into the Society of Freemasons; the ceremonies being performed at the King's Arms Tavern in St Paul's Churchyard,\n\nand that Wharton ostentatiously 'came home to his house in the Pall Mall in a white leather apron' having been initiated.\n\nOne Irish newspaper to feature the story was Thomas Hume's _Dublin Courant._ Its target readership included Dublin's Anglo-Irish gentry and middling professionals and Hume probably believed Wharton's involvement with the organisation to be of interest to both. The following year, the _Courant_ featured Wharton's own elevation to the Grand Master's chair in London:\n\nyesterday the Grand Meeting of the most noble and ancient Fraternity of Free-Masons was kept at Stationers' hall where they had a most sumptuous Feast, several of the nobility, who are Members of the Society, being present, and his Grace the duke of Wharton was then unanimously chosen Governor of the said Fraternity.\n\nPhilip, duke of Wharton (1698\u20131731), had been made and declared a freemason at the age of 22. He was most probably inspired by Montagu's installation as Grand Master only a few months earlier and the extensive and positive publicity that the event generated. Wharton had been brought up in a wealthy, well-connected and strongly Whiggist family. His father, Thomas, had been honoured for his opposition to James II and support for the accession of William and Mary and was sworn a privy councillor, made comptroller of the royal household and created earl of Wharton and Viscount Wichendon. In later years, he was appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland and thereafter made Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and Lord Privy Seal. As a capstone, shortly before his death in 1715, Thomas Wharton was granted five additional titles as Marquess of Catherlough, earl of Rathfarnam and Baron Trim in the Irish peerage, and Marquess of Wharton and Marquess of Malmesbury in the English.\n\nPhilip Wharton inherited the titles and estates aged 17. His relationship with his father had been fractious and Wharton now had the freedom and opportunity to rebel. Although obliged to meet a proviso in his father's will that he continue his religious education in Geneva, Wharton abandoned his Huguenot teacher in Switzerland and diverted to Paris where he corresponded with the exiled duke of Mar, John Erskine, and visited James Stuart, the Old Pretender, at Avignon. Wharton was a potential catch for Stuart and his gift of a thoroughbred horse was reciprocated by Stuart with Wharton being invested duke of Northumberland.\n\nWharton's actions were treasonous and could have been politically and personally disastrous; however, they were overlooked on his return to Britain and intentionally regarded as a misdemeanour of youth. Wharton was now nineteen and despite being two years under the necessary minimum age, was permitted to sit in the Irish parliament and sworn to the Irish privy council. As a further encouragement and an inducement to secure his loyalty, Wharton was created a duke on 28 January 1718. The letters patent announced that 'as it is to the honour of subjects who are descended from an illustrious family to imitate the great example of their ancestors, we esteem it no less a glory as a king, after the example of our ancestors, to dignify eminent virtues by similar rewards'. However, it is more likely that the English dukedom was intended to displace Wharton's affection for his Jacobite title.\n\nAs duke, Wharton took his seat in the British House of Lords on reaching his majority in December 1719 and immediately attracted considerable press interest. He appeared initially to have matured and his speeches were Whiggist and pro-government. Indeed, Wharton's political reconfiguration appeared to be such that he was even invited to attend a meeting of 'gentlemen of the Whig interest' at the George Inn at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. But any change was superficial. Wharton's principal political focus was his own self-interest. Unhappy with his seeming political trajectory and the manner in which he considered he had been overlooked for a suitable sinecure or office, Wharton launched an attack on the administration over its handling of the South Sea Company, condemning it as 'dangerous bait which might decoy unwary people to their ruin'. Although arguably correct, his comments were neither prescient nor altruistic. Wharton was reported to have invested and lost \u00a3120,000 in the company's stock. Nevertheless, his political assault was effective and struck pointedly at the web of dishonest relationships between the City, the government and the Court. Unsurprisingly, it made Wharton few friends in any of the three.\n\nRebellious in his youth, Wharton retained the same mercurial attitude as a young adult. Outside of politics, his chief interests were those of an aristocratic rake and involved amusing himself and his friends in a flurry of whoring, gambling, drinking and general mischief making. It was in this context that he founded the first Hell Fire club and, in 1721, was proscribed for blasphemy by the Lord Chancellor, a charge he denied. Wharton's interest in freemasonry may have been sparked by curiosity but is likely to have fanned by the opportunity he may have considered it offered for further self promotion and the drunken amusement and entertainment of his friends. In typical style, Wharton sought to usurp rather than succeed Montagu as Grand Master of England and commandeer what he could have viewed as a potentially influential organisation. An alternative is that he may simply have wished to cause a nuisance and, as a wealthy aristocrat, a duke and one of the hundred or so most affluent and best-connected men in England, there were few who would or could stand in his way:\n\nPhilip, duke of Wharton lately made a Brother, tho' not the Master of a Lodge, being ambitious of the Chair, got a number of others to meet him at Stationers Hall 24 June 1722. And having no Grand Officers, they put in the Chair the oldest Master Mason... and without the usual decent ceremonials, the said oldest Mason proclaimed aloud Philip, duke of Wharton, Grand Master of Masons... but his Grace appointed no deputy nor was the lodge opened and closed in due form. Therefore the noble Brothers and all those that would not countenance irregularities disowned Wharton's authority, till worthy Brother Montagu healed the Breach of Harmony by summoning the Grand Lodge to meet 17 January 1723 at the King's Arms aforesaid, where the duke of Wharton promising to be true and faithful, Deputy Grand Master Beale proclaimed aloud the most noble Prince and our Brother Philip duke of Wharton, Grand Master of Masons, who appointed Dr Desaguliers the Deputy Grand Master and Joshua Timson and James Anderson Grand Wardens.\n\nThe description of Wharton's installation was written by the Rev. James Anderson and appears in his _1738 Constitutions._ The record was slanted and designed to avoid the perception of any fraternal 'breach of harmony'. Nonetheless, this is precisely what occurred and although Wharton was accepted as Grand Master and a formal dinner held at the Stationers' livery hall to celebrate the installation, as a counter-balance to his suspect politics, Desaguliers, a leading Whiggist freemason and former Grand Master, was appointed his deputy. The event was reported extensively in the press. One newspaper remarked in passing that membership of the freemasons at the time was some four thousand. If accurate, this would have represented around a fifth of London's gentry and middling adult male population.\n\nGiven freemasonry's pro-Hanoverian and Whiggist associations, Wharton was a divisive figure. The issue came to the fore when the musicians performing at the feast were instructed or encouraged to play the Jacobite anthem, 'Let the King enjoy His own again'. Lawrence Smith has suggested that Wharton sang the song rather than simply permitting it to be played at dinner. But regardless of whether he encouraged the musicians or participated by singing, Wharton was making what would have been considered an overtly offensive political point among a gathering of predominantly loyal Hanoverian Whigs. David Stevenson, quoting from a record of the event, commented that the musicians, and thus by implication Wharton, were 'immediately reprimanded by a person of great gravity and science'. There should be little doubt that this was Desaguliers. Following Wharton's public censure:\n\nHanoverian decorum was restored \u2013 and indeed emphasized. The bottle went merrily about and toasts were made to king, royal family and the established churches... other toasts were drunk to prosperity to Old England \"under the present Administration\" and \"Love, Liberty and Science\".\n\nAt the end of his year in office, Wharton waived his right to name a successor, perhaps expecting that he would be re-elected. Instead, Grand Lodge voted narrowly to appoint the earl of Dalkeith as the new incumbent. The election had been orchestrated by Desaguliers who had arranged for himself to be named Dalkeith's deputy, and two loyal lieutenants, Francis Sorrel and John Senex, to be made the new Grand Wardens. Wharton was not content to let matters go uncontested. His hostility to Desaguliers provoked an unsuccessful attempt to hold the vote again and to declare Desaguliers' appointment invalid. Despite withdrawing with his supporters in protest against the proceedings, Wharton failed to have the vote overturned and left 'without ceremony'.\n\nThe episode prompted Desaguliers to continue his strategy of promoting trustworthy friends to key positions. The most notable was William Cowper, selected as the first Grand Secretary and later Deputy Grand Master. The appointment passed control of the minutes to a staunchly Whiggist fellow member of the duke of Richmond's Horn tavern lodge and placed another ally in a key organizational position. Cowper was at the time Clerk to the Parliaments, the most senior administrative position in the House of Commons and Lords; he was also chairman of the Westminster magistrates' bench. To consolidate power further, Desaguliers instigated new rules to prevent or at least delay any future attempt at Masonic subversion. Shortly after Wharton's departure Grand Lodge resolved that 'it was not in the power of any body of men to make any alteration or innovation in the body of masonry without the consent first obtained of the annual Grand Lodge'. The restriction became so ingrained that it continues to this day to be repeated as part of the installation ceremony each time a new Master is elected in a lodge. Six months later the absolute entitlement of the Grand Master to nominate and appoint his deputy was confirmed, thereby establishing Desaguliers' formal authority as deputy to act as pro Grand Master and to exercise authority in his name. Wharton's departure from Grand Lodge ensured that freemasonry's relationship with the Hanoverian establishment would endure for at least the next decade under Desaguliers' influence and that of a loyalist inner circle.\n\nThe early 1720s offered a difficult backdrop against which to demonstrate publicly Grand Lodge's pro-Hanoverian and Whiggist stance. In addition to Wharton's opposition sympathies and Jacobite tendencies, the Atterbury Plot in 1721\u20132 had accompanied the possibility of another Jacobite rising and was marked by heightened security across London with troops recalled from Ireland and encamped in Hyde Park as a show of force. In such a febrile environment, the government was openly suspicious of secret societies and Grand Lodge reportedly sent emissaries to the secretary of state, Lord Townshend, requesting his consent to the June meeting. The _London Journal_ described the event:\n\na select body of the Society of Freemasons waited on the Rt Hon the Lord Viscount Townshend, one of his principal Secretaries of State, to signify to his Lordship, that being obliged by their constitutions to hold a General Meeting now at midsummer, according to ancient custom, they hoped the administration would take no umbrage at their convention as they were all zealously affected to His Majesty's person and government.\n\nIt is telling that there is no reference to such a meeting in the domestic State Papers. Indeed, given the close relationship between Townshend and freemasonry, it is possible that the meeting may not have occurred in any formal sense and that the press report was fabricated to demonstrate freemasonry's loyalist political credentials to the public at large rather than to the government. Indeed, that freemasonry could be relied upon was probably considered by the government to be axiomatic. Two of many examples suggest why this was almost certainly the case. Townshend's eldest son, Charles, a Whig MP for Great Yarmouth, was a member of the lodge at the Old Devil tavern in Temple Bar. Second and more significantly, Charles Delafaye, Townshend's under secretary of state, the principal figure in the government's anti-Jacobite spy network and a civil servant of unquestionable political loyalty, was himself a leading freemason and, together with Desaguliers and Cowper, a member of the duke of Richmond's Horn tavern lodge.\n\nPerhaps unhappy with his enforced departure from Grand Lodge and probably wishing to retaliate against freemasonry, Wharton founded an alternative society, an event satirised by Hogarth in _Masonry Brought to Light by the Gormogons._ The first reference to the new organisation was in the _Daily Post_ on 3 September 1724. It was followed by an anti-Masonic article in the _Plain Dealer_ on 14 September and a note in the _British Journal_ that also confirmed Wharton's involvement:\n\nwe hear that a peer of the first rank, a noted member of the Society of Freemasons, hath suffered himself to be degraded as a member of that society, and his leather apron and gloves to be burnt, and thereupon entered himself a member of the Society of Gormogons, at the Castle-Tavern in Fleet Street.\n\nThat the press reported the affair extensively indicates the public's interest in both freemasonry and Wharton. However, apart from Hogarth's print, little more was heard of the Gormogons and Wharton's attention was captured quickly by new interests. He formed a second society the same year, 'the Schemers', a club that met at Lord Hillsborough's London house 'for the advancement of that branch of happiness which the vulgar call whoring'. In Lady Montagu's words, 'twenty very pretty fellows (the duke of Wharton being president and chief director) have formed themselves into a committee of gallantry, who call themselves Schemers; and meet regularly three times a week to consult on gallant schemes'.\n\nDespite selling his Irish estates to fund his investment in South Sea Company stock, Wharton continued to have a following in Ireland and several close friends within the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, particularly Lord Hillsborough, whose family had large landholdings in Co. Down. And despite his financial decline and departure for continental Europe in 1725, Wharton was a celebrity aristocrat whose personal and political activities commanded attention in both Dublin and London. Indeed, Richard Parsons, 1st earl of Rosse (1696\u20131741), the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, may well have looked to Wharton as well as the dukes of Montagu and Richmond, as his primary role models as Grand Master.\n\nIn Ireland as in England, freemasonry was led publicly by the aristocracy. Born in Twickenham to the west of London, Rosse succeeded his father as the 2nd viscount Rosse in the Irish peerage in 1702 and, aged 22, was created earl by George I, like Wharton, to encourage and reward his political loyalty. He was appointed Grand Master of Ireland in 1725. There is no extant information on those holding office at Irish Grand Lodge between 1726 and 1730 and Rosse may have remained the titular head of Irish freemasonry until 1731, when Lord Kingston succeeded him in the chair. Lepper & Crossle's _History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland_ contains virtually nothing on Rosse's Masonic activities but instead provides an outline of his family history and political connections. Rosse matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1713, and built a reputation as an impressive drinker and sometime wit. There is no record of his graduation. His family wealth was enhanced by dowries from two successive marriages: in 1714, to Mary, the eldest daughter of Lord William Paulet, the second son of the 1st duke of Bolton, MP for Winchester; and in 1719, following Mary's death the prior year, to Frances, the daughter of Thomas Claxton, an affluent Dublin merchant. However, Rosse's finances received a more substantial boost with his inheritance in 1731 of close to \u00a31 million on the death of his grandmother, Fanny (Frances) Talbot, the older sister of Sarah, the duchess of Marlborough. The inheritance was equivalent to perhaps \u00a3100\u2013200 million in current terms. Fanny's first husband, Rosse's grandfather, was Sir George Hamilton. But it was her subsequent marriage to Richard Talbot, an Irish Jacobite created 1st duke of Tyrconnell by James II, that created her fortune. Tyrconnell died in 1691 and forfeited his assets leaving Fanny in poverty. But following the accession of Queen Anne, the Talbot estates were for the most part restored by act of parliament and at her death the _Dublin Weekly Journal_ recorded that 'her Grace left near a million of money, which mostly now is possessed by the Rt Hon the Lord Rosse, her grace's grandson'.\n\nRosse was chosen to become Grand Master as a function of his rank, celebrity and extensive political connections, which could be traced back to the family's association with and patronage received from Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork. The Parsons, Rosse's ancestors, had been in Ireland and active in its administration since Elizabeth I, having come over as colonists in the late sixteenth century. William Parsons was granted a baronetcy in 1620 and later served as a lord justice of Ireland and, briefly, as lord president of Munster. Rosse's grandfather, the 3rd baronet, had been created the 1st viscount Rosse in 1681.\n\nEarl Rosse had a superficially similar background and character to the aristocrats who had consented to become the figureheads for the Grand Lodge of England and English freemasonry. Its early Grand Masters were also young, affluent and predominantly Whig noblemen who acted as beacons to prospective members and imbued freemasonry with a combination of social celebrity, exclusivity and political protection. Like them, Rosse was handsome, wealthy, witty and a clubbable celebrity. However, whereas John, duke of Montagu, Charles, duke of Richmond, and other English Grand Masters (with the notable exception of Wharton) embraced the Enlightenment and latitudinarianism, and can be argued to have had a sense of moral integrity, Rosse was culturally a libertine whose fortune was directed principally towards personal pleasure. Following his grand tour of Europe and Egypt from 1731 to 1735, Rosse, emulating Wharton, established a Hell Fire club in Dublin where wealthy young Protestant rakes including Lord Irnham, Lord Santry and Colonel Henry Ponsonby, drank, whored and gamed. One of the several properties at which they were reported to meet, Montpelier Hill, about ten miles south of Dublin, had been owned originally by Wharton.\n\nChetwode Crawley, a Masonic historian, depicted Rosse as a man whose 'ideas of morals were inverted' and whose 'skill shone most in the management of the small-sword and the dice-box'. Whether correct or otherwise, Rosse was nonetheless also attuned to the prevalent political mood and was one of many signatories protesting alongside Swift against Wood's patent to produce copper coinage in Ireland. Moreover, notwithstanding his libertinism, something not uncommon and echoed in the activities of other aristocrats in Dublin, London and elsewhere, Rosse was a loyal Hanoverian and his Grand Officers, the Hon Humphrey Butler (DGM), Sir Thomas Prendergast (SGW), Marcus Anthony Morgan (JGW) and Thomas Griffith (GS), similarly and uniformly Whiggist. This is significant given that others have argued that the Grand Lodge of Ireland between 1725 and 1731 was the subject of a struggle for political dominance between Irish Jacobites and pro-Hanoverian Whigs, and that Irish freemasonry was split between the supporters of each camp. The evidence supporting such a contention is slight, if not non-existent. Indeed, the opposite appears to have been the case. Irish freemasonry was dominated by and reflected the ascendancy of the Protestant pro-Hanoverian Anglo-Irish elite. Although the political outlook of Ireland's Grand Officers changed over time, this was not a function of religion or anti-Hanoverian political opposition but of economic self-interest.\n\nAn analysis of those at the head of Irish Grand Lodge reinforces the point. Humphrey Butler (c.1700\u20131768), Rosse's deputy, was the son of Brinsley Butler, 2nd baron Newtown-Butler, created 1st viscount Lanesborough in 1728. Butler succeeded his father in the Irish parliament, sitting as MP for Belturbet from 1725 until 1736, albeit that his participation in debates appears to have been minimal. Tangentially, his co-MP for the constituency until 1727 was Charles Delafaye, Townshend's ultra loyal under secretary of state at the Northern Department and thereafter under secretary at the Southern Department under the duke of Newcastle.\n\nAside from Swift's satirical description of Butler in _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_ as 'Prince Butler, a splenetic madman, whom everyone may remember about the town', there is comprehensive evidence of Butler's pro-Hanoverian political loyalties and establishment credentials. Not the least is that he served as captain in the Lord Lieutenant's Battle Axe Guards, a unit modelled on the Yeomen of the Guard, which provided personal protection to the sovereign's representatives in Ireland. Butler was also appointed high sheriff and the Crown's chief judicial representative for Co. Cavan in 1727, and served in the same capacity for Co. Westmeath in 1728. That year, following his father's elevation to viscount, Butler gained the honorific title of Lord Newtown-Butler. Butler received his own title in 1756, when he was created 1st earl of Lanesborough.\n\nSir Thomas Prendergast, (c.1702\u20131760), was elected Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in June 1725. He was appointed Junior Grand Warden in the Grand Lodge of England six months later in December. The latter position was obtained on the recommendation of the duke of Richmond. However, his membership of the duke's Horn tavern lodge and his robust Anglo-Irish connections would also have spoken strongly in favour of his selection as Senior Grand Warden in Ireland. Like the members of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange discussed in the following Appendix, Prendergast provides an excellent example of the connections between English and Irish freemasonry in the 1720s.\n\nPrendergast divided his time between Ireland and London, where he had been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1721 following two years at Clare College, Cambridge. His mother was Penelope Cadogan and Prendergast was first cousin to the duke of Richmond's wife, Lady Sarah Cadogan. Prendergast wrote repeatedly to Richmond seeking patronage. The family had originally been Catholic supporters of James II and Prendergast's father, a landowner in Co. Tipperary, had been a captain of horse in the Irish Jacobite army. However, having joined William III after the Treaty of Limerick, he is best known for having cautioned Whitehall of a plot to assassinate the king for which warning he received a \u00a32,000 grant, the Gort estate in Galway and other Irish landholdings. Following his conversion from Catholicism to the Church of Ireland, Prendergast's father was created a baronet and later represented Monaghan in the Irish House of Commons from 1703\u20139. His reputation and standing was sufficient for his newly granted estates to be excluded from the Act of Resumption in 1700, which cancelled and redistributed many of William's earlier land grants.\n\nPrendergast succeeded his father as the second baronet at the age of seven. A core member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, he later represented Clonmel in the Irish parliament from 1733, where he was active in the Irish legislature and involved in debates across a spectrum of issues over six sessions of parliament to 1759. Separately, in 1733, Richmond arranged for Prendergast to sit in the British commons as MP for Chichester. However, Walpole ensured that he lost his seat at the general election the following year for failing to support the Excise Bill. This was a dysfunctional decision by Prendergast less than a week after being elected but followed Walpole's non-committal response to a request that Prendergast be appointed Irish Postmaster General. Prendergast was nonetheless made an Irish privy councillor in August 1733 and eventually obtained the coveted and lucrative post of Postmaster General in 1754. Despite being described as an 'Irish blockhead' by George II over his opposition to the Excise Bill, Prendergast was nevertheless a loyal Hanoverian. Swift satirised and vilified him as such in _On Noisy Tom:_ 'the spawn of him who shamed our isle, traitor, assassin, and informer vile!'. Swift's characterisation was more cruel in _The Legion Club,_ where Prendergast was drawn as a servile government supporter, 'Sir Tom, that rampant ass', the 'offspring of a shoe boy, footman, traitor, vile seducer, perjured rebel, bribed accuser... from papist sprung'.\n\nThe driving force behind the formation of Irish Grand Lodge and the participation of Prendergast and others among the aristocracy, gentry and professional classes in Dublin was a general desire to emulate the success and celebrity of the new English Grand Lodge. London freemasonry had expanded dramatically under successive well-known noble Grand Masters and its popularity in the 1720s and 1730s reflected their celebrity as much if not more than the achievements and influence of Desaguliers and its other Grand Officers.\n\nThe Irish press continued to publish regular reports on English freemasonry throughout the period noting the appointment of Richmond as Grand Master in 1724, Martin Folkes, a vice president of the Royal Society, as his deputy, and Frances Sorrell and George Payne, officials in the tax office, as his Grand Wardens. And there were other indications of Dublin's interest, notably the publication in mid-1724 of _A Letter from the Grand Mistress of Female Free-Masons,_ printed by Harding and probably written by Swift. An obvious conclusion is that it would have been pointless for Swift to satirise an unfamiliar or unpopular subject. _The Grand Mystery of the Free-Masons Disclosed_ was published in Dublin the same year, as was a riposte, _The Free-Masons Vindication, being an Answer to a Scandalous Libel._ 41 At the same time, Anderson's _1723 Constitutions_ remained widely advertised by Dublin's booksellers and on sale throughout the late 1720s and into the following decade.\n\nThe first direct evidence of an Irish Grand Lodge appeared in June 1725 in _The Dublin Weekly Journal,_ which published a lengthy account of Rosse's appointment as Grand Master. The report covered nearly a full page and described the Masonic procession, installation ceremony and subsequent Grand Feast. It recorded that 'above a 100 gentlemen' met at the Yellow Lion in Warborough [Werburgh] Street and 'after some time putting on their aprons, white gloves and other parts of the distinguishing dress of that Worshipful Order, they proceeded over Essex bridge to the Strand and from thence to the King's Inns'. The Grand Officers were accompanied by the masters and wardens of 'six lodges of gentleman freemasons... under the jurisdiction of the Grand Master'. After 'marching round the walls of the great hall... the grand lodge, composed of the Grand Master... Grand Wardens and the masters and wardens of the lodges, retired to the room prepared for them where... they proceeded to the election of a new Grand Master etc'. The article also noted that following dinner, 'they all went to [a] play, with their aprons etc., the private brothers sat in the pit, but the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, in the government's box.'\n\nThe press report was written in a style and with a content that implied that the Grand Lodge of Ireland had been in existence for some time. However, the opposite was more probably correct. The procession to the King's Inn, apparently on foot rather than by carriage, and the subsequent installation and Grand Feast were modelled on the same pattern as that used in London. This would have been familiar to many of those involved in Dublin, Prendergast included, and had been widely written up in the London and Dublin press. There were nonetheless points of difference between the English and Irish ceremonies, most notably the election of the Grand Officers by the members of Irish Grand Lodge as a whole rather than their direct appointment by the Grand Master as in England. This may suggest either a relatively new organisation with a consequent need for consensus or the legacy of past working masons' practices.\n\nThe most decisive argument against the Grand Lodge of Ireland having existed prior to 1725 is the absence of any named predecessor Grand Master or Grand Officers. The implication is that those who were appointed as such were the first to occupy the positions, regardless of what was written. In short, the article was disingenuous and designed to deceive by emphasising tradition and continuity with the past. The same approach had been adopted by Desaguliers and Anderson in the _1723 Constitutions_ where the traditional history of freemasonry was designed to place English Grand Lodge in a similarly artificial but lengthy historical timeline. Support for such an interpretation is given indirectly by Lepper and Crossle in _History,_ where they suggest that the editor of the _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ James Arbuckle, who probably wrote the report, was a freemason and therefore suggestible to such a ruse.\n\nMark Anthony Morgan (1703\u20131752), Prendergast's fellow Grand Warden, was MP for Athy, Co. Kildare, from 1727 until 1752, and high sheriff for adjoining Co. Meath in 1726. The family came from Anglo-Irish landed gentry and held extensive property interests in Cottelstown in Co. Sligo, Cork Abbey in Co. Dublin and Balleyvalley in Co. Meath, in addition to their townhouse on St Stephen's Green. Morgan graduated from Trinity College Dublin at 17 and was quickly entrenched as an establishment figure and active parliamentarian. Swift satirised him savagely for his pro-government leanings. Morgan had the misfortune to be chairman of a parliamentary committee dealing with a petition against the 'tithe agistment', a tax for the benefit of the Church of Ireland levied on cattle and other pasturage products to which Swift and others took exception. Swift decried Morgan: 'art thou there, man? bless mine eyes! art thou the chairman? chairman to yon damn'd committee!... will you, in your faction's phrase, send the clergy all to graze; and to make your project pass, leave them not a blade of grass?'\n\nRosse's last Grand Officer was Thomas Griffith (1680\u20131744), an Irish actor and sometime theatre owner who was made Grand Secretary in 1725 and reappointed in 1731. Thomas Southwell, Grand Master of Ireland in 1743, had procured Griffith the position of tide waiter, an excise officer, at Dublin's port. Griffith executed the job personally rather than appoint an alternate at lower pay. The role entailed ensuring that vessels unloaded their cargoes at the correct docks under proper supervision and that they pay excise duties. Griffith was also responsible for gathering and passing on intelligence on any returning Wild Geese and Irish Jacobite sympathisers. Lepper and Crossle commented that 'he discharged his duties... with an intrepid courage for one of so small a stature, being often exposed to armed men attempting to embark for the continent, or in the act of smuggling contraband'. A press report supports their view:\n\nDublin, June 7th. This morning... persons were apprehended at the end of the north wall on the Strand by Mr Thomas Griffith and Mr Hamilton belonging to His Majesty's Revenue as they were upon their duty. A guard of soldiers was, by Order of the government immediately dispatched thither, who conducted up to the Castle, in order to their being examined, it seems they have already confessed they were going to the Pretender, and had arms and other necessaries for that purpose.\n\nThere are no further references to the Grand Lodge of Ireland and few others regarding Dublin freemasonry until March 1731, when the _Dublin Weekly Journal_ published a report of a lodge meeting that had been held on 6 March the prior week. This had also taken place at the Yellow Lyon tavern in Warborough Street. The _Journal_ recorded that Earl Rosse, Grand Master, the Hon William Ponsonby, worshipful master, and his two wardens, William Cooper and Rowly Hill, were present. Others attending included Lord Kingston, the past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England; the earl of Drogheda; Lord Southwell; John White; Abraham Creyton; Henry Plunket; Lawrence Toole; and William Moseley. William Dobbs, John Haley and Thomas Griffith, the Grand Secretary, were also present. The _Journal_ went on to note that 'upon proper application, the Rt Hon the Lord Tyrone, the Rt Hon the Lord Netterville, the Hon Tho. Bligh, Esq.; and the Hon Henry Southwell, Esq.; were in due form, admitted members of that Ancient and Right Worshipful Society'.\n\nAn analysis of those in attendance once again provides confirmation of the pro-Hanoverian and pro-establishment nature of the meeting. William Ponsonby was the second (but first surviving) son of Brabazon Ponsonby, later 1st earl of Bessborough, one of the most ambitious and powerful politicians in Ireland. The Ponsonby family's influence dated from Cromwell's grant of extensive Irish estates in return for military services; the arrangement was later confirmed by the Act of Settlement in 1662. Ponsonby represented Newtownards in Co. Down, from 1725 until 1727 and thereafter Co. Kilkenny from 1728 until 1758. In 1739, he married Lady Caroline Cavendish, the eldest daughter of the 3rd duke of Devonshire, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Devonshire had been appointed to the position in 1737. Ponsonby became his private secretary and political advisor and was also sworn a member of the Irish privy council. In each capacity he advanced a firmly pro-Protestant political agenda. Following his marriage, Ponsonby sat in the British commons in the Devonshire interest as MP for Derby (1742\u201354), Saltash (1754\u20136) and Harwich (1756\u20138). Devonshire patronage also gave him the positions of lord of the admiralty (1746\u201356), lord of the treasury (1756\u20139) and joint-Postmaster General (1759\u201362). He was sworn to the British privy council in 1765.\n\nWith William spending most of his time in England, Brabazon vested his Irish political ambitions in John (1713\u201387), his younger son, to whom he transferred the parliamentary seat at Newtownards in 1739 and, in 1741, the post of secretary to the Irish revenue commissioners, where Brabazon had secured the position of first commissioner for himself. John was encouraged to emulate his brother and ally himself with Devonshire and in 1743 he married Elizabeth Cavendish, Caroline's younger sister. Strengthening his political influence, he succeeded his father as first revenue commissioner the following year. John was also positioned as a potential successor to Henry Boyle, the Speaker of the Irish commons, and despite several setbacks and much politicking, was elected to the position in 1756. The Ponsonby's embraced the Hanoverian succession and all three were leading government supporters, albeit while it remained in their interest to remain so. By the 1740s and 1750s, the family had become one of the most powerful political families in Ireland and one of the principal undertakers who managed Ireland's parliament on behalf of the British.\n\nAmong others present at the Yellow Lyon tavern was Edward Moore, the 5th earl of Drogheda (1701\u20131758). He had inherited the title in 1727 and that year married Lady Sarah Ponsonby, William and John's sister. Their son, the 6th earl and later 1st marquess of Drogheda (1730\u20131822), continued the family's Hanoverian allegiance and in 1746 carried the British colours at Culloden. He also inherited his father's interest in freemasonry and was from 1758\u201360, Grand Master of Irish Grand Lodge.\n\nThomas Southwell, 2nd baron Southwell (1698\u20131766), an Irish privy councillor, appointed in June 1726, was governor of Co. Limerick. He became Grand Master of Ireland in 1743. Southwell was a Fellow of the Royal Society in London, elected in 1735, a member of the Dublin Society (1733\u201340) and founder and the first president of the Physico Historical Society, an antiquarian club formed in 1744 whose objectives included 'removing 'the prejudices' under which Irish history laboured and of doing justice to the country'.\n\nSouthwell travelled to England in June 1731. He had been appointed Master of Horse to the Princess Royal on her marriage to the Prince of Orange and his wife made a Lady of the Bedchamber to the princess. Although Lord Lovell's installation as Grand Master of English Grand Lodge took place at the end of June, Southwell was not among those attending. However, the minutes of English Grand Lodge note his presence, 'the Rt Hon Lord Southwell', on 23 November 1732, where he is described as 'Provincial Grand Master in Ireland'. Newspaper reports at the time record him as 'late Grand Master of Ireland' or as 'late Provincial Grand Master of Ireland'. Neither description can be substantiated by extant records, however, if accurate, his election as Grand Master could only have occurred prior to 1731 and after 1726, a period when Rosse was overseas.\n\nThe following year on 7 June 1733, the minutes of English Grand Lodge show that Southwell acted as proxy for the earl of Strathmore at the latter's installation as Grand Master. The annual procession to the Grand Feast at the Mercers' Hall set off from Southwell's London town house in Little Grosvenor Street and Southwell on Strathmore's behalf personally installed the incoming Grand Officers. Southwell also attended the next Grand Lodge meeting on 13 December. Both demonstrate the strong connection between Irish and English freemasonry and suggest that the Irish and English grand lodges at the time regarded each other and their respective Grand Officers as equals.\n\nJames King, 4th baron Kingston (1693\u20131761), Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England in 1729, also attended the lodge at the Yellow Lyon. King became Grand Master of Ireland in 1731, and sat again in 1735, 1745 and 1746. The baronetcy had been granted to Sir John King (d.1676) in 1660. He had commanded Boyle Castle at the time of the Irish uprising and later fought against the Irish Catholic army. He was subsequently sworn to the Irish privy council, made governor of Connaught and colonel of Lord Kingston's cavalry. His political loyalty and military service were rewarded with the Mitchelstown estate, around 100,000 acres across the counties of Cork, Limerick and Tipperary. Although Robert King, the 2nd baron (1659\u20131693), fought for William III, his younger brother, John (1664\u20131728), supported James II and followed him into exile, converting to Catholicism. He was later outlawed. When he unexpectedly succeeded to the title following Robert's death, with his estates forfeit, John sought a pardon and this was granted by privy seal in 1694. Despite opposition from within parliament, John recovered Mitchelstown in 1708 and swore an oath of loyalty in 1715, taking his seat in the Irish House of Lords. It is probable that the division of religious loyalty within the family had been manufactured to insure against the loss of Mitchelstown and John's reconversion was equally pragmatic.\n\nJames King was John's sole surviving son. Born in France during his father's exile, he petitioned for naturalisation as a child 'born out of her Majesty's allegiance, but [a] good Protestant' when his father returned to Mitchelstown. James inherited both the estate and the baronetcy on his father's death and although often referred to as a Jacobite sympathiser, there is little or no substantiating evidence. The family's history suggests political realism rather than idealism as their principal tenet. King was sworn an Irish privy councillor in 1729, the same year he became Grand Master of the pro-Hanoverian English Grand Lodge. His connections with freemasonry are well documented and he is recorded as having been initiated at the Swan & Rummer on 8 June 1726, 'admitted into the Society of Free Masonry and made by [Dr Desaguliers] the Deputy Grand Master'. The lodge was aristocratic with links to both the Irish and Scottish gentry. Among those present on that occasion was William O'Brien, the 4th earl of Inchiquin, Grand Master of England in 1727, a guest of Martin O'Connor, the Master of the lodge, who was appointed Junior Grand Warden of English Grand Lodge the following year. Three others were initiated the same day: Gerald de Courcy, 24th lord Kingsale, Ireland's most ancient baronetcy; Sir Winwood Moffat, a Scottish baronet; and Michael O'Bryan (O'Brien), possibly the Irish lawyer of that name then studying at Gray's Inn.\n\nKing's connection with Irish freemasonry extended to Munster, a county dominated by large Anglo-Irish estates created through the mass confiscation of Irish Catholic landholdings and the establishment of the Plantations in the sixteenth century. King was Grand Master of Munster in 1731, the same year that he was appointed Grand Master of Ireland in Dublin. A Masonic lodge existed in Cork since at least 27 December 1726, when its proceedings were first recorded. As in Dublin, freemasonry in Cork was substantially an expression of Anglo-Irish solidarity. The Master of the lodge at Munster from 1726 to 1728 was the Hon James O'Brien (1695\u20131771), the younger brother of William O'Brien, the 4th earl of Inchiquin. He sat as MP for Charleville from 1715 until 1727 and thereafter for Youghal until 1760. Both constituencies were in Co. Cork where the family had extensive estates. The third son of the 3rd earl, O'Brien also held the lucrative position of collector of customs for Drogheda. The family were Hanoverian loyalists and firm supporters of Walpole. Not coincidentally, Thomas Southwell was invited to become a godfather to O'Brien's daughter.\n\nDespite the title, the Grand Lodge of Munster functioned principally as the chief lodge for the province and there are no records of any Munster Grand Lodge after 1731, most probably at James King and Dublin's behest as they sought to replicate England's federal Masonic governance structure. King's election as Grand Master of Munster in 1731 may have been designed to consolidate Munster into Dublin's fold. King's principal Irish estates were at Mitchelstown and the first warrant in the county was issued there by the Grand Lodge of Ireland the following year. In common with others members of Munster freemasonry, O'Brien had strong links to its English counterpart. Indeed, he may have been a member of the lodge at the Rummer in Charing Cross, where a 'James Bryan' is recorded. Other relationships are more easily identified: Springett Penn, O'Brien's deputy and the heir and grandson of William Penn, Pennsylvania's founder, was a member of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange, as was Nathaniel Gould, an English merchant and a principal associate of Walter Gould, Munster's Senior Grand Warden, with whom he held mortgages over land in Munster. Penn and Gould both had extensive landholdings in Co. Cork and Lepper and Crossle note multiple family, social and business connections between both them and other lodge members.\n\nOf the others present at the Yellow Lyon lodge, Sir Marcus Beresford (1694\u20131763), represented Coleraine until 1720, when he was raised to the Irish peerage as Viscount Tyrone. He took his seat the following year and in 1746, was created 1st earl of Tyrone. Beresford was appointed Grand Master of Irish Grand Lodge in 1736, serving for two years. Lord Netterville was Nicholas Netterville, the 5th viscount (16\u2014?-1750), Grand Master in 1732. Unusually for Irish freemasonry, the family were Anglo Catholics and traced their origins to the Norman conquest. Netterville was the nephew of earl Rosse and had sat in the Irish parliament since 1728 after succeeding his father, having taken the oath of loyalty. The Hon Thomas Bligh (1685\u20131775), was probably the second son of Thomas Bligh of Rathmore, Co. Meath. If so, he served as lieutenant colonel of Napier's Horse, later the 2nd Irish Horse. Bligh was appointed colonel of the 20th Foot in 1740 and served in Flanders in the War of Austrian Succession. He was promoted brigadier general in 1745 and major general in 1747, when he obtained the colonelcy of the 2nd Irish Horse. Lastly, the Hon Henry Southwell (1700\u20131758), Thomas Southwell's younger brother, was MP for Limerick from 1729 until his death; he served as deputy governor for the county under his brother.\n\nLepper and Crossle explain the absence of meetings of the Grand Lodge of Ireland between 1726 and 1730 as a function of Ireland's economic depression. Whether the explanation is correct or not, a severe famine in the late 1720s had affected virtually the whole country. Successively disastrous harvests, a lower demand for linen and the higher rents imposed on tenant farmers by land agents acting for often absentee landlords led to scarcity, poverty and increased emigration from Ireland, particularly to colonial America. Irish poverty was exacerbated by British protectionism and trade restrictions. Irish lobbying eventually brought some relief. Although in practice this was only modest, any adjustment to British policy in favour of the Irish and West Indian lobbies was seen as a significant victory. The political reversal in Dublin's favour was also positive for the duke of Dorset who replaced Carteret at Dublin Castle a few months later in June 1730; Dorset's more constructive approach towards Irish development was marked by his acceptance of the presidency of the Dublin Society in 1731.\n\nSince Lepper and Crossle's argument did not apply to the even more dire famine of 1740\u201341, a more likely explanation for the absence of any Irish Grand Lodge meetings in the late 1720s is that they were undocumented rather than non-existent and the absence of key figures probably reduced their number. Rosse was away from Dublin for part of the period from 1726 until mid-1729 and Griffith, the Grand Secretary, was seriously ill in 1727 and 1728. Nonetheless, the registration in 1727 by Ireland's Grand Lodge of lodge No. 2 in Dublin indicates that the organisation was functioning, if only in part. Moreover, repeated Irish press reports on English freemasonry, its initiations, feasts, processions and charitable activities, suggests that the subject remained of interest. The 1730 publication of Pennell's Irish version of Anderson's _Constitutions_ similarly confirms freemasonry's popularity. Pennell had advertised the prior year in _Faulkner's Dublin Chronicle_ for a minimum of two hundred subscribers and achieved this goal without any evident difficulty. Tangentially, Pennell's _Constitutions_ contained a number of slight differences in Masonic ritual when compared to the form practiced in London and these may have reflected the then current practice in Ireland. Variations included the form of prayer at initiation, a system of three degrees (rather than the two thought then to have been practiced in London) and the role of deacons, effectively lodge stewards. Over time, these and other relatively minor discrepancies became to be treated as more substantive issues.\n\nOn 10 April 1731, _Faulkner's Dublin Journal_ reported a meeting of the 'masters and wardens of the lodges of freemasons in the City of Dublin, assembled at the Bull's Head in Fishamble Street'. The meeting had been called 'to consider some of the regulations for the good of that ancient and right Worshipful Society' and to elect Lord Kingston Grand Master for the ensuing year. Kingston's installation on 7 July was reported in due course; as was the succession of Netterville, his deputy, the following year:\n\nlast Tuesday being the 1st of August, a Grand Lodge of Free Masons was held at the Two Black Posts in Sycamore Alley. The Rt Hon the Lord Viscount Netterville being Grand Master, and the Rt Hon the Lord Viscount Kingsland Deputy Grand Master, James Brennan, M.D. and Robert Nugent, Esq.; were chosen Grand Wardens by the said Grand Lodge.\n\nWithin this group, one figure stands out. Unusually among the Anglo-Irish elite that led Irish Grand Lodge, Henry Benedict (1708\u20131774), 4th viscount Barnewall of Kingsland, DGM in 1732 and GM in 1733\u20134, was a Catholic from a prominent family who had settled within the Pale. Like Netterville, Barnewall was also related to Earl Rosse, his second cousin. Barnewall's mother was the youngest daughter of Sir George Hamilton and Fanny Talbot, countess of Tyrconnel. Barnewall's father, the 3rd viscount, like many in the Catholic gentry had fought for James II and been outlawed. His position and estates were restored under the Treaty of Limerick but upon being summoned to William III's first Irish parliament in 1692, although he took an oath of allegiance, he refused as a Catholic to take a further oath against transubstantiation and reject the spiritual authority of the Pope. Accordingly, he was refused his seat in the Irish House of Lords. His son inherited in 1725 and emulated his father both politically and religiously, swearing allegiance but forswearing a seat.\n\nBarnewall was related to another Grand Officer, Robert Nugent(1702\u20131788), of Carlanstown, Co. Westmeath, JGW in 1732 and the second son of Michael Nugent ( _d_.1739) of Carlanstown, and Mary ( _d_.1740), the fifth and youngest daughter of Robert Barnewall, 9th lord Trimlestown, another branch of the same family. As in England, one faction within Ireland's Grand Lodge can be identified with the patriotic opposition associated with Frederick, prince of Wales; and one of the more prominent figures in that camp was Nugent.\n\nUnlike Barnewall, Nugent was a convert from Catholicism. Described as 'a jovial and voluptuous Irishman who had left popery for the Protestant religion, money and widows', Nugent inherited a modest estate worth around \u00a31,500 per annum but added to it vastly by marrying successively three wealthy widows. Following the death in childbirth of his first wife, his second marriage to the twice-widowed daughter of the affluent but disgraced James Craggs ( _c._ 1657\u20131721), Postmaster General, brought extensive properties, including the borough of St Mawes in Cornwall, which Nugent represented from 1741 until 1754. Nugent was a firm ally and important creditor of the prince of Wales and was rewarded for his loyalty by being appointed comptroller of the prince's household in 1747. Nugent's loans were later redeemed in kind by George III with positions and sinecures. Nugent was elevated to the Irish peerage as Viscount Clare (1757) and Earl Nugent (1776); he also obtained prominent and lucrative positions as a lord of the treasury (1754\u20139), privy councillor (1759), president of the board of trade (1766\u20138) and vice-treasurer of Ireland (from 1759\u201365 and 1770\u201382). Anecdotally, the financial aspect of Nugent's marital activities had such notoriety that they were granted the honour of an adjective by Horace Walpole:\n\nLord Middlesex is going to be married to Miss Boyle, Lady Shannon's daughter; she has thirty thousand pounds, and may have as much more, if her mother, who is a plump widow, don't happen to _Nugentize. 89_\n\nArthur Mohun St Leger, 3rd viscount Doneraile (1718\u20131750), Grand Master in 1740 at the age of 22, was another in the prince of Wales' camp. St Leger was MP for Winchelsea from 1741 until 1747 and in the latter year became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the prince. English and Irish freemasons were disproportionately represented in the role and their influence may have been a factor in the prince's embrace of freemasonry. It was one of several avenues he pursued in taking a stand against his father. William O'Brien, 4th earl of Inchiquin, served as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the prince from 1744 to 1751; Edward Bligh, 2nd earl of Darnley, English Grand Master in 1737, was appointed from 1742\u201345; Henry Brydges, Marquess of Carnarvon and 2nd duke of Chandos, Grand Master in 1738, held the role for 13 years from 1729\u201342; Charles, Lord Baltimore, served for 18 years from 1731\u201349; and Lord Villiers for 5 from 1733\u201338.\n\nFriday last, being St John's Day the Grand Lodge of Free-Masons met at their Hall in Smock-Alley; there were present several noblemen, gentlemen, and the masters and wardens of the several Lodges in and about the City of Dublin; where they elected the Right Hon the Lord Viscount Tyrone Grand Master for the year ensuing, who appointed James Brenan M.D. for his deputy; Cornellius Callaghan, junior, Esq.; and John Purland, Esq.; were chose Grand Wardens. After several acts of charity, regulations settled, and other business done, the masters and wardens adjourned to their several lodges, dined in splendour, and spent the day in mirth and pleasure.\n\nIt can be stated with some certainty that throughout the 1730s and into the 1740s, Irish Grand Lodge was dominated by Whiggist Grand Officers. Sir Marcus Beresford (1694\u20131763), Grand Master in 1736 and 1737, sat as MP for Coleraine from 1715 until 1720. He was the only son of Sir Tristram Beresford who had commanded a Protestant regiment in the Williamite Wars. Beresford's own loyalty was returned with elevation to the Irish peerage as Baron Beresford and Viscount Tyrone in 1720 and promotion to 1st earl of Tyrone in 1746, a resurrection of his father-in-law's title.\n\nBeresford was succeeded in 1738 by Sir William Stewart, 3rd viscount Mountjoy (1709\u20131769), who inherited the title in 1728 and was created 1st earl Blessington in 1745, his mother having been the sister and heir of the 2nd and last viscount Blessington. First mentioned as a freemason in 1731 when a member of Viscount Montagu's Bear and Harrow lodge in Butcher Row near Temple Bar in London, Mountjoy was Grand Master of Ireland from 1738 until 1740. However, perhaps more significantly, he later gave his imprimatur to the Antients Grand Lodge, where he acceded to become their first noble Grand Master in 1756, remaining as such until 1760.\n\nThe Mountjoy family had settled in Ulster from Scotland in the sixteenth century and been loyal undertakers in the Irish parliament for six generations. Mountjoy's grandfather, the 2nd Bt., (1653\u20131692), had fought against the Irish rebellion as commander of a foot regiment and had been created Viscount Mountjoy in 1682 as a reward. A Protestant, he was suspected of disloyalty by Lord Tyrconnel, the Catholic commander of James II's army in Ireland, and sent on a false diplomatic mission to Paris where, as intended, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. Joining William's army on his release in 1692, he was killed at Steenkerque later the same year. Mountjoy's father, the 2nd viscount (1625\u20131728), was another talented soldier. Like his own father, he had command of a foot regiment and was advanced successively to brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general. In 1714, he was promoted Master General of the Ordnance, given the colonelcy of a regiment of dragoons and made Keeper of the Great Seal.\n\nIn 1728, Mountjoy inherited his titles and estates in Ireland, at Newton-Stewart, Co. Tyrone, and Blessington, Co. Wicklow, together with property in England. The latter included an estate at Silchester in Hampshire and town houses successively in Grosvenor Square and Hill Street, Mayfair. He was one of many absentee property owners criticised by Thomas Prior in his _List of absentees of Ireland,_ who accused Mountjoy of an annual expenditure abroad of \u00a32,500. It is unclear whether the figure was valid or otherwise: the data was unchanged in the third edition published in 1745, sixteen years later. Despite the criticism, Mountjoy was nonetheless an active contributor to charities in Ireland and Britain, where he was a prominent supporter of the Middlesex Hospital, among other institutions. In 1748, consolidating his position as a person of quality and one of the great and good, the now Earl Blessington was appointed governor of Co. Tyrone and sworn a member of the Irish privy council. He was reappointed to the privy council in 1761 following the succession of George III and received the governorship of Carlisle Castle in 1763. His political loyalty to the Hanoverian dynasty \u2013 although not to its government \u2013 was absolute. His strong support for Irish agriculture and manufacture and for the right to trade freely was also notable and noted, not least by the London agents and representatives of the West Indies merchant community who sought his backing to promote the cause of free trade both in parliament and more widely. And despite Prior's criticism, Blessington was also faithful to the Irish interests. This was expressed not only in his support for the Antients but in membership of organisations ranging from the Incorporated Society for the Promotion of Protestant Working Schools in Ireland to the Dublin Society, where he was a member until 1762.\n\nGiven the many interconnections between freemasonry and the Royal Society in London, it is interesting to note the parallels in Ireland with the Dublin Society. In addition to Blessington and among other senior members of Irish Grand Lodge, Humphrey Butler, the first Irish DGM, was a member of the Dublin Society from 1731 and thereafter a vice president from 1750 until 1758. Thomas Prendergast and Marcus Morgan, the first two Grand Wardens, were also members, from 1731\u201354 and 1733\u201340, respectively. And other influential freemasons who were also members included at least three more Grand Masters: Viscount Netterville; Baron Tullamore; and Viscount Allen; and several Grand Officers, James Brennan; Capt. William Cobbe; John Baldwin; John Putland; Robert Callaghan; and Hamilton Gorges.\n\nSupported by the Irish parliament, the Dublin Society was an expression of hope that Ireland might reduce its dependency on England. More than a provincial counterpart to London's Royal Society or the French Royal Academy of Science, the Society represented an attempt to improve national wealth through the practical application of science to agricultural and manufacturing. Experimentation, the assessment of different agricultural techniques and the subsequent promotion of best practice, placed it at the vanguard of scientific advancement. And prizes or 'bounties' were established to encourage and reward Irish culture and the arts. Support for both the sciences and the arts reflected the Society's position as an Irish champion offering a new vision of nation. In 1733, two years after its formation, it had 267 members, including sixteen peers and their sons; five members of the judiciary, including the lord chancellor; parliamentarians, including the speaker of the commons; as well as baronets, army officers, barristers, doctors, academics and 'men holding high positions in the world of commerce'. A royal charter was awarded in 1750 and in 1820, under the patronage of George IV, it was renamed the Royal Dublin Society.\n\nAmong Ireland's Grand Officers in the 1740s was the loyalist Charles Moore, 2nd lord Tullamore (1712\u20131764), Grand Master from 1741 to 1742, an Irish privy councillor and the governor of King's County. He was elevated in the peerage in 1758, becoming 1st earl Charleville. Moore also held the position of Muster Master General of Ireland, as had his father. John Allen, 3rd viscount Allen _(bap._ 1708\u20131745), was MP for Carysfoot from 1732 until 1741, and Co. Wicklow until 1742, when he succeeded his father and took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. He was Grand Master from 1744 until his death the following year. This followed an altercation in Dublin during which he was wounded:\n\nHis Lordship was at a house in Eustace Street. At twelve in the night, three dragoons making a noise in the street, he threw up the window and threatening them, adding as is not unusual with him a great deal of bad language. The dragoons returned it. He went out to them loaded with a pistol. At the first snapping of it, it did not fire. This irritated the dragoon who cut his fingers with his sword, upon which Lord Allen shot him.\n\nLord Kingston returned to the chair on short notice to succeed Allen and was succeeded in turn by Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, 6th Bt., (1692\u20131754).\n\nWednesday last the 24th Inst. being the feast of St John the Baptist, the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons met according to ancient custom, with their usual ceremony, at their lodge room in Smock Alley, where Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, Bt., Postmaster General, was installed and proclaimed Grand Master of Masons in the Kingdom of Ireland for the ensuing year. The evening was concluded with ringing of bells, and the greatest demonstrations of joy that could be expressed on that occasion, among the true and worthy brethren of that antient and honourable fraternity.\n\nWyvill remained Grand Master until 1749 and was unique among Irish Grand Masters in that he was English rather than Anglo-Irish. His father had been a Tory with strong Stuart connections through his wife, who had been maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza and Mary of Modena. Despite this, he had taken the oath of allegiance in 1691 and following the accession of Queen Anne, was rewarded for his dependability and was granted the sinecures of commissioner of the excise at an annual salary of \u00a3800 and commissioner of salt duties at \u00a3500. Even if not a Whig, he supported the Hanoverian succession in 1714 and remained in post until his death in 1722. His son was less successful in holding on to office and was only briefly MP for Richmond in Yorkshire in 1727. The election was contested and the obvious voting irregularities, 412 votes in a borough with 273 electors, resulted in its being re-run and Wyvill and his fellow MP, Charles Bathurst, were dismissed.\n\nWyvill's principal estates were at Constable Burton in north Yorkshire, which were best known for the family's successful stud farm. As with many in the gentry, Wyvill was often in the press in connection with both horseracing and horse breeding. Like his father, he was also considered a loyal Hanoverian and appointed clerk to the Irish privy council in 1735 and vice chamberlain to the Queen. In 1716, he had married Carey Coke, the sister of Thomas Coke, later ennobled as Lord Lovell and subsequently created 1st earl of Leicester. As Lovell, Coke became Grand Master of English Grand Lodge in 1731. Coke was both Walpole's neighbour and one of his strongest supporters and was recompensed with the sinecure of joint-Postmaster General in England in 1725. As such, in 1736, Lovell was able to lever Wyvill into the position of Postmaster General for Ireland, a position he retained until his death. Although his wife, Carey, died in 1734, Wyvill's relationship to Lovell may have also contributed to the former's elevation to the Grand Master's chair in Dublin, although the patronage and influence available to the Postmaster General's office may have been the more important factor.\n\nRobert King, 1st baron Kingsborough (1724\u20131755), to whom Edward Spratt's 1751 Irish _Constitutions_ were dedicated, was Grand Master from 1749\u201350. He succeeded as baronet in 1740, was MP for Boyle from 1745 until 1748, when he was made a peer. King also served as _Custos Rotulorum_ for Co. Roscommon. He was followed by Lord George Sackville, the youngest son of the duke of Dorset, then Lord Lieutenant.\n\nIrish Grand Lodge in the 1750s was dominated by Sackville's successors: the Hon Thomas George Southwell (1721\u20131780); the Hon Brinsley Butler (1728\u20131779), later Lord Newtown-Butler; and Charles, Viscount Moore (1730\u20131822). Thomas Southwell came from a deeply Masonic family. His father had been Grand Master in 1743, a notable attendee at the lodge meeting at the Yellow Lion tavern in 1731 at which his brother had been initiated into freemasonry, and active at a senior level in English Grand Lodge. Southwell himself was Deputy Grand Master during Sackville's Grand Mastership and Grand Master in his own right from 1753\u20136. The family were patriotic Whigs. His grandfather, the 1st baron, had been closely involved with settling Huguenot refugees in Ireland and in promoting the Irish linen industry. All were active parliamentarians, his grandfather, father and uncles representing Co. Limerick in the Irish parliament. Southwell himself represented Enniscorthy from 1747\u201361 and his family's seat for Limerick from 1761\u20137. The family's Irish nationalism was underlined by their opposition to the oppressive Declaratory Act and they expressed similar sympathies in subsequent parliamentary debates.\n\nBrinsley Butler, styled Lord Newtown-Butler from 1756 and 2nd earl Lanesborough from 1768, was MP for Co. Cavan from 1751 until succeeding. He was elected a Grand Warden in 1751\u20132, Deputy Grand Master from 1753\u20136 and made Grand Master in 1757. Within parliament he remained a government loyalist and voted in favour of the money bills in the crisis of 1753. His support for the administration was rewarded with appointment as a revenue commissioner in 1761 and he was sworn a privy councillor in 1765. However, Butler's later opposition politics saw him removed from both positions in 1770, albeit that he was later reinstated to the council by Lord Harcourt in December 1774 and received an annual pension of \u00a31,200 to compensate for the loss of his place on the revenue board. Butler was mentioned by Pope as that 'sober Lanesb'row dancing with the gout'. He married Jane Isabella, the only daughter of the less than fortunate 1st earl of Belvedere. His eldest son, Robert, later married the daughter of the Huguenot banker David La Touche, another Irish freemason, to whom Butler sold the borough of Belturbet. It is hard to determine whether Butler's support for and recognition of the Antients Grand Lodge was an act of defiance calculated carefully not to upset the political apple cart in Ireland, however, it might be considered indicative of his later opposition to the government.\n\nCharles Moore, Viscount Moore, later 6th earl of Drogheda, was Grand Master from 1758 to 1760. He had been Deputy Grand Master in 1757 and prior to that a Grand Warden from 1753. A second son, Moore had joined the 12th dragoons as a cornet at 14 and carried the regimental colours at Culloden. He was promoted successively to captain in 1750 and major in 1752, but saw no further active service. On the death of his older brother in 1752, he became heir to the title and obliged to become more closely involved in Irish politics, sitting as MP for St Canice in Co. Kilkenny (1757\u20138) and nominated to serve on nineteen parliamentary committees. Moore inherited in 1758 and took his seat in the lords. He was a consistent if self-interested government supporter, appointed governor of Co. Meath in 1759 and sworn to the Irish privy council the following year. Given the colonelcy of the 18th light dragoons in 1762, a regiment he raised, Moore led the repression of the Whiteboys, an amalgam of tenant farmers and agricultural workers in southern Ireland whose initially peaceful protests against enclosures, evictions and excessive rents and tithes had morphed into violence and insurgency, partly in response to the aggressive reaction of the authorities to their activities.\n\nMoore's militia and regular dragoons arrested hundreds of suspects in Munster, Limerick and Tipperary. In their wake, some locals formed vigilante groups and in parts of the country an effective state of martial law existed. In Dublin, there was a sense that matters had been allowed to go too far and Lord Halifax, then Lord Lieutenant, expressed his concern that the flight or arrest of so many agricultural workers might result in a famine. The press agreed and reported that 'the county of Tipperary, near the county of Cork... is almost waste, and the houses of many locked up, or inhabited by women and old men only; such has been the terror the approach of the light dragoons has thrown them into'.\n\nMoore succeeded William Hamilton as chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant on the appointment of Hugh Percy, 2nd earl of Northumberland in 1763 and in 1766, during the absence of the 1st marquess of Hertford, was appointed a lord justice. Tangentially, and with Moore's consent if not at his instigation, two regimental warrants were issued to the light dragoons within a year of his colonelcy of the regiment. These were warrant numbers 388 and 389, issued on 2 December 1762 to lodges formed by the 1st and 2nd squadrons.\n\n# APPENDIX VI\n\n# The First Irish Lodge in London \u2013 the Ship behind the Royal Exchange\n\nEighteenth-century London was a confluence of competing pressure groups. American colonists, West Indian planters, the great international trading companies and numerous other foreign and domestic interests all contended with the Irish and Anglo-Irish to influence British government policy. In Westminster and the City, parliamentary legislation affecting Ireland was promoted and contested, something increasingly necessary after the passage of the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act; lawyers were instructed, other advisers consulted and funds sourced and deployed. As today, the combination of financial and professional resources and the political connections available in London were often of fundamental importance to business success and instrumental in making or breaking personal reputation.\n\nLondon was awash with rival lobbyists and the Irish lobby \u2013 perhaps lobbies would be more appropriate \u2013 was one of many competing for influence. The importance of local representation was such that it became customary for Irish merchants and the gentry to send a younger son to London to safeguard their family's interests. Influence could also be sought and bought through the agencies of professional lobbyists resident in London or by trading through well-positioned English merchant houses with appropriate political and commercial links. Other Irish conducted business personally, with a mixture of aristocrats, members of the gentry and the more middling travelling to London for the purpose. The city was in any case an attraction in its own right. London was the capital of the British Empire, the largest metropolis in Europe and an entertainment, social and intellectual hub with a spectrum of attractions to suit the highest and lowest brow. Aside from merchants, traders and those seeking influence, employment or education, London also attracted ambitious artists and authors hoping to make use of social, family or more distant relationships and to build the right connections with potential patrons. A minority made their names and rose to success and popularity. Most did not. But for Ireland's elite and middling classes, despite the extended journey and often dangerous passage across the Irish Sea, a visit to London was necessary and commonplace, both a means to an end and an end in itself.\n\nLocated behind Edward Jerman's elegant cloistered Royal Exchange building, the lodge at the Ship tavern is the first documented Irish Masonic lodge in London. The setting may have been significant. The Royal Exchange was a principal meeting place for the City of London's cosmopolitan trading community and a hub for commerce. The Ship's membership reflected this and included a selection of wealthy and respectable Irish-connected and Irish merchants, traders and bankers. Lane's _Masonic Records_ notes that the lodge, number 18 in the 1729 list, was constituted on 5 May 1723 and erased just over two decades later in 1745. In the intervening years it relocated in 1727 to the St Paul's Head in Ludgate Street and thereafter, in 1729, to the Crown at Ludgate Hill and to the Sun in Holborn in 1736.\n\nThe register of members compiled in 1723 and submitted to Grand Lodge later that year points to many having business and personal relationships outside of freemasonry, at least some of which were cemented through marriage. It suggests that the lodge offered a convenient locus for personal interaction and perhaps a less formal but equally confidential social and business space adjacent to but apart from the Royal Exchange.\n\nMost members were likely to have been initiated into freemasonry in London; others may have been made masons in Irish lodges. There are few confirmatory records either way. Regardless, the lodge's register contains a unique cross-section of the middling London Irish and those doing business with Ireland \u2013 merchants and professionals \u2013 and crosses the religious divide from Protestant conformists and dissenters, to Catholics and Quakers. As with Munster freemasonry, the lodge's composition suggests, if not corroborates, that secular considerations of affluence and influence were probably more significant criteria for membership than religious denomination, and that potential social and business networking opportunities trumped differences of faith.\n\nEnglish freemasonry in the eighteenth century was unusual in providing a space where its members could be free of some of the religious and social constraints that existed elsewhere; specifically, many other clubs and societies excluded the Irish, particularly Catholics. However, despite its interdenominational characteristics and professed tolerance, the raising of financial and commercial interests above religion was found extensively elsewhere in the City of London and was far from limited to the Masonic lodge. As Voltaire, later himself a freemason, noted:\n\ntake a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts.\n\nPhilip Crossle undertook a first exercise in analysing the composition of the lodge at the Ship tavern nearly a century ago in the early 1920s. His partly annotated list of members was outlined in a short appendix to the 1923 _CC Transactions_ and this chapter makes use of and extends Crossle's tentative biographical notes and, where appropriate, offers alternatives. The chapter comprises a series of brief biographical sketches that provide an outline of the Ship tavern's membership. It explores a selection of important overlapping relationships and presents a uniquely Masonic aspect to eighteenth-century sociability among this stratum of the London Irish and their circle.\n\n**Table 25** The Members of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange, 1723\n\nJohn Leigh Esq. (Master) \n--- \nMr Cloud Stuart (SW) | Mr Nathaniel Gould (JW) \nMr Johvn Gascoyne | Mr John Hope \nMr Albert Nesbitt | Mr William Bently \nMr John Mason | Henry Cunningham Esq. \nMr Joseph Gascoyne | Mr Henry Hope \nMr John Bourne | Sir James Tobin \nMr Ralph Knox | Mr Bearc. Stonehewer \nRichard Warburton Esq. | Robert Allen Esq. \nMr Peter Webb | William Spaight Esq. \nWilliam Worth Esq. | Mr Benjamin Lambert \nBenjamin Dry Esq. | Abraham Sharigley Esq. \nGerard Bourne Esq. | Captain Patrick Trahee \nMr Jonas Morris | Captain Lionel Beecher \nMr Row Hill | Mr Richard Fitzgerald \nWilliam Moreton Esq. | Leon Hatfield Esq. \nMr Springett Penn | Paul Minchell Esq. \nMr Thomas Watts | Mr John Pringle \nWilliam Hoar Esq. | Tiss. [Sisson] Putland Esq. \nMr Robert Waller | Mr William Richardson\n\nIn certain instances, this appendix identifies members of the lodge for the first time. There is, of course, an important caveat to any study of the eighteenth century, that is, the difficulty of identifying specific individuals from contemporary documents. This is a function of the phonetic spelling variations that were commonly used to write individual names. Additionally, a further complication arises where more than one person has the same or a similar name. Nonetheless, for the reasons specified, there is reasonable certainty about the identity of the majority of those detailed below.\n\n# THE MASTER OF THE LODGE\n\nPhilip Crossle suggested that the Master of the lodge, **John Leigh,** was probably from Greenhills in Co. Louth and a member of the Inner Temple. He also noted that a John Leigh had attended a lodge in Dublin in 1731 and 1733. However, given the commercial and trading context of the lodge's membership, it is perhaps more probable that the Master was John Leigh of Rosegarland in New Ross, Co. Wexford. Leigh would later become MP for New Ross in the Irish Parliament, sitting as the second member from 1727 until 1758. The Leigh family were joint patrons of the seat and John's son, Robert, inherited the constituency in 1759.\n\nIn the early and mid-eighteenth century, New Ross was a strategically located and prosperous port town with extensive trading connections to England, the continent and the Americas. The manor of Rosegarland had been granted to Leigh's uncle, Robert, by Charles II following the restoration of the monarchy, together with a mid-size estate of more than 3,300 acres of productive and accessible land in Wexford and Kildare. John inherited the estate at his father's death in 1727. At the time the membership returns to Grand Lodge were compiled in May 1723, Leigh may have been representing the family's interests in London while his father remained in Ireland managing the estate; this would have been a common practice among the Irish gentry.\n\nThere is a third alternative identity that might be explored: that John Leigh may have been the Irish born actor and playwright of that name, a member of the New Play House and the Lincoln's Inn players' company. There are two reasons to believe that this was not the case. First, there is no obvious connection to other lodge members whose affluence and social status would have been considerably higher than that of a jobbing actor. Second and more conclusively, such a man would have been unlikely to have had 'Esq.' appended to his name. Nonetheless, freemasonry attracted a number of prominent actors, dramatists and theatrical managers, including Colley Cibber and his son, Theophilus. Leigh, the actor, is known to have had a connection through the stage to Cibber, which may have mirrored a Masonic friendship: 'Cibber Jr.' was later a member of the influential Bear & Harrow lodge in Butcher's Row. Indeed, many actors, artists and other entertainers later became freemasons in order to be close to their current or potential patrons.\n\n# THE WARDENS\n\n# **_Cloud Stewart \u2013 Senior Warden_**\n\nCrossle was unsuccessful in identifying 'Cloud Stuart'. However, the lodge's Senior Warden was most probably **Cloudesley Stewart,** a descendant of the Stewart family of Athenry in Co. Tyrone. The forename is unusual and probably an abbreviation or nickname derived from Sir Cloudesley Shovel (1650\u20131707), a popular English naval officer who was promoted to become Admiral of the Fleet in 1705. Although it has not been possible to determine definitively Cloud Stewart's identity, there is strong evidence that the Stewart family was associated with Admiral Shovel.\n\nOriginally from Scotland, Captain Andrew Stewart had migrated to Ireland in the 1620s:\n\nAndrew Stewart, commonly called Captain Andrew Stewart, who, with Lord Castle Stewart, to whom he was related, and his (Andrew's) brother James... went from Scotland to Ireland about the year 1627. On his marriage, he obtained from Lord Castle Stewart the greater part of the manor of Castle Stewart, but afterwards built and resided on another seat near Stewart's Town, Co. Tyrone.\n\nCaptain Stewart had four sons. The third, James, was a naval officer, later killed in battle. The connection to Admiral Shovel was noted in _Debrett's Baronetage_ which recorded that he married one of the Admiral's daughters: 'James, an officer of the Royal Navy, married \u2014-, daughter of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and died gallantly in battle'. The claim was repeated in later editions of _Debrett's_ and expanded in 1893 in _Notes & Queries._ Contemporary newspaper articles also note that a Captain Stewart, possibly the same man, served alongside Admiral Shovel.\n\nUnfortunately, the _ODNB_ entry for Admiral Shovel contradicts _Debrett's. 16_ John Hattendorf states that Shovel's second daughter, Anne (1696\u20131741), married first, the Hon Robert Mansell _(d_.1723), and second, John Blackwood, a West India merchant. However, it is possible that the _ODNB_ entry is incomplete. Although there is transparent evidence that Anne Shovel married Mansell in 1718, it is also feasible that she had been widowed by that date. Offering tentative support for this argument is her description in a press report as 'Mrs Shovel, daughter to the late Sir Cloudesley Shovel', as opposed to 'Miss Shovel'. Nonetheless, later press reports omit any mention of an earlier marriage and the obituary of Lady Shovel, the Admiral's widow, refers only to Mansell and Blackwood as being her younger daughter's successive husbands.\n\nIn contrast, the Stewart family's records indicate that James Stewart and Anne Shovel had a daughter, also named Anne. It is possible that they also had a son. A pair of oval portraits painted in the eighteenth century in the style of Sir Godfrey Kneller supports _Debrett's_ contention of an earlier relationship and the birth of a son and daughter. The portraits depict 'Anne Stewart and Cloudesley Stewart'. They were sold by Christies in London in 1995. The sitters may have been James and Anne's children. Naming a son and daughter after a parent or grandparent was common practice. Nonetheless, there are other options. It is possible that James and Anne Stewart did not marry and that Cloudesley Stewart was a natural son. It is also feasible but less likely that _Debrett's_ and _Notes & Queries_ are both incorrect and that 'Cloud Stewart' was unrelated to the Shovel family and to the Stewart family of Athenry.\n\n# **_Nathaniel Gould \u2013 Junior Warden_**\n\n**Nathaniel Gould** (1697\u20131738), the Ship's Junior Warden, is more readily identified. He was a successful merchant with extensive trading interests in the Baltic, Ireland, continental Europe, Turkey and later the West Indies. The family were prominent non-conformists. Gould's banking and investment connections with Ireland and his relationship with Walter Gould of Munster have been mentioned in association with Munster freemasonry. Gould's father and uncle were prominent City figures: directors of the Bank of England and East India Company and members of parliament. With their sons, they were also partners in Gould & Co., 'one of the largest suppliers of hemp, pitch and tar to the Navy' and active in the profitable, oligopolistic tobacco trade with Russia. Following his uncle and father's death in 1728, Nathaniel Gould and his older brother, John ( _d._ 1740), previously junior partners, took over Gould & Co. and invited **Albert Nesbitt,** a member of the Ship and another successful and 'eminent Irish trader', to join the partnership. In addition to their business relationship and obvious connection through the lodge, the invitation would have been spurred by Nesbitt's marriage to Nathaniel and John's sister, Elizabeth, in 1729. The partnership was afterwards renamed 'Gould & Nesbitt'; it developed into one of the most successful merchant trading and banking houses in London.\n\nLike his uncle, Nathaniel Gould later became a director of the Bank of England. He also purchased a seat in parliament and was elected MP for Wareham at a by-election in 1729 following the death of the incumbent, **Joseph Gascoyne,** another lodge member (see below). Gould retained the seat and represented Wareham until 1734.\n\n# MEMBERS OF THE LODGE\n\n**Albert Nesbitt** ( _d_.1753), a younger son, had been sent to London from Ireland in 1717. On his arrival in the City he established Nesbitt & Co. and entered into business on his family's account as a Baltic merchant. He lived at Cattle's Court on College Hill, just north of Thames Street, west of London Bridge. In Ireland, the family had built up large estates at Brenter and Malmusoy in Co. Donegal, which were later inherited by his brother, Thomas. Nesbitt's success in London allowed him later to acquire the estates for himself.\n\nA study by Craig Bailey of the 'Nesbitts of London and their Networks', underscores Nesbitt's strong business links with Ireland:\n\nthe Nesbitts never abandoned their Irish circles. Indeed, Irish connections appear to have been vital for the house at all times it was active in trade. The need for access to Irish markets as well as political and social favours from Irish contacts in London were factors that kept the Nesbitt's 'Irish' and involved in ethnic networks.\n\nIn establishing his own trading house and subsequently joining forces to create 'Gould & Nesbitt', the family was doing what many others among the Irish gentry and merchant classes had done before. Despatching a son to London to act as the family's agent to found or join a trading house had become an established formula and an effective mechanism for the Irish gentry to pursue their commercial objectives. The network of expatriate Irishmen created both formal and informal Irish associations in London that encompassed a range of competing and complementary business and social circles and extended into the political sphere. In all three, freemasonry played a part.\n\nNesbitt used his connections in Cork and Kinsale to facilitate Admiralty provisioning at those ports and it may be no coincidence that **Jonas Morris** of the prominent Cork trading family of that name was a member of the lodge. Similarly, Nesbitt also worked closely with the Dublin bankers, Hoare & Arnold, of which house **William Hoar** (see below), another lodge member, was a probable scion.\n\nIn common with other Irish expatriate traders, the Nesbitt's developed extensive non-Irish connections to advance their trading activities. Albert's marriage to Elizabeth Gould can in part be viewed in such a light as can his willingness to ignore religion in the pursuit of profit, trading with Jewish, Catholic and Protestant houses. The importance of government provisioning contracts may have been an important factor in Nesbitt's support for Walpole and his political connections to Newcastle. He entered parliament in 1741, gaining a seat at a by-election at Huntingdon, where he sat as a government supporter until 1747. The constituency was within the influence of Lord Sandwich who wrote to Pelham in 1747 commenting 'as for Mr Nesbitt, my only objection to him is that I can't choose him for Huntingdon without hurting if not endangering, my interest in that borough'. Nesbitt was subsequently nominated to represent Mitchell, a Cornish pocket borough with around 40 electors, where he sat from 1747 until his death in January 1753.\n\nAlbert Nebitt's financial success can be measured by the extent of his personal and real estate. In addition to property in London, Sussex and Ireland, he left legacies of over \u00a320,000 and an \u00a3800 annual annuity to his wife. In all, three successive generations of the Nesbitt family traded from London until the death of John Nesbitt in 1817. The family's interests included the Caribbean trade in rum and sugar; provisioning British naval and military forces in the Americas, Ireland and elsewhere; iron and coal production; banking; and the continental wine trade. Perpetuating the dynasty, Nesbitt was succeeded by his nephew, Arnold, who had himself become a partner in Gould & Nesbitt.\n\n**Richard Fitzgerald** was a nephew of George Fitzgerald who founded another thriving London trading house that carried the family name. They were active in both the Anglo-Irish trade and that with North America, the Caribbean and the continent, exporting linen and importing sugar, wine and tobacco. Louis Cullen has commented that George Fitzgerald & Co. cooperated with Nesbitt & Co. and Gould & Nesbitt, and both the Fitzgeralds and Nesbitts had an array of complementary relationships in the Caribbean trade, naval and military provisioning in the West Indies, in the trade with France and elsewhere.\n\nThe Fitzgeralds were a landed Catholic family from Co. Waterford who despite losing land after the Williamite War, retained and recovered sufficient estates to maintain their status as members of the Irish gentry. They also developed extensive mercantile interests. George Fitzgerald had moved to London in 1718 having previously been a partner with Bernard Walsh in a Canary Islands trading house. Although his uncle, brother and the majority of the family remained faithful to the Catholic Church, Richard conformed in 1735, most probably to protect the family's assets from legal challenge on inheritance, a path followed by many other affluent Irish Catholic families. He nonetheless had a Catholic wife and remained on excellent terms with his family, despite their being regarded as papists.\n\nIn his study of the period, Thomas Truxes noted that London's Irish merchants such as the Fitzgeralds and Nesbitts, represented not only the interests of Irish exporters and importers, but also those of expatriate Irishmen and other clients across continental Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. The Irish merchant community had grown strongly and internationally from the end of the seventeenth century and by the mid-eighteenth, formed a large emigrant community. Within the City, the number of Irish trading houses had risen to over fifty by the 1760s, to which figure can be added many non-Irish houses that specialised in the Irish trade. Despite a wide spread of religious affiliations, including Quakers, conformist Protestants, non-conformists and Roman Catholics, there appears to have been no division along sectarian lines but rather a strong affiliation based on common Irish interests. An identical pattern is reflected in the membership of the Ship.\n\nMany of the Irish merchant houses were geographically close to each other in the City, with around 40 located in the Cateaton Street district close to St Lawrence Jewry to the north of Cheapside. The area had originally been dominated by the cloth trade and was a natural home to firms that had and continued to specialise in Irish linen. The 1745 Linen Bounty Act provided a small additional impetus to London's Irish merchant community, partly liberalising the way in which the parliamentary bounty was applied and setting more attractive rates for exported Irish and British linen, albeit that the Irish bounty was limited to coarse linens that did not compete with those from England. The mechanics of receiving the bounty, 'that no Irish Linen exported from Great Britain shall be entitled to the Bounty, unless the property of some person resident in Great Britain or America', served to reinforce the importance of the Irish merchant houses and cemented the financial links between Ireland and London.\n\nThe significance of the transatlantic route to the Fitzgerald family was such that at least one family member was resident on a virtually permanent basis in the Canary Islands, a waypoint for transatlantic navigation. Other merchant families did the same and it was common for agents to be stationed in Cadiz, Lisbon and other key continental ports. From there they provided market intelligence, monitored or arranged transhipments, supervised the reprovisioning of vessels and ran or oversaw local trading operations. Accurate information was critical to both trading and the banking businesses of merchants providing short-term working capital and clearing and issuing bills of exchange, an increasingly important aspect of their business. They also procured or provided insurance and sourced equity capital. Indeed, over time, the Irish-connected merchant houses became integral to the commercial success of their correspondents, both in Ireland and North America.\n\n**Sir James Tobin** was another merchant and an Irish Catholic. Originally from Kilkenny, he was described in his obituary as 'formerly a captain of a ship in the United East India Company's service; but on some disgust went to Germany, and became there the chief projector of the Ostend East India Company, for which he obtained the honour of knighthood from his imperial majesty.' Highly successful, Tobin was reported to have left an estate worth some \u00a340,000, equivalent to \u00a34\u20138 million today.\n\nOther merchants in the lodge included **Henry Hope; Benjamin Dry,** the vintner; and **Ralph Knox,** who, with Samuel Mercer, was a partner in Knox and Mercer, a house that specialised in the transatlantic trade. Knox later became a director of the London Assurance Company and of Royal Exchange Assurance. The two companies had a number of freemasons on their respective boards, including several members of the Ship, as well as several prominent Irish traders. The latter included George Fitzgerald, William Snell and **John Bourne,** seventh on the Ship's membership list, whose directorship of the Royal Exchange pre-dated 1720. It is likely that **Gerard Bourne** was his brother. Crossle commented that the two may have been younger sons of the Bourne family of Burren in Co. Cork, or possibly Cournallane in Co. Carlow.\n\n**Brearcliffe Stonehewer** was another City luminary, a well-known merchant with a strong connection to the Irish trade in a business inherited from his father. Stonehewer was a member of the Skinners Company and another director of Royal Exchange Assurance and of the London Assurance Company. He also sat on the Court of the City-run Bridewell Hospital, a house of correction and penitentiary for petty offenders.\n\n**William Moreton,** a barrister, was a member of the Middle Temple who later sat as a Recorder. A prominent City figure, he was another governor of the Bridewell, as was **John Gascoyne,** third on the membership list, a merchant and a director of the Royal Africa Company. Crossle noted that Gascoyne's father, Benjamin, also a merchant, owned a large estate in Ireland; both would have had regular business contacts and connections with Ireland. **Joseph Gascoyne** was John's brother, as was Sir Crisp Gascoyne (1700\u201361), later elected Alderman, Sheriff and the City of London's Lord Mayor (in 1752). All three were linked to **Thomas Watts,** who married the Gascoynes' sister, Susannah, in the mid-1720s. Crossle noted that **John Mason,** fifth on the membership list and yet another City merchant, was a witness at the wedding.\n\n**Joseph Gascoyne** ( _d_.1728), held a lucrative post in Minorca. He defeated the sitting Tory member of parliament at Wareham in 1722, notwithstanding that 'he was a stranger', and sat as a government supporter until his death in 1728. Gascoyne was succeeded as MP for the borough by **Nathaniel Gould,** who was elected 'without opposition'.\n\n**Thomas Watts** (c.1695\u20131742), was renowned as a mercurial entrepreneur, lecturer, educationalist and mathematician, with whom Desaguliers had given a joint scientific lecture course at Richard Steele's 'Censorium' at the York Buildings off the Strand in 1719. Watts' _Essay on the Proper Method of Forming the Man of Business,_ published in 1716, ran to four editions. It was written at the same time that he founded a school in Abchurch Lane in the City at which he used the methodology he publicised. The school \u2013 the 'Accountant's Office' \u2013 specialised in basic business administration and achieved considerable financial success, moving to larger premises in Little Tower Street to accommodate the growing demand.\n\nYoung Gentlemen are completely qualified for any Manner of Business, free from the interruption and loss of time in Common Schools, at the Accomptant's Office, erected for that purpose in Little Tower Street, at the house lately Sir John Fleet's, where they are taught to perfection, writing, arithmetic, and merchant's accounts, from the Methods of use in real Business, by Thomas Watts, author of the Essay on the proper method for forming the Man of Business. Where also all parts of Mathematics are taught, and Courses in Experimental Philosophy performed, by Benj. Worster, MA, and Thomas Watts.\n\nIn the preface to the fourth edition of his _Essay,_ Watts set out that his objective was to teach a business education to 'young gentlemen... from about thirteen or fourteen upwards... such as are immediately designed for trades, merchandise, the Sea, Clerkships in Offices, or to Attorneys, or any other Employments in Business'. The school was still functioning successfully in 1730, when Benjamin Worster, Watts' partner, published his own _Course of Experimental Philosophy._ This advertised that the teaching would now be 'performed by Benj. Worster, AM, and Tho. Watts at the Accomptant's Office for qualifying young Gentlemen for Business.' However, Watts and Worcester's lectures were not confined to the school at Little Tower Street. They also presented at the York Buildings on the Strand where, in common with Desaguliers and other eminent peripatetic lecturers, their talks and demonstrations fed a growing appetite for education as entertainment and the desire to profit from the practical application of the new scientific Enlightenment.\n\nIn another parallel with Desaguliers, Watts also enjoyed the patronage of James Brydges, the duke of Chandos, who part financed the move to Little Tower Street and for whom Ruth Wallis has suggested Watts provided insider stock market intelligence and acted as agent for Chandos and others involved in the takeover of Sun Fire insurance. Certainly, Watts became closely involved with Sun Fire following the acquisition of a significant holding by Royal Exchange Assurance. Indeed, according to Relton, Watts became Sun Fire's 'ruling genius'. There is no doubt that he had influence. He was Company Secretary from 1727 until 1734, when he appointed his brother to succeed him, and thereafter Cashier until his retirement in 1741. The position propelled him into a leading figure in the City of London.\n\nIn 1725, at around the time of his marriage to Susannah, John Gascoyne, her brother, was given a job at Sun Fire and later succeeded Watts' brother, William, as the Company Secretary. Crisp Gascoyne, Susannah's youngest brother, was given a sinecure from 1749 until 1761. And Thomas Watts' sons, Thomas and Hugh, were handed jobs at the company and each successively became Secretary. Such nepotism was common and of greater interest are the interlocking commercial relationships between the different members of the lodge. The most obvious are the several common directorships with respect to the Royal Exchange and Sun Fire, but the members' joint influence extended elsewhere and to other organisations. The arrangements epitomised a growing level of sophistication and nepotism in eighteenth-century finance.\n\nWatts prospered. He was awarded government sinecures through the influence of his political patron, Lord Falmouth, and in 1734, was elected MP for the pocket borough of Mitchell in Cornwall, the parliamentary seat later occupied by Albert Nesbitt. Watts was Falmouth's candidate for the seat and sat as an opposition Whig in the prince of Wales' parliamentary faction. In 1741, he was elected for the equally venal borough of Tregony, another pocket constituency. With around 150 electors, the 'principal customers were the Treasury, who usually bought one seat, and wealthy London merchants, who competed for the other.' Watts died in 1742 having retired from Sun Fire the prior year. He had been awarded an annuity at the time, the company recognising that:\n\nmany of the good regulations made in this office and more particularly the scheme and success of the subscription stock (from which era we may date the establishment and good fortune of the office) were owing in a great measure to the contrivances and good services of Mr Thomas Watt.\n\nCrossle suggests that **John Hope** may have been the Ulster Quaker of that name. Hope ( _d._ 1740), was a successful merchant and linen draper who had inherited a profitable business from his father. He became one of the wealthiest members of the Quaker community in Lurgan, if not in Ulster, and cultivated and benefited from strong commercial relationships within the Quaker community across Ireland and particularly in Dublin. Hope maintained accounts with bankers and merchants in Bristol, Manchester and London, where he would have been a regular visitor. Crossle's identification of Hope, although the most probable, is not definitive and there were two other relatively prominent 'John Hopes' living in London at the time. The first, a brewer, was based in Shoreditch; the second was a merchant and a director of the East India Company.\n\n**William Worth** (1698\u20131725), of Rathfarnham in Co. Dublin, eleventh in the list of members, was the grandson of his namesake who from 1681\u20136 held office as Baron of the Irish Exchequer. Following the Williamite Wars, the family's fortune was established through a commission to manage the duke of Ormonde, the Lord Lieutenant's, Irish estates. In 1723, Worth would have been representing the family's business interests in London. Two years later he married Jane Saunders (1704\u201347), of Saunders Court, Kilpatrick in Co. Wexford, in August 1725, 'a lady of a considerable fortune.' Unfortunately, Worth died in November the same year, aged only 27. He was related by marriage to Robert Callaghan who in 1738 became SGW of Irish Grand Lodge, and to William Newenham, who was JGW of Munster in 1731.\n\n**William Spaight,** a barrister, had an estate at Six-mile Bridge, Co. Clare, where he subsequently sat as a magistrate. In 1723, he may have been attending the Inns of Court in London in order to qualify for the Irish bar, a requirement for Irish barristers. The Irish comprised a relatively large part of the judicial community with certain chambers known for their strong Irish relationships. Even Catholics had a presence. Although prohibited from practicing as solicitors or barristers, they specialised in conveyance and property where a legal qualification was not a formal requirement.\n\n**Peter Webb,** tenth on the list, is a relatively common name. It is possible but unlikely that he was a linen draper whose premises were at the Wheat Sheaf in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. The occupation and location would connect him with Ireland and with others in the lodge. However, it is more probable that Webb was the Irish jeweller and banker of that name, who was at the time at the apex of his profession. He had many Irish customers. Crossle noted that Webb had lent money to one of **John Gascoyne** 's business associates, James McCulloh, and that the debt was subsequently recovered through the intermediation of Andrew Crotty of Lismore, Co. Waterford. McCulloh, a gentleman of the King's Chamber, was employed in the procurement of goods for the Crown but also traded on his own account.\n\n**Benjamin Lambert,** another merchant or high-end tradesman, was probably a Huguenot. There were at least seven Lamberts among London's freemasons. Edward Lambert, a member of the Crown at Acton; George, a member of the Fountain in the Strand; John Lambert, the Ship tavern on Fish Hill; Philip, of the Crown at Acton and the Fountain in the Strand; Thomas, the Three Cranes in Poultry, later the Ship behind the Royal Exchange; and William, the Swan Tavern, Fish Street Hill. Another (or the same) Edward Lambert, was recorded in Grand Lodge's _Minutes_ as a confectioner in Pall Mall. The last named was deputy Grand Steward to John Heidegger in 1725 and a Grand Steward in his own right in 1727. Tangentially, Crossle noted that members of the Lambert family living in Cregclare, Co. Galway had leased land from **Joseph Gascoyne.**\n\n**Henry Cunningham** was from Mount Charles, Co. Donegal. A friend of **Albert Nesbitt** and **Nathaniel Gould,** he was probably connected to Greg, Cunningham & Company, a trading house with offices in New York and Belfast. Interestingly, one of the most important Irish American firms trading in Philadelphia in the mid- and late 1700s was Conyngham and Nesbitt. Its senior partner was Redmond Conyngham, who had originally migrated from Co. Donegal. There is also a connection to Cloud Stewart: Captain Andrew Stewart's second son, Hugh, married Margaret Morris of Mountjoy Castle. Their eldest son, also Hugh, married the daughter and heiress of William Cunningham of Castle Conyngham in Donegal. A James Cunningham, described as a merchant and possibly related, was listed in Kent's _London Directory_ for 1740.\n\n**Richard Warburton** was probably the Irish MP of that name (1674\u20131747), then chairman of the Accounts Committee in the Irish Commons. MP for Portarlington from 1715\u201327 and Ballykanill from 1727\u201347, Warburton took an active role in the Irish parliament where he was involved with bills concerning the militia and trade. If not the MP, Warburton may have been another member of the same family despatched to London to look after their commercial and financial interests. The Warburtons had lived at Garryhinch in Queens County since the early seventeenth century and had had representatives in the Irish parliament almost continuously since that time. Crossle stated that Warburton was 'well-known about town \u2013 a keen business man in vested land interests'.\n\n**Jonas Morris** (d.1734), had been sent to London to monitor and manage his family's political and mercantile interests. On his return, he was elected to the Commons where he sat as the second member for Cork from 1730 until his death. The Morris family were Quaker traders and merchants who had settled in Cork at least a century earlier. A Jonas Morris had been mayor of the city in 1659; his mayoral seal had the mark of a ship between two towers. A descendant, Theodore Morris, became mayor in 1699; and another, Jonas Morris, was High Sheriff for the county in 1769. Their political achievements across two centuries point to the family's financial success and influence; and the marriage of their daughters into prominent Irish political families indicates that their wealth had given them access to and membership of the local gentry, a view validated by James Morris becoming SGW of Munster's socially exclusive grand lodge in 1731. Jonas Morris' relationship with **Albert Nesbitt** is commented on above in connection with the provision of naval supplies at Cork and Kinsale. The political lobbying of the Quakers in London at the turn of the seventeenth century has been studied by John Bergin, who places them in the 'vanguard of political lobbying'. He noted, tellingly, that their lobbying techniques were copied by their Irish counterparts and that both groups retained permanent lobbyists in London.\n\nIt is likely that **William Hoar,** alternatively written as 'Hore' and 'Hoare', was the MP for Taghmon in the Irish parliament. The Hoare family were prominent merchants and bankers, based predominantly in Cork and with a large scale interest in shipping, victualling and brewing. They were unrelated to the English banking family of the same name. Over time, the Hoares acquired substantial landholdings in Cos. Cork, Kerry and Limerick, and built a series of alliances within Ireland and England through marriage and trading relationships. The family had robust Quaker connections. Joseph Hoare (d.1729) married into the Rogers family, another prominent Cork Quaker merchant family, and his son, Samuel Hoare (1716\u201396) married the daughter of another London Quaker merchant with solid Irish connections. It is unclear whether William was a direct descendant of Edward Hoare (d.1690), the principal founder of the Irish dynasty in the seventeenth century. However, Edward had six brothers and at least three sons and a direct or indirect connection is a reasonable assumption. As an alternative identification, Crossle proposed that William Hoar may have been from Harperstown in Co. Wexford, who held a variety of lucrative government sinecures in Ireland. Bergin has suggested that it is unlikely that the two families \u2013 Cork and Wexford \u2013 were connected.\n\n**William Richardson** ( _c_.1690\u20131755), from Somerset in Coleraine, Derry, was MP for Augher, which he represented in the Irish Commons from 1727\u201355, a position connected directly to his employment as agent for The Honourable The Irish Society. The organisation had been created by royal charter at the beginning of the seventeenth century as a means of obliging the City of London livery companies to co-finance Londonderry's plantations and to expedite English colonisation. It designed and financed the initial construction of the cities of Londonderry and Coleraine. As agent, Richardson represented and was appointed by the society's governing board, an institution whose directors were nominated by the livery companies.\n\n**John Pringle** may either have been the parliamentarian of that name (c.1674\u20131754), MP for Selkirkshire from 1708 until 1729, or more probably and as Crossle suggests, Mr John Pringle of Caledon, Co. Tyrone, the father of Major General Henry Pringle, later colonel of the 51st Foot. If the MP, Pringle was a Whig loyalist who from 1715, voted with the administration in all recorded divisions at which he was present. His Selkirkshire constituency was in the pocket of its hereditary sheriff, John Murray, Pringle's brother-in-law. Pringle was created Lord Haining in 1729 and appointed a justice on the bench in the Court of Session, the supreme civil court in Scotland. If the latter, Pringle (d. 1741) would have been descended from Scottish immigrants. He lived at Lyme Park, Caledon, an estate close to the border with Armagh, where he was a local justice of the peace and land agent for John Hamilton and then his daughter, Margaret, who inherited the Caledon estate in 1713. As such, Pringle would have been present in London in his capacity as agent to the estate.\n\n**Robert Waller** was perhaps the person of that name commissioned as a cornet in 1723 and promoted to adjutant in the 1st Regiment of Foot in 1725, a prestigious position in a premier regiment that could only have been purchased at a significant cost. Although the regiment was normally on the English Establishment, in 1713 it had been detached to Ireland on garrison duty. A Robert Waller was in 1736 made sheriff for Roscommon. Crossle suggests that Waller may have been the eldest son of Robert Waller of Allenstown, Co. Meath.\n\nThe other member of the lodge holding military rank was **Captain Lionel Beecher,** who later served as 1st lieutenant in Colonel John Wynyard's Regiment of Marines, which was raised in November 1739. Crossle noted that the family lived at Sherhin in Co. Cork.\n\n**Captain Patrick Trahee,** also written as 'Trehee', was not an army or naval officer but a merchant seaman and the son of James Trehee (d.1709), who had captained the merchant ship 'Crocodile'. Like his father, Patrick Trehee worked the Caribbean and Atlantic trade. A press report in 1709 recorded the following from Deal in Kent:\n\nMarch 10. Yesterday morning the Guildford, Captain Patrick Trehee, of 327 Tuns [sic] and 22 Guns, homeward bound from Jamaica, but last from Lisbon, was unfortunately cast away on the flats between the Downs and the River, but all the men saved. Her cargo, which consisted chiefly of sugar, indigo etc., was valued at \u00a325,000.\n\nThe ship was recovered and Trehee continued to captain her on the Jamaica route. Press reports featuring Trehee occur throughout the early decades of the eighteenth century and a classified advertisement from 1722 provides evidence of the profits from the trade.\n\nLost, on Thursday... between London Bridge and Aldermanbury, a black pocket book in which was a Bank Note No. 385 for \u00a3120 payable to Capt. Patrick Trehee dated May 31st 1722 with several other Bills and Notes of no use to any other Owner, payment being stopped at the Bank and other places. Whoever brings it to the Portugal Coffee House near the Royal Exchange shall have Five Guineas reward and no questions asked.\n\nTrehee was still sailing in 1730, with the press noting his excursions to and from Rotterdam. He was at this time a director of Royal Exchange Assurance alongside other members of the lodge. A press notice shows him as such in 1729, although his first appointment to the board would have been earlier. Trehee remained a director of the Royal Exchange for many years. His Will was proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 24 October 1737, where he was described briefly as a merchant, resident in London.\n\n**'Tiss. Putland'** is a misspelling of or abbreviation for Sisson Putland, the son of Thomas Putland, whose nephew was John Putland, JGW of Irish Grand Lodge in 1737, SGW in 1738, and DGM 1747\u201350 and 1763\u20134. Thomas Putland and his eldest son, Sisson's brother, also named Thomas, had been successful London merchants who had earlier emigrated to Ireland where they settled in Dublin. Tiss lived in Spring Gardens, close to Charing Cross, and acted as the family's London agent with oversight of their business affairs. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ described him succinctly at the time of his death as 'very rich'. His obituary in the _London Evening Post_ was slightly more informative:\n\nYesterday Morning died, very much lamented, after a long illness, in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, Sisson Putland, Esq. We hear he has left the bulk of his estate, which is very considerable, to his brother George Putland, Esq., and a very handsome legacy with his coach and horses to Miss Lindar, and to his man, a hundred pounds.\n\nA second obituary in the _London Evening Post_ a few days later placed the value of Miss Lindar's bequest at \u00a32,000, together with 'all the furniture of his house'.\n\nIt is not known whether Thomas Putland, Sisson's father, died in Dublin or London. However, a Will for a Thomas Putland was proved at Canterbury in July 1723 and referred to a merchant who had resided at Chelsea. Marriage announcements for Thomas Putland's daughters in 1728 and 1733, also referred respectively to 'a late eminent Merchant of this City' and to 'the late Thomas Putland... of Paradise Row, Chelsea, Esq.\n\n**'Leon. Hatfield'** may have been the Rev. Leonard Hatfield who in 1751 was given the livings of Stradbally and Moyana in Queens County by the Anglo-Irish Cosby family of Stradbally Hall. However, it is more probable that he was the better-known appellant who appeared before the House of Lords in 1725. Hatfield _versus_ Hatfield was an attempt by Leonard Hatfield to overturn a decree made by the Court of Exchequer in Ireland relating to his father's estate. A judgment in the Irish Courts had been issued the prior year in favour of his mother (or stepmother), Jane Hatfield, described as 'widow and relict of Leonard Hatfield, gentleman, deceased'. Leonard Hatfield's appeal was described in a counter-petition to the House of Lords as 'scandalous, impertinent and greatly reflecting on the petitioner, charging her with crimes not contained in the pleadings and wholly improper and indecent to be mentioned or suggested.' Leonard Hatfield's claim failed; his appeal was dismissed and the decree confirmed. A notorious rather than celebrated litigant, Crossle commented that Hatfield was 'well-known in the Dublin law courts'. The family came from Killinure in Co. Westmeath.\n\nAlongside **Nathaniel Gould** and **Albert Nesbitt,** probably the wealthiest member of the lodge was **Springett Penn** (d.1731), a Quaker and the principal heir and grandson of William Penn, who founded the Pennsylvania colony. Penn had inherited substantial land holdings in Pennsylvania and in England, principally at Worninghurst, Sussex. However, he also had extensive land holdings in Ireland where he lived on the family's large Shanagarry estate. Shanagarry had originally been granted to his great-grandfather, Admiral Sir William Penn, by Charles II, in exchange for the market town of Macroom and its castle, which Admiral Penn had in turn been granted by Cromwell. In 1723, Springett Penn was almost certainly in London in connection with his estates and the legal obligations he retained in connection with Pennsylvania. Despite being a Quaker, together with his mother, Hannah, Penn had inherited the right to govern the colony under the auspices of the Crown and as such his and his mother's formal consent was required periodically in connection with the colony's administration. For example, in 1725, the _Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies,_ record:\n\n1 March. Declaration by Mrs. Penn that the royal approbation of Patrick Gordon to be Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania and the Three Lower Counties upon Delaware River, shall not be construed to diminish the right claimed by the Crown to the said Three Lower Counties. Signed, Hannah Penn, in the presence of S. Clement and Will. Penn.\n\n1 March. Similar Declaration. Signed, Springett Penn. Endorsed as preceding\n\n11 March. St James's. Order of King in Council. Approving of appointment of Major Patrick Gordon as Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, provided he qualify himself as the law directs and give security as proposed, and that Springett and Hannah Penn make the declaration proposed.\n\nJune 1726. Order in Council approving draught of instructions for Major Gordon: \nOrder in Council of the 18th of April, 1726, approving the draught of instructions relating to the Acts of Trade for Springett Penn, Esquire, and Hannah Penn, widow, to be by them given to Major Gordon, Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania.\n\nSpringett Penn was twenty-one in 1723 when a member of the Ship, four years below the stated minimum age to be accepted as a freemason. However, exceptions were often made for those of sufficient wealth and social standing and he was in good company. The duke of Wharton was 24 when installed as English Grand Master; the duke of Richmond, 23; and the earl of Darnley, 22. Penn was appointed or elected DGM of Munster in 1726 and 1727, under the Grand Mastership of the Hon James O'Brien, GM of Munster from 1726 to 1728. O'Brien was the brother of the 4th earl of Inchiquin, himself GM of England in 1727.\n\nThe associational overlap between Penn's commercial and social\/Masonic networks can be seen not only in his membership of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange but also in his leasing of land on the Shanagarry estate to many recognisable Munster freemasons. Lepper and Crossle in their _History_ note that among others, Thomas Wallis, Munster's Grand Warden, leased eight townships from Penn; Edward Webber of Cork held nine; and John Longfield of Castlemary, who succeeded Penn as DGM, leased one. **Nathaniel Gould** 's extensive mortgage holdings in Co. Cork, with which Walter Gould was linked, speak similarly to a blurring of business, social, family and Masonic connections. Support for the argument is also suggested by Penn and Walter Gould's business relationships with Richard Longfield, Munster's DGM in 1728, and John Gamble, Munster's JGW in 1730, from whom Penn borrowed on the security of Gamble's mortgages on Shanagarry.\n\n**Paul Minchell** may have been a relation of and London agent for the Chester merchants and mercers of that name. The head of family who died in 1741, was described as 'the most eminent Mercer in the whole city of Chester'. Crossle suggests that the name may have been misspelled and referred to Paul Minchin of Ballynakill in Co. Tipperrary.\n\nOf the remaining members of the lodge, **'William Bently'** is presently unidentified; **'Mr Row Hill'** was probably Rowley Hill, described by Crossle as Junior Warden for a Dublin lodge in 1731 whose relations were from Ballkelly in Co. Derry. The family had been granted lands in Armagh, Antrim, Derry and Tyrone in the 1640s when Samuel Hill had been appointed Treasurer in Ireland under Cromwell. Rowley Hill is however probably better known masonically as one of William Ponsonby's wardens at the lodge at the Yellow Lion tavern on 6 March 1731. **Abraham Sharigley** was, in Crossle's words, a 'well-known man about town in Dublin.'\n\n# _Notes_\n\n# INTRODUCTION\n\n Desaguliers was ordained a deacon in 1710, a year after graduating from Christ Church, Oxford. He received an MA in 1712 and was awarded a doctorate in 1719, incorporated LLD at Cambridge in 1726. He was elected FRS in 1714 and 'in consideration of his great usefulness to the Royal Society as Curator and Operator of Experiments... excused from paying his Admission money, signing the usual bond and Obligation and paying the weekly contributions': RS Minutes of the Council, II, 29 July 1714.\n\n Cf., _1723 Constitutions._ Article 10 (p. 61), for example, stated that a 'majority of every particular Lodge, when congregated, shall have the privilege of giving instructions to their Master and Wardens... because the Master and Wardens are their representatives'.\n\n Cf. R.A. Berman, _Foundations of Modern Freemasonry_ (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2011).\n\n Cf., Simon Schaffer, _Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in Eighteenth Century England_ in _History of Science_ (Cambridge, 1983), vol. XXI.\n\n Larry Stewart, 'A Meaning for Machines: Modernity, Utility, and the Eighteenth-Century British Public', _Journal of Modern History,_ 70.2 (1998), 259\u2013294, esp. 269; and 'James Brydges to William Mead, 16 June 1718', Huntington Library: Stowe MS, ST 57, XV, 252.\n\n# CHAPTER ONE **Laurence Dermott and Antients Grand Lodge**\n\n John Ward was created Lord Ward, Baron of Birmingham in 1740. He was appointed GM (1742\u20134), following his elevation to the peerage.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, pp. 259\u201360.\n\n Ibid., p. v.\n\n Ibid., pp. 259\u201360.\n\n Cf., Berman, _Foundations._\n\n John Heron Lepper & Philip Crossle, _History of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ireland_ (Dublin: Lodge of Research, CC, 1925), vol. I, p. 232.\n\n Anonymous, _Hiram: or the Grand Master Key_ (London: W. Griffin, 1766), 2nd edn.\n\n R.F. Gould, _History of Freemasonry_ (London, 1882\u20137), (6 vols), vol. 2, ch. 4; and Henry Sadler, _Masonic Facts and Fictions_ (London, 1887), ch. 3\u20135.\n\n J.R. Dashwood (ed.), _Early Records of the Grand Lodge of England According to the Old Institutions_ (London: Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1958), QCA, vol. XI, p. v.\n\n Cf., Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 24 July 1755.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 1 June 1774.\n\n Laurence Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon_ (London, 1756), _Dedication._\n\n 1723 _Constitutions._\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon,_ pp. vi\u2013xvi.\n\n There are no satisfactory biographies of Laurence Dermott. However, cf., Witham Matthew Bywater, _Notes on Laurence Dermott_ (London, 1884); and Dudley Wright (rev.), _Gould's Freemasonry Throughout the World_ (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), vol. 2, pp. 145\u201395.\n\n Dermott succeeded John Morgan who resigned in February 1752 'he being lately appointed to office on board one of His Majesty's ships [had] received orders to prepare for his departure'.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes 1752\u201360,_ reprinted as QCA Antigrapha XI, pp. 7, 29\u201330, 39. Hagarty is also described as a 'painter' in the _General Register._\n\n Se\u00e1n Murphy, 'Irish Jacobitism and Freemasonry', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 9 (1994), 75\u201382.\n\n Six MacDermotts from Co. Roscommon (Owen and Michel [Michael] MacDermott and Charles, Dudley, James and Laurent [Laurence] Macdermot[t]), are recorded as serving in France's Irish brigades in the eighteenth century. The total number of MacDermotts listed is thirty-eight. In seventeen instances the county of origin was not stated. Cf., National University of Ireland, _The Irish in Europe Project._ Twenty-three other MacDermotts or Macdermot[t]s appear in the records of Irish soldiers who saw service in Spain. In aggregate, _The Irish in Europe Project_ lists seventy-one MacDermotts, including two clerical students at Leuven University in Belgium.\n\n I am indebted to Joseph McIlveen, Irish Lodge of Research, No. 200, for this information.\n\n Thomas Dermott, Laurence's father, traded from premises in Frances Street and\/or New Row, its northern extension.\n\n The McDermott's, a sister branch of the family, were associated with other lodges including No. 355 in Co. Sligo, whose warrant was issued on 4 December 1760.\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ pp. 236\u201342.\n\n Dermot MacDermot, _MacDermott of Moylurg_ (Manorhamilton, Ireland: Drumlin, 1996), pp. 313\u201331, cites _Collectonea Hibernica,_ 34\u20135 (1992\u20133). He also mentions the merchant house of Dermott and Paine which traded from Rue de la Savonniere in Rouen in the early 1700s. A Michael McDermott later lived at Rue des Jacobins in St Sauveur, Rouen. It is likely that this branch of the family was Catholic and that the trading house had been founded after the Treaty of Limerick. The National University of Ireland, _The Irish in Europe Project,_ also lists several merchants named MacDermott living in Spain. A Pedro (Peter) MacDermott was recorded in Cadiz in the eighteenth century, as was a Hugo MacDermott. A Juan MacDermott was also listed as living in Madrid.\n\n A copy of Christopher Dermott's will was made available to the author by Joseph McIlveen. Cf. also Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ p. 238.\n\n Cf., the _Daily Gazetteer (London Edition),_ 8 December 1738, which noted the loss of 'warehouse and a large quantity of paper belonging to Mr Dermott', the consequence of a fire at Usher's Quay in Dublin.\n\n Cf., for example, _Dublin Mercury,_ 10\u201313 June 1769 and later issues, in which Anthony and Owen Dermott are among the signatories to a letter from the 'merchants of the city of Dublin'; and the _Public Register or The Freeman's Journal,_ 11\u201313 December 1770 et al. Anthony Dermott was also a signatory to an open letter addressed to the Irish parliament, published in the _Public Advertiser,_ 22 July 1784, complaining against the unjust duties levied by Britain.\n\n _Public Register or The Freeman's Journal,_ 24\u201327 November 1770.\n\n _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 26 May 1780; _London Courant and Westminster Chronicle,_ 26 May 1780.\n\n Cf., for example, _Dublin Mercury,_ 25\u201327 May and 3\u20136 June 1769 and successive issues, in relation to an imported consignment of Antigua rum.\n\n _Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle,_ 13\u201315 August 1760.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 15\u201318 November 1766; cf., also, _Public Advertiser,_ 19 November 1766.\n\n _Public Ledger,_ 29 November 1765. Spelt variously as 'Windall', 'Windle', 'Windel' and 'Windell'.\n\n _St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post,_ 27\u201329 December 1763.\n\n _London Chronicle,_ 27 February-1 March 1766; also, _London Evening Post,_ 27 February 1766.\n\n Cf., for example, _London Gazette,_ 12\u201316 June 1759; _General Advertiser,_ 19 February 1752 and 4, 7, 9, 11 March 1752; and _Daily Advertiser,_ 21 January 1752: a meeting of the 'Master Taylors and Staymakers of the Cities of London and Westminster'.\n\n Cf., _London Daily Advertiser,_ 9 April 1752 and _Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser,_ 30 May 1763.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 30 December 1766\u20131 January 1767; _London Chronicle,_ 6\u20139 June 1767; _Public Advertiser,_ 22 June 1768.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 26, 27 & 28 March 1754.\n\n No Wills appear to have been recorded for probate purposes for either William or Mary Windall [Windle].\n\n _Report on the Charities of the Haberdashers' Company Part II_ (London: City of London Livery Companies Commission, 1884), vol. 4, pp. 457\u201377.\n\n _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 3 November 1769.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 1752\u201360, p. 90.\n\n AQC, 38, p. 154.\n\n William Smith, _A Pocket Companion for Freemasons_ (Dublin, 1735).\n\n Cf. Antients' _General Register._\n\n Valerie Rumbold, _The Dunciad in Four Books_ (Harlow: Pearson, 2009), rev. ed., p. 4.\n\n UK Data Archive: _Wills 1790\u201391._ Proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 15 July 1791.\n\n accessed 17 August 2012.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge, _General Register._\n\n _Daily Advertiser,_ 24 February 1773 et al.\n\n Rebuilt in c. 1740 to a design by Henry Flitcroft.\n\n Cf., MacDermot, _MacDermott of Moylurg._\n\n Anthony Dermott (1700\u20131784) had one daughter and four sons. Three sons, Owen ( _d_.1787), Francis ( _d_.1788) and Anthony ( _d_.1786), also became merchants, trading from 15 Usher's Quay, 30 Arran Quay and 19 Usher's Island, respectively.\n\n _Parker's General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer,_ 23 May 1782.\n\n _Parker's General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer,_ 24 September 1782; _Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser,_ 25 September 1782 et al.\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon_ (London, 1756).\n\n Albert Gallatin Mackey, _An encyclopaedia of freemasonry and its kindred sciences_ (Philadelphia: Moss & Co., 1874), p. 46.\n\n A 2nd edn. was published in 1764; a 3rd in 1778; and the 4th, 5th and 6th in 1779, 1780 and 1782, respectively. Other known editions were published in 1795, 1797, 1800, 1801, 1807 and 1813.\n\n William Alexander Laurie, _The History of Free Masonry and the Grand Lodge of Scotland_ (Edinburgh: Seton & MacKenzie, 1859), fn. p. 60.\n\n Mackey, _An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry,_ p. 214.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Wright (rev.), _Gould's Freemasonry Throughout the World,_ vol. 2, p. 151.\n\n William James Hughan, _Memorials of the Masonic Union_ (Leicester, 1913), rev. ed., p. 8.\n\n Sadler, _Masonic Facts and Fictions,_ pp. 110\u20132.\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon_ (London, 1764), 2nd edn., pp. xxix\u2013xxxi.\n\n Ibid.\n\n _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 21 September 1765 et al.\n\n Wright (rev.), _Gould's Freemasonry Throughout the World,_ vol. 2, p. 168.\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon,_ 'Explanation of the Frontispiece'.\n\n Ibid., p. xv.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 29 November 1754.\n\n Ibid., 24 July 1755.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n It is now Fortitude and Old Cumberland, No. 12.\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon_ (London, 1778), 3rd edn., pp. xvi\u2013xvii.\n\n Ibid., p. xviii. A cynic might suggest that one reason for the 1762 edition being silent on the matter was that Dermott's presentation of the events in 1755 might have been open to challenge. In 1778, the events were more than two decades in the past.\n\n _Middlesex Journal or Chronicle of Liberty,_ 9\u201311 April 1772.\n\n Smith, Captain George, HC 8\/F\/35 _15 October 1776:_ UGLE Library. The 4th duke had succeeded on his father's death in 1774.\n\n _Morning Herald,_ 29 December 1786. Author's italics.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 14 September 1752.\n\n Ibid., 6 December 1752.\n\n Charles visited Florence in 1733 and became master of an Irish Masonic lodge established there. He is associated with what became known as the Sackville Medal, the first known example of a Masonic medal, struck to commemorate his mastership.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 5 December 1753,\n\n _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 23 September 1766.\n\n John Murray, 3rd duke of Atholl (1729\u20131774) was GM Antients (1771\u20134) and GM Scotland (1773\u20134); and John Murray, 4th duke of Atholl (1755\u20131830) was GM Antients (1775\u201381 & 1791\u20131812) and GM Scotland (1778\u201380).\n\n Blessington's mother was the sister and heir of the second and last Viscount Blessington.\n\n The membership of the Bear & Harrow lodge included a number of former and current Grand Officers, including Montagu, GM; Thomas Batson, DGM; Desaguliers, formerly GM and DGM; George Rook and James Smythe, GWs; James Chambers, a former GW; and George Moody, the Grand Swordbearer.\n\n Cf. Francis Nichols, _The Irish Compendium_ (London: J. Knapton, 1756), 5th ed., pp. 233\u20136.\n\n _Jacobite's Journal,_ 13 August 1748; _London Daily Advertiser and Literary Gazette,_ 20 April 1751. Mountjoy also owned a house at Blackheath: _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 4 August 1768.\n\n Thomas Prior, _A list of the absentees of Ireland_ (Dublin: Richard Gunne, 1729), p. 6. Cf. also the 3rd edn. (Dublin, 1745), p. 6.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 4 May 1757.\n\n The date is sometimes given as 1746, but cf. for example, _General Advertiser,_ 6 September 1748. He was reappointed to the Privy Council in 1761 following the succession of George III.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 10 June 1763.\n\n _St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post,_ 10\u201312 September 1761.\n\n Toby Barnard, _Improving Ireland?_ (Dublin: FCP, 2008), p. 123.\n\n The Mathew family had settled in Co. Tipperary in the seventeenth century and had considerable estates around Thomastown. Thomas' son, Francis, was created 1st earl of Llandaff in 1797. Cf. National University of Ireland, Galway: Landed Estates Database: http:\/\/landedestates.nuigalway.ie:8080\/LandedEstates\/jsp\/family-show.jsp?id=2785 accessed 21 September 2012.\n\n _St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post,_ 18\u201320 February 1762 et al. Cf. obituary in _General Evening Post,_ 8\u201311 November 1777; and _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 10 November 1777.\n\n Randall MacDonnell, 6th earl of Antrim (1749\u20131791), was created 1st marquess of Antrim in 1789.\n\n D'Assigny's _Serious and Impartial Enquiry into the Cause of the present Decay of Freemasonry in the Kingdom of Ireland_ (Dublin: Edward Bates, 1764).\n\n Dermott, _Ahiman Rezon,_ p. 47 (1st edn.).\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 16 December 1759.\n\n# CHAPTER TWO **Antients Freemasonry and the London Irish**\n\n , accessed 15 April 2012. Roger Swift estimates that the total Irish-born population in the whole of England, Wales and Scotland rose from 415,000 in 1841 to a peak of just over 800,000 in 1861. Cf., Swift, 'The Outcast Irish in the British Victorian City: Problems and Perspectives', _Irish Historical Studies,_ 25.99 (1987), 264\u201376.\n\n Charles Dickens, _Gin Shops: Sketches by Boz_ (London: John Macrone, 1836), vol. I.\n\n _Registers of the Grand Lodge of the Antients, 1751\u20131813._ The unpublished primary data is held at the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Great Queen Street, London. Cf., also, J. R. Dashwood (ed.), _Early Records of the Grand Lodge of England according to the Old Institutions_ (London: QC, 1958), published as _Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha,_ vol. XI.\n\n Freemasonry also grew strongly in Ireland itself, where the proportion of the adult male population who were freemasons was greater than in any other European country, including England. Between 1732 and 1789, over 700 lodges were warranted in Ireland; and by the 1790s, Irish freemasonry has a membership estimated at 35\u201340,000 within an adult male population of around a million. Cf. Petri Mirala, 'Masonic sociability and its limitations: the case of Ireland' in James Kelly & Martin J. Powell (eds.), _Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland_ (Dublin: FCP, 2010), pp. 315\u201331.\n\n Cf. Lodge No. 20 (A), _Minutes,_ 9 July 1753: 'Constituted after the Antient Manner and form of York Masons by the Master of No. 16'.\n\n Unfortunately, given variations in spelling, streets in different parts of London with the same name, and partial or part-illegible addresses, the place of residence cannot be regarded as definitive. Where possible, street names and locations have been verified using contemporary data sources including W. Stow, _Remarks on London being an Exact Survey_ (London, 1722); John Motley, _A Survey of London & Westminster_ (London, 1753); Carrington Bowle, _Reduced Plan of London_ (London, 1775); John Hinton, _New and Accurate plan of the cities of London and Westminster and Southwark_ (London, 1761).\n\n Lodge No. 20, _Minutes,_ 2 December 1754.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 7 August 1754.\n\n Ibid., 17 September 1755.\n\n10 The _General Register_ numbered members by their date of joining. Any subsequent move to another lodge was recorded and numbered separately.\n\n Frank McLynn, _Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England_ (Abingdon: Routledge, 1989), p. 5; McLynn was correct, _Burney_ contains over 4,000 instances of attacks by footpads in the period 1740\u201380 alone.\n\n Mirala, 'Masonic sociability and its limitations', 327\u201330.\n\n Sarah Knott, review of James Livesey, _Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World_ in _American Historical Review,_ 115.2 (2010), 608\u20139.\n\n 'John Gillum (1698\u20131776), Will, proved at London, 2 June 1777 before William Compton, DL, for Sir George Hay, DL, of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury': , accessed 10 May 2012.\n\n Near Golden Lane, Barbican.\n\n16 Written as 'Welto'.\n\n17 Spitalfields.\n\n18 Written as 'Boling Row'.\n\n19 Resident at Mr Thomas Greenwood, Shoemakers.\n\n20 Near Brick Lane, Old Street.\n\n21 Near Goodman's Fields\n\n Lodge No. 20 (Antients), _Visitors._\n\n W. J. Songhurst, 'Lodge No. 20, Antients', _Transactions_ (London: QC, 1919), vol. 32, pp. 114\u201340.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Cf., www.measuringworth.com; also, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/currency.\n\n Lodge No. 20 (Antients), _Minutes,_ 17 November 1755.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 24 October 1751.\n\n Cf., R.F. Gould, _Atholl Lodges_ (London: Spencer's Masonic Depot, 1879).\n\n Cf., _List of Lodges,_ Antients General Register.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 2 October 1754.\n\n A similar application to acquire a vacant lodge number was recorded on 1 December 1756, when a fee of 'one guinea towards the relief of distressed freemasons' was paid by the Master of lodge No. 54 to 'take rank as No. 12'.\n\n Cowen is noted as having 'gone abroad' after April 1755.\n\n Buss is shown as having been 'declared off' in 1754.\n\n Enoch Lodge, Minute Book, 1770\u20131801.\n\n The address is unclear in the minutes.\n\n On 7 January 1771, Patrick Murphy was proposed as Master of the lodge for the ensuing half year and was installed on that day.\n\n37 Excluded for non-attendance and non-payment of lodge dues.\n\n38 Not minuted but cf., _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 21 June 1774.\n\n39 Not minuted but cf., _Public Advertiser,_ 13 September 1763. Later of Petticoat Lane, Spitalfields: cf., _Whitehall Evening Post,_ 22\u201324 March 1781.\n\n Bearblock was Grand Secretary of the Antients, 1779\u201382.\n\n41 The entry is referenced 'N1'.\n\n42 The entry is referenced 'N2'.\n\n The membership list is dated 1773. The first page contains 35 names, after which several pages are missing.\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 6 June 1759. St George's merged with Corner Stone Lodge (previously No. 63 of the Moderns) on 6 December 1843.\n\n Lewis Namier, John Brooke (eds.), _The House of Commons 1754\u20131790_ (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1984), p. 672.\n\n Domestic service would, of course, remain a key component of national employment until the early twentieth century.\n\n Cf., Daniel Defoe, _The Great Law of Subordination Considered_ (London, 1724); also, E.P. Thompson, 'Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture', _Journal of Social History,_ 7.4 (1974), 382\u2013405.\n\n# CHAPTER THREE **The Antients' _General Register_**\n\n 'Town Spy' quoted in Carol Houlihan Flynn, 'Where the Wild Things Are: Guides to London's Transgressive Spaces', in Regina Hewitt and Pat Rogers (eds.), _Orthodoxy and Heresy in Eighteenth Century London_ (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated UP, 2002), p. 37.\n\n Anon., _A Trip through London: containing observations on Men and Things_ (London, 1728), 8th edn.\n\n Anon., _A second part of A view of London and Westminster: or, the town spy_ (London, 1725).\n\n Randolph Trumbach, _Sex and the Gender Revolution: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London_ (Chicago, 1998), pp. 112\u201320.\n\n Trumbach, _Sex and the Gender Revolution,_ p. 121. Cf. also, Timothy Erwin, 'Parody and Prostitution', _Huntington Library Quarterly,_ 68.4 (2005), 677\u201384.\n\n Cf., _London Lives,_ e.g., ; cf., also, maps generated at oldbaileyonlin.org, e.g. http:\/\/www.oldbaileyonline.org\/maps.jsp?map=green&map_item_id=7216.\n\n _Reports from Committees, Fever, Ireland, Courts of Justice;_ Session 27 January-10 June, 1818 (London: House of Commons Papers), vol. 7, p. 17.\n\n Thomas Beames, _The Rookeries of London_ (London: Frank Cass, 1852).\n\n John Times, _Club Life of London_ (London, 1866), p. 197.\n\n Alexander Pope, _Sober Advice from Horace_ (London, 1737).\n\n Cf. John Mottley, _A history and survey of the cities of London and Westminster_ (London, 1733\u20135), vol. 2, p. 756.\n\n Ibid.\n\n D.A. Kent, 'Ubiquitous but Invisible: Female Domestic Servants in Mid-Eighteenth Century London', _History Workshop,_ 28 (1989), 111\u201328.\n\n Isaac Maddox, Bishop of Worcester, _The Expediency of Preventive Wisdom, a Sermon_ (London, 1750).\n\n Kent, 'Ubiquitous but Invisible: Female Domestic Servants in Mid-Eighteenth Century London', 114.\n\n Peter Clark, 'The 'Mother Gin' Controversy in the Early Eighteenth Century', _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,_ 5th series, 38 (1988), 63\u201384.\n\n William Maitland, _The History and Survey of London from its Foundation to the Present_ (London, 1756), 2 vol.s, ii, pp. 718\u20139, 735\u20136.\n\n Clark, 'The 'Mother Gin' Controversy', 67.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 18 December 1735.\n\n Cf., among many examples, _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 14 June 1735 and 3 January 1736.\n\n Old Bailey Proceedings, 2 July 1735. HUL, reference LL t17350702\u201342. Cf., also, _Daily Journal,_ 7 July 1735.\n\n John Strype, _A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster_ (London, 1720).\n\n _British Medical Journal,_ 2.664 (1873), 355.\n\n Charles Dickens, _Sketches by Boz_ (1839).\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 31 July 1760\u20132 August 1760.\n\n _Lloyd's Evening Post,_ 13\u201315 May 1765.\n\n _London Morning Penny Post,_ 7\u20139 August 1751.\n\n Frederick Engels, _The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844_ (London: Allen and Unwin, 1943), p. 27. Originally published 1887.\n\n29 Also No.s 81 & 207.\n\n30 Also No. 481.\n\n Roger Swift, 'Heroes or Villains?: The Irish, Crime, and Disorder in Victorian England', _Albion,_ 29.3 (1997), 408. It is possible that the belief in the widespread availability of poor relief was influenced by the Antients' support structure.\n\n 3&4 Will & Mar, c 11. The 1692 Act extended the Poor Relief Act of 1662 (14 Car 2 c 12). In general terms, the Poor Laws required a recipient to have lived in the parish for forty days without complaint; paid local rates and taxes; held a parish office for a year; served a full apprenticeship; or be employed for at least a year.\n\n _St Martin's Pauper Examinations,_ 1725\u20131773: Christopher Dallmange, examined 7 January 1740. _London Lives:_ smdsset_112_58664, accessed 9 July 2012.\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 27\u201329 November 1750.\n\n Cf., J.M. Feheney, 'Delinquency among Irish Catholic Children in Victorian London', _Irish Historical Studies,_ 23.92 (1983), 319\u201329.\n\n _London Daily Advertiser,_ 22 January 1752.\n\n _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 9 February 1751.\n\n _Penny London Post or The Morning Advertiser,_ 15\u201318 February 1751.\n\n39 Also No. 360.\n\n Mottley, _Survey,_ vol. 2, pp. 770\u20135, passage from p. 774.\n\n41 Wych Street.\n\n42 Also No. 220.\n\n43 Also No. 217.\n\n St Mary Spital was erected in the twelfth century and demolished in the sixteenth following the reformation.\n\n Phyllis Deane and W.A. Cole, _British Economic Growth, 1688\u20131959_ (Cambridge: CUP, 1969), 2nd ed., pp. 98\u2013104.\n\n Ibid., 115\u201320.\n\n A brewery owned by Thomas Bucknall occupied the site in 1669.\n\n William Page (ed.), _A History of the County of Middlesex_ (London: Victoria County History, 1911), vol. 2, pp. 168\u201378.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Walter Thornbury, _Old and New London_ (London, 1878), vol. 2, pp. 149\u2013152.\n\n51 Also No. 115: moved to Mr Rottenbury's, Quaker Street, Spitalfields.\n\n52 Also No. 116: moved to Mr Rottenbury's, Quaker Street, Spitalfields.\n\n53 Also No. 427\n\n54 Also No. 825.\n\n55 Also No. 372\n\n56 Also No. 423.\n\n57 Also No. 592.\n\n Beames, _The Rookeries of London,_ pp. 94\u20136.\n\n Berkeley Hill, 'Illustrations of the Working of the Contagious Diseases Act', _British Medical Journal,_ 1.386 (1868), 505\u20136.\n\n HL Sessional Papers, _Report from the Select Committee of the Health of Towns_ (London, 1840), vol. XXVIII, pp. 244\u20138; p. v.\n\n61 Also No. 567.\n\n Alexander Pope, _The Dunciad with Notes_ (London: Lawton Gilliver, 1729), book 1, pp. 55\u20136.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Quoted in Gordon Williams, _A Dictionary of Sexual language and Imagery in Shakespearian and Stuart Literature_ (London: Athlone Press, 1994), vol. 1, p. 794.\n\n _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 2 August 1755.\n\n _London Chronicle,_ 14\u201316 February 1758.\n\n67 Surgeon.\n\n68 Also No. 202.\n\n69 Also No. 193.\n\n70 Also No. 466.\n\n Stow, _Survey of London,_ Appendix.\n\n Strype, _Survey._\n\n The Surrey gaol was replaced in 1791 by the Horsemonger Lane gaol to the south of Southwark at St George's Fields.\n\n74 Probably the Marshalsea Tap House in Marshalsea Road, which was geographically closer to Borough than Southwark.\n\n75 Also No. 376\n\n G.H. Gater & F.R. Hiorns (eds.), _Survey of London_ (London: English Heritage, 1940), vol. 20, pp. 95\u2013100.\n\n Mottley, _Survey,_ vol. 2, pp. 664\u20135.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Gater & Hiorns, _Survey of London,_ vol. 20, pp. 89\u201394.\n\n Edward Walford, _Old and New London_ (London: Centre for Metropolitan History, 1878), vol. 4, pp. 326\u201338.\n\n Mottley, _Survey,_ vol. 2, p. 666.\n\n Ibid., p. 669. Cf. John Senex (rev'd), 'A Plan of the City's of London, Westminster and Borough of Southwark, with the new additional buildings' (1720).\n\n Mottley, _Survey,_ vol. 2, p. 669\u201370\n\n Ibid., p. 670.\n\n Lodge No. 1 in Ireland was issued to Mitchelstown lodge in Cork by Lord Kingston (GMI) in 1731.\n\n Dashwood has suggested that the warrant was held back until it could be signed by a member of the nobility. Cf., _QCA XI,_ p. ix.\n\n Constituted on 17 July 1751. Cf., also, W.J. Hughan, 'A Unique Engraved List of Lodges, 'Antients' A.D. 1753', _QCL Transactions_ (1906), pp. 94\u20135.) Lodge numbers 3\u20136 were similarly constituted formally on 17 July 1751. Declared vacant 4 June 1783. Warrant later purchased by No. 32.\n\n Constituted 7 July 1751.\n\n Constituted 7 July 1751.\n\n Constituted 17 July 1751.\n\n Constituted 17 July 1751.\n\n Constituted 29 July 1751; erased for disobedience 27 December 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 8. Constituted 29 January 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 9. Constituted 30 January 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 11. Constituted 12 June 1752.\n\n Constituted 5 February 1751; erased for disobedience 27 December 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 12. Constituted 15 September 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 13. Constituted 13 November 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 14. Constituted 4 November 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 15. Constituted 7 December 1752.\n\n Formerly No. 16. Constituted 11 December 1752.\n\n Constituted 9 January 1753.\n\n Constituted 10 January 1753.\n\n Constituted 4 May 1753.\n\n Constituted 15 May 1753.\n\n Constituted 9 July 1753.\n\n Constituted 10 July 1753.\n\n Constituted 12 July 1753.\n\n Constituted 10 October 1753.\n\n Constituted 17 October 1753.\n\n Constituted 17 October 1753.\n\n Constituted 8 November 1753.\n\n Constituted 9 November 1753.\n\n Constituted 15 November 1753.\n\n Constituted 15 November 1753.\n\n# CHAPTER FOUR **London's Magistracy and the London Irish**\n\n Berman, _Foundations,_ chapter 3.\n\n Nathaniel Blackerby, _The Speech of Nathanial Blackerby_ (London, 1738), p. 18.\n\n William Cowper, quoted in _Pasquin,_ 17 January 1723.\n\n There were of course exceptions. The Irish gentry and merchants, both Catholic and Protestant, employed Irish agents, brokers and parliamentary lobbyists in London. Many were highly effective and men such as Matthew Duane, Denis Moloney and Peter Sexton became wealthy, influential and respected. Other Irish \u00e9migr\u00e9s became prominent doctors and surgeons or were skilled in property conveyance, a branch of the legal profession heavily populated by Catholics.\n\n Cf., Richard Kirkland, 'Reading the Rookery: The Social Meaning of an Irish Slum in Nineteenth Century London', _New Hibernia Review,_ 16.1 (2012), 16\u201330.\n\n _London Lives 1690\u20131810: Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis_ at www.londonlives.org.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Adam Crymble, 'Identifying the Irish in electronic text: surname analysis and Irish defendants in the Old Bailey Online', _The London Irish in the Long Eighteenth Century_ (conference: University of Warwick, 13 April 2012).\n\n Cf. _House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Judicial Statistics, England & Wales, 1858,_ Part 1, pp. xxii\u2013iiii, and _1859,_ Part 1, p. xxv'; Irish prisoners represent over 13 per cent of the total prison population in 1858 and over 14 per cent in 1859. A prisoner's place of birth was recorded for the first time in 1857.\n\n Swift, 'Heroes or Villains?: The Irish, Crime, and Disorder in Victorian England', 399\u2013421.\n\n Ibid., 399.\n\n Flora Tristan, _Promenades dans Londres_ (Paris, 1840), pp. 134\u20136.\n\n _Old Bailey Proceedings Online,_ 3 September 1740: LL ref.: t17400903\u201331; accessed 10 November, 2011.\n\n Ibid., 15 October 1740: LL ref.: t17401015\u201310; accessed 10 November, 2011.\n\n Ibid., LL ref.: t17460702\u201326; accessed 24 April 2012.\n\n Ibid., LL ref.: t17520116\u201328: accessed 24 April 2012.\n\n Ibid., LL ref.: t17550702\u201319: accessed 24 April 2012.\n\n Cf. Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 23 July 1740, for an example of a charity petition rejected on the grounds of less than five years membership of a regular lodge.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 30 November 1752.\n\n Cf., John Chamberlayne, _Magnae Britanniae_ (1736), p. 160; _Daily Gazetteer,_ 6 April 1738. Blackerby was appointed to the bench in 1719.\n\n Nathaniel Blackerby, _The Speech of Nathanial Blackerby_ (London, 1738), p. 18.\n\n _Pasquin,_ 17 January 1723.\n\n William Cowper, _The Charge delivered..._ (London, 1730), pp. 5\u20136.\n\n 1723 _Constitutions,_ p. 50.\n\n 5 Eliz. c.4 (1562).\n\n Cf., 7 Geo I st 1 c.13 (1720) and 12 Geo I c.34 (1725), which concern tailoring and the woollen trade, respectively. Other statutes include 9 Geo. I c.27 (1722); Geo. II c.36 (1729); 13 Geo. II c.8 (1740); 20 Geo. II c.19 (1747); and 22 Geo. II c.27 (1749). Employment legislation dealt both with employee breaches and at a granular level with trade regulation, including the terms of apprenticeships, setting wages, employee theft and embezzlement etc.\n\n Douglas Hay, 'Paternalism, and Welfare: Masters, Workers and Magistrates in Eighteenth-Century England', _International Labor and Working-Class History,_ 53 (1998), 27\u201348.\n\n Cf., Marie Mulvey-Roberts, 'Hogarth on the Square: Framing the Freemasons', _Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies,_ 26.2 (2003), 251\u201370. _Night,_ the last painting, later an engraving, in the series, _Four Times of the Day,_ was completed in 1736 and published in 1738. Cf. also Sugden, 'Sir Thomas de Veil', _ODNB._\n\n Philip Sugden, 'Sir Thomas de Veil (1684\u20131746)', _ODNB._\n\n Ruth Paley (ed.), _Justice in eighteenth century Hackney: The Justicing notebook of Henry Norris_ (London, 1991).\n\n Ibid., pp. ix\u2013xxxiii.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n LMA: London and Westminster _Sessions' Papers._\n\n Paley, _Justice in eighteenth century Hackney,_ pp. ix\u2013xxxiii.\n\n _Evening Journal,_ 4 December 1727.\n\n Nicholas Rogers, 'Money, Land and Lineage: The Big Bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London', _Social History,_ 4.3 (1979), 437\u201354, esp. 448\u20139.\n\n John Noorthouck, _A New History of London_ (London, 1773), vol. I, pp. 889\u201393.\n\n http\/\/www.oldbaileyonline.org: _Proceedings of the Old Bailey,_ 16 April 1740.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 10\u201312 March 1737.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 15 December 1721; _Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,_ 13 January 1722; _Evening Post,_ 8 March 1722, et al.\n\n London Lives: _Middlesex Sessions: Sessions Papers \u2013 Justices' Working Documents:_ 31 March 1733. LL ref.: LMSMPS502900004.\n\n Op. cit.\n\n Ibid., pp. 75\u201394.\n\n LMA, London.\n\n Ibid.\n\n# CHAPTER FIVE **An Age of Decline \u2013 English Grand Lodge, 1740\u20131751**\n\n The lodge was warranted in 1736 and had met initially at Lord Cardigan's Head at Charing Cross before transferring to Little Marlborough Street. The minutes can be found within the minute book of the Lodge of Friendship, No. 6, at the UGLE Library.\n\n The lodge met at the King's Arms in the Strand from 1733 to 1742 and thereafter at the Cannon at Charing Cross (1742\u20136) and Bear & Rummer (1746\u201358).\n\n The Royal Society, Sadler Archives: EC\/1735\/05: GB 117.\n\n Martin Clare, _A Defence of Masonry_ (London, 1730).\n\n _Discourse_ given by Clare to the Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge on 11 December 1735.\n\n Lodge of Friendship, No. 6, _Minutes._\n\n Corner Stone Lodge, _Minutes,_ 1735\u20131748. Cf. St George's and Corner Stone Lodge, No. 5, _Minutes._\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1740\u201358, pp. 164, 167 and 191. The other lodges were, respectively, the Rose Tavern in Cheapside, Three Kings in Spitalfields and St Paul's Head in Ludgate Street\n\n Colin Dyer, _Grand Stewards' Lodge_ (London, 1985), published privately, pp. 32\u20137.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1740\u201358, p. 38.\n\n _Daily Advertiser,_ 15 April 1745.\n\n _Daily Advertiser,_ 25 April 1745.\n\n _Daily Advertiser,_ 5 May 1745.\n\n _The Complete Freemason: or Multa Paucis for Lovers of Secrets_ (London, 1764), p. 104.\n\n 1738 _Constitutions,_ p. 117.\n\n Ibid., p. 124.\n\n Ibid., p. 125.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 22 January 1730.\n\n 1738 _Constitutions,_ p. 125.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 28 April 1737.\n\n _Daily Advertiser,_ 29 April 1737.\n\n _London Daily Post,_ 20 March 1741.\n\n Cf., _Freemasons Magazine,_ 1858.\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 30 April-2 May 1747. The event had not been held in public the prior year. The feast and parade had been cancelled with the excuse that 'many brethren, as well of the Nobility as others, [were] in Flanders and several retired into the country': Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 14 April 1746.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 24 March 1747; the following edition, 28 March 1747, downgraded the fortune to \u00a360,000.\n\n _General Evening Post,_ 7\u20139 June 1748.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 30 October 1749. Two daughters were born in 1751 (died an infant) and 1755. All of Byron's children predeceased him.\n\n _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 6 October 1743.\n\n _General Evening Post,_ 20 April 1745.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 6 September 1746.\n\n For example, _London Evening Post_ 29 August 1752; 7 October 1752; and 19 July 1753.\n\n _The Complete Freemason,_ p. 105.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 11 May 1747.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 16 May 1747.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 8 July 1747.\n\n Chaworth had been a member of the lodge at the Wool Pack in Warwick. He appears in the lodge register as 'Cornet William Chaworth'.\n\n Quoted in R.F. Gould (rev. Frederick Crowe), _The Concise History of Freemasonry_ (London, 1951), p. 244.\n\n Alphonse Cerza, _Anti-Masonry: Light on the Past and Present Opponents of Freemasonry_ (Fulton, 1962), Appendix A, pp. 193\u2013211.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 21 August 1751.\n\n Mulvey-Roberts, 'Hogarth on the Square: Framing the Freemasons', 251\u201370.\n\n _The Complete Freemason,_ p. 105.\n\n Cf. Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1740\u201358, p. 61, fn. (d).\n\n# CHAPTER SIX **Masonic Misrule, Continued**\n\n The name is spelt variously as 'ffotherley', 'Fotherley' or 'Fotherby'.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, pp. 234\u20135.\n\n Ibid., pp. 249\u201350.\n\n Ibid., p. 230.\n\n Ibid., p. 229. The petition was presented in May 1733.\n\n British Library, Add. MS. 23202.\n\n Cf. Andrew Pink, 'A music club for freemasons: _Philo-musicae et \u2013 architecturae_ _societas Apollini,_ London, 1725\u20131727', _Early Music,_ 38.4 (2010), 523\u201336, published on-line 30 September 2010.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 21 November 1724.\n\n Those named by Grand Lodge represented a fraction of those at _Philo-Musicae_ known to have been members of other masonic lodges.\n\n William Jones was initiated on 22 December 1724. It is possible but, in the author's view, not probable that the William Jones of _Philo-Musicae_ was not the same person as William Jones, the mathematician, a member of the Vine Tavern lodge in Holborn and Senior Warden of the Queen's Head, Hollis Street. Andrew Pink has posed a counter argument.\n\n Knevit was from a prosperous landed family of Buckenham Castle, Norfolk.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 11 October 1729.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, p. 40.\n\n Francesco Geminiani (1687\u20131762), trained under Alessandro Scarlatti and Carlo Abrogio. His patrons in London included William Capel, 3rd earl of Essex, and George I, for whom he first played in 1715.\n\n Bedford was a riding master based in Windmill Street north of Piccadilly. Cf. _Evening Post,_ 6\u20138 October 1726. Thomas Harbin was a bookseller and stationer with premises at New Exchange on the Strand. He was initiated in September 1721 at the Cheshire Cheese in Arundel Street by John Beale, DGM under the Duke of Montagu. Cf., _Applebee's Original Weekly Journal,_ 9 September 1721.\n\n Hordern, a vintner, was based at Watling Street in the City. The _London Gazette,_ 29 July-2 August 1729, recorded that he became insolvent and applied for relief in 1729.\n\n Andrew Pink, _The Musical Culture of Freemasonry in Early Eighteenth-century London_ (London: Goldsmith's College, 2007), unpublished PhD Thesis, Appendix 7, pp. 319\u201323.\n\n Gould, _History of Freemasonry Throughout the World,_ p. 81.\n\n Pink, _The Musical Culture of Freemasonry,_ Appendix 5, pp. 312\u201317.\n\n Rawlinson was appointed a Grand Steward in 1733, the same year as Fotherley Baker, and in the 1730s was master of the lodge at the Oxford Arms in Ludgate Street and a member of three others. Although Rawlinson was characterised as an 'opposer of our established religion' and 'abuser of the present government', he was also held in sufficient esteem to be elected a Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries under Martin Folkes' Presidency as late as 1753 and at his death laudatory obituaries described him as the 'Worshipful and Learned Dr Rawlinson'. Cf., _Public Advertiser,_ 8 April and 21 April 1755.\n\n They included William Gulston, Coort Knevit, William Jones, Papillon Ball, Joseph Murden, William Grant, Richard Mason, Richard Cock, Joseph Samson, Fotherley Baker and John Revis.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, p. 251.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, p. 314.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 24\u201326 February 1741. Cf. also _Daily Gazetteer,_ 25 February 1741; and _Weekly Miscellany,_ 28 February 1741.\n\n Bishop Burnet, _History of His Own Time_ (London: Thomas Ward, 1723), vol. 1. Also, _Daily Courant,_ 14 February 1724.\n\n _London Gazette,_ 14\u201317 June 1740.\n\n Joseph Reddington (ed.), _Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1720\u20131728_ (London: IHR, 1889), vol. 233, _12 January-31 March 1721,_ p. 41. Cf. also, William A Shaw (ed.), _Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1696\u20131697_ (London: IHR, 1933), vol. 11, _27 November 1696,_ p. 322. _Post Man and the Historical Account,_ 26\u201328 June 1707.\n\n _Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal,_ 24 October 1741. The _London Morning Advertiser,_ 23 October 1741, noted that his election was by 39 votes to 34, and that he stood against a Mr Deputy Kenyon. The senior twelve livery companies in order of precedence are known as the 'Great Twelve'. The Haberdashers' Company ranks eighth.\n\n Cf. _Daily Gazetteer,_ 21 October 1741; _London Evening Post,_ 20\u201322 October 1741; and _London Morning Advertiser,_ 23 October 1741.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1740\u201358, p. 25.\n\n I am indebted to the archivist of the Drapers' Company for this information, _5 September 2011._\n\n Information provided by David Bartle, Archivist, The Haberdashers' Company, 23 August 2011.\n\n Baker's death was reported in the _London Evening Post,_ 9\u201311 May 1754. Cf. for example, _London Daily Advertiser and Literary Gazette,_ 3 May 1751 and _London Evening Post,_ 9\u201311 January 1753.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 14 November 1737.\n\n Noorthouck, _A New History of London,_ pp. 894\u20137; cf. also _Evening Post,_ 31 January 1721\u20132 February 1721.\n\n _Evening Post,_ 23\u201325 July 1724.\n\n _Daily Courant,_ 15 September 1729; _Monthly Chronicle,_ October 1729; also Noorthouck, _A New History of London,_ Addenda: The Mayors and Sheriffs of London, pp. 889\u201393.\n\n _City of London Sessions Papers,_ LMA.\n\n Tim Hitchcock, 'Review of J.M.Beattie's _Policing and Punishment in London, 1660\u20131750_ (New York: OUP, 2001)', _Albion,_ 35.1 (2003), 127\u20139.\n\n _Post Boy,_ 26\u201328 January 1721. _Evening Post,_ 18\u201320 June 1723.\n\n The London Infirmary, renamed the London Hospital in 1748, was first located at a house in Featherstone Street in Moorfields in November 1740. In May the following year, the hospital moved to rented premises in Prescot Street, near the Tower of London, where it remained until 1757. It was the forerunner of the Royal London Hospital, renamed in 1990, its 250th anniversary year. Cf. Edward Morris, _A History of the London Hospital_ (London: E. Arnold, 1910) 2nd ed., pp. 25\u20136.\n\n _An Account of the Rise, Progress and State of the London Infirmary_ (London, 1742), p. 11.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 15 April 1736. Cf. also, _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 11 March 1743. Thomas Boehm was also a director of the London Assurance Corporation (cf., _Daily Gazetteer,_ 10 July 1741) and a governor of the Corporation for the Relief of Seamen in the Merchant Service.\n\n London Infirmary, _Annual Account of Receipts and Payments, 1742\u20139._\n\n Morris, _A History of the London Hospital,_ p. 293.\n\n Isaac, Lord Bishop of Worcester, _A Sermon Preached before His Grace, Charles, Duke of Richmond_ (London: J. Brotherton & J. Stagg, 1744).\n\n _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 11 March 1743; _London Evening Post,_ 17\u201319 March 1743; _Daily Advertiser,_ 22 March 1743.\n\n Cf. Bishop of Worcester, _A Sermon Preached before His Grace, Charles, Duke of Richmond,_ pp. 32\u20138: a 'List of Governors and Contributors to the London Infirmary'. Cf. also, the 'List of Governors and Contributors' contained in the _Sermon_ published in 1745 and 1747, respectively.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 28 April 1744; 9 May 1746; 18 May 1747; 28 April 1749; 28 June 1751; 15 May 1752; and _London Evening Post,_ 26\u201328 June 1750.\n\n The _General Advertiser,_ 2 April 1747, notes Lowther's contribution of \u00a350 at the Anniversary Feast that year.\n\n J.V. Beckett, 'Lowther, Sir James, fourth baronet _(bap._ 1673, _d._ 1755)', rev. _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; accessed 27 Sept 2011). In his closet at his death were bank notes to the amount of \u00a330,000 'which not being mentioned in his Will, are supposed to have escaped his recollection': _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 1\u20134 February 1755. Cf. also, obituary in _Public Advertiser,_ 4 January 1755.\n\n Peter Du Cane was descended from Jean du Quesne, a Flemish Huguenot who had migrated to England in the 1560s. The family were merchants and bankers and included John Houblon, the first governor of the Bank of England, later Lord Mayor of London, and James, his brother, an MP and director of both the Bank of England and the Hon East India Company. Cf. also, _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 6 January 1743; and _General Advertiser,_ 14 March 1746.\n\n Du Cane rented 14 St James's Square from 1749\u20131767 in preference to his town-house in St Pancras. Cf. F.H.W. Sheppard (ed.), _Survey of London_ (London: IHR, 1960), vols 29 & 30, pp. 139\u201342.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 27 March 1735\u201329 March 1735. Peter Du Cane, his wife and their children were painted in 1747 by Arthur Devis (1712\u201387) in a triptych, now at the Harris Museum in Preston, Lancashire.\n\n _A List of the Members of the Corporation of the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance_ (London, 1730).\n\n The Amicable's constitution limited directors to a maximum three-year term. Most served for three years, resigned and were reappointed a year later. It was a common practice.\n\n Martin Clare was also a member. Cf., _General Advertiser,_ 11 July 1752.\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 5\u20137 May 1747.\n\n Aviva Archives, Norwich, Norfolk. Lists of directors sworn in at the Annual General Meeting of the Society: NU 2343 & 2344: _Amicable Society Order of Court Book, 21 August 1735\u201320 September 1743;_ and _Amicable Society Directors Minute Book 22 September 1743\u201315 January 1755._\n\n The Amicable allowed each person on whom an assurance had been put in place to have one or more shares in the Society and to become a member either for his own benefit and that of his estate or on behalf of the contributor paying the premiums: 'Corporation of the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office (on Lives): (plan, tables and rules)', _LSE Selected Pamphlets_ (1844).\n\n The Amicable remained an independent mutual company until 1886, when an act of parliament authorised its merger with the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society; the resulting company was the Norwich Union, now Aviva.\n\n W. Whiston, _An Account of the Past and Present State of the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office; With the Occasions of the low Condition it is now in; and Proposals in Order to recover its former Prosperity_ (London, 1732). Probably William Whiston (1667\u20131752), the mathematician and former Lucasian professor at Cambridge, later expelled for religious heterodoxy.\n\n Cf., among many press reports and advertisements, _Evening Post,_ 11 August 1730.\n\n _A short account of the rise and present state of the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance-Office_ (London, 1742).\n\n Geoffrey Clark, 'Life insurance in the society and culture of London, 1700\u201375', _Urban History,_ 24 (1997), pp. 17\u201336.\n\n Ibid.\n\n _A List of the Members of the Corporation of the Amicable Society._\n\n Gary Salzman, 'Murder, Wagering, and Insurable Interest in Life Insurance', _Journal of Insurance,_ 30.4 (1963), 555\u201362.\n\n Life Assurance Act 1774 (14 Geo 3 c.48, also known as the Gambling Act, 1774).\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 1\u20134 August 1747.\n\n Philip Yonge, _A sermon preached before his Grace George, Duke of Marlborough_ (London, 1764), p. 1; and _General Advertiser,_ 8 March 1750.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 19 October 1751; and _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 28 March 1752.\n\n _A General Abstract of Receipts and Disbursements, from the first institution of the Small Pox Hospital, 26 September 1746 to 24 March 1763._\n\n _London Daily Advertiser,_ 6 March 1752; and _The London Magazine; or Gentleman's monthly intelligencer_ (London: J. Wiford, 1752), vol. 21.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 15 February 1752.\n\n Ibid.\n\n _London Daily Advertiser,_ 6 March 1752.\n\n _The London Magazine; or Gentleman's monthly intelligencer,_ vol. 21.\n\n Brudenell was invested KG in 1752 and created 1st duke of Montagu in 1766. He had assumed the name Montagu on his father-in-law's death in 1749.\n\n Parker was President of the Royal Society from 1752\u201364, succeeding Martin Folkes. He was a member of the lodge at the Swan in Chichester, most probably at the invitation of the duke of Richmond.\n\n Beauchamp had been created a baronet in 1745; he changed his name by Act of Parliament to 'Beauchamp-Proctor' after inheriting the Langley Park estate in Norfolk from his maternal uncle.\n\n Lesley Richmond & Alison Turton (eds.), _The Brewing Industry: a guide to historical records_ (Manchester: MUP, 1990), p. 104.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 25\u201327 April 1732; also _The Gentleman's Magazine,_ 22 October 1733, and _Daily Courant,_ 29 October 1733.\n\n Mendes was one of the first Jewish freemasons, a member of the lodge at Braund's Head in New Bond Street and appointed a Grand Steward in 1738: cf., Thomas N. McGeary, 'Moses Mendez (1690?-1758)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online ed. Jan. 2008). Mendes purchased estates in Norfolk and Surrey before becoming a poet and dramatist. A relative, Solomon Mendes, was a member of the lodge at Daniel's Coffee House in Lombard Street and a Grand Steward in 1732.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 17 February 1753. He appears in the register of St Michael's Church, Cornhill, having been baptised on 13 December 1719.\n\n _London Daily Advertiser,_ 3 March 1753.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 5 April 1754.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 6 April 1738.\n\n Ibid., 28 June 1738.\n\n John Lane, _Masonic Records, 1717\u20131894_ (London: UGLE, 1895), 2nd edn. (rev.). Published online (Sheffield: HRI, 2011) version 1.0: .\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 12\u201314 June 1729; _Daily Post,_ 14 June 1729; et al.\n\n William A. Shaw and F. H. Slingsby (eds),'Declared Accounts: Post Office', _Calendar of Treasury books, Volume 32: 1718_ (IHR, 1962), p. ccclv.\n\n John Chamberlayne, _Magn\u00e6 Britanni\u00e6 notitia: or, the present state of Great Britain_ (London: B. & S. Tooke et al., 1723), part II, p. 524.\n\n _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 29 September 1733. The legacy would have been worth around \u00a32 million in current money.\n\n _Grub Street Journal,_ 6 June 1734.\n\n _Weekly Miscellany,_ 15 January 1737; and John Chamberlayne, _Magn\u00e6 Britanni\u00e6 notitia: or, the present state of Great Britain_ (London: D. Midwinter et al., 1741), part II, p. 82.\n\n For example, _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 7 September 1738; _Daily Gazetteer,_ 11 September 1738. There were upwards of sixty such announcements over the next three years. Also cf. Middlesex Sessions: Justices' Working Documents \u2013 deposition on 1 October 1737; and signature appended to affidavit 13 October 1737. Cf. also, City of London Sessions: Justices' Working Documents \u2013 signature on deposition at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, 4 September 1746; and 15 October 1746.\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 9\u201311 June 1747.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 6\u20138 June 1751; _General Advertiser,_ 7 June 1751.\n\n _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 1\u20133 October 1747. Also, _Penny London Post or The Morning Advertiser,_ 2\u20135 October 1747. The position of Receiver General was regarded as of equal status to that of Accountant General.\n\n _Daily Gazetteer,_ 1 October 1744. The thoroughfare remains best known for 'oranges and lemons, ring the bells of St Clement's'.\n\n Stow, _Remarks on London,_ pp. 130\u20131.\n\n Parliamentary Archives, London: _Private Act,_ 24 George II, c. 40 HL\/ PO\/PB\/1\/1750\/24G2n99 _1750._\n\n _London Gazette,_ 9 July 1757, et al.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 16 March 1749.\n\n Bridewell Royal Hospital, _Minutes of the Court of Governors,_ 12 July 1746.\n\n Aviva Archives, op. cit. Cf. also, _Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer,_ 5\u20137 May 1747; and _London Daily Advertiser,_ 1 May 1752.\n\n Cf., _An Account of the... London Infirmary_ (London, 1742), p. 12; also, _Alexander's feast... set to music by Mr Handel_ (London: J. & R. Thomson, 1753), p. 22; _A Sermon Preached before the governors of the London Infirmary_ (London: London Infirmary, 1743), p. 34; and _London Evening Post,_ 18\u201321 July 1752.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 19 May 1750.\n\n From 1741, the office of Treasurer had become elective by those attending the Quarterly Communication. Adopting what had been the position in practice, the Treasurer, Secretary and Sword Bearer were declared automatic members of every meeting of Grand Lodge.\n\n It is possible that Jesse was a Huguenot, a group represented disproportionately among freemasons. The surname was relatively common both in the Low Countries and France, where the family may have descended from 'de Jess\u00e9 L\u00e9vas' who emigrated from Languedoc to England after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The Huguenot connection is supported by contemporary records, including an 'Abraham Jesse' in William and Susan Minet (eds.), _Register of Churches of the Tabernacle, Glasshouse Street and Leicester Fields, 1688\u20131783_ (London: Huguenot Society, 1926), vol. XXIX, p. 100.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 1723\u201339, p. 19.\n\n Ibid., p. 35.\n\n Ibid., p. 92.\n\n Ibid., p. 208.\n\n His father's will was proved at probate on 22 May 1703.\n\n Westminster Poll Books, 1749.\n\n _St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post,_ 3 September 1765\u20135 September 1765. His will was proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 17 September 1765.\n\n _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 5 September 1765. Other notices appeared in the _Public Advertiser,_ 5 September 1765 and _St James's Chronicle,_ 3 September 1765.\n\n John Revis, registered charity number 206841: 'almshouses for the needy, single men and women who are not less than fifty-five years of age resident in... Newport Pagnell'. Cf., also, William Page (ed.), _A History of the County of Buckinghamshire_ (London: IHR, 1927), vol. 4, pp. 409\u201322.\n\n Frederick William Bull, _A History of Newport Pagnell_ (Kettering: W.E. & J. Goss, 1990), pp. 261\u20135.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes,_ 18 June 1752.\n\n George Eccleshall, _A History of the Old King's Arms Lodge, 1725\u20132000_ (London: published privately, 2001) _Appendix._ No source is stated.\n\n Eccleshall, _History,_ p. 11.\n\n# CHAPTER SEVEN **The King's Arms Lodge**\n\n Weymouth (1710\u20131751), inherited his title and the Longleat estate in 1714, together with extensive estates in Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.\n\n2 Clare and Wray joined in 1730.\n\n3 Payne sat as acting Grand Master in 1746.\n\n Eccleshall, _History,_ p. 23.\n\n Ibid., p. 13.\n\n Ibid., p. 33.\n\n Edward Oakley, 'Speech at the Carpenter's Arms, Silver Street, 31 December 1728', in Benjamin Cole, _Constitutions_ (London, 1731), 2nd ed., pp. 25\u201334.\n\n OKA _Minutes,_ 6 August 1733.\n\n Eccleshall, _History,_ p. 20.\n\n Cf. Berman, _Foundations,_ esp. chapters 2 & 6.\n\n Martin Clare, _Youth's introduction to Trade and Business_ (London, 1720).\n\n F.H.W. Sheppard (gen ed.), _Survey of London_ (London, 1966), vol. 33, _No. 8 Soho Square,_ pp. 60\u20131.\n\n Martin Clare, _Motion in Fluids, Natural and Artificial_ (London: Edward Symon, 1735).\n\n Ibid., _Advertisement._\n\n Clare's _Discourse_ was given to the Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge on 11 December 1735.\n\n OKA _Minutes,_ 11 March 1734.\n\n Ibid., 1 April 1734. The custom of new members paying for dinner and otherwise defraying lodge costs was part of a tradition that dated back to the mediaeval guilds. Cf. Berman, _Foundations,_ pp. 21\u20135 et al.\n\n Ibid., 5 May 1735. That the OKA rules contradicted Grand Lodge's Regulation VI, which demanded the unanimous consent of 'all the members of that lodge then present', is self-evident.\n\n Constituted on 28 March 1732.\n\n Weymouth did not attend Grand Lodge as GM other than at his installation; John Ward (DGM) deputised.\n\n He was created 1st viscount Dudley and Ward in 1763.\n\n Cf., among several reports, _Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal,_ 5 January 1745.\n\n _Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,_ 17 February 1728. Ward's father, William, had been MP for Staffordshire from 1710 to 1713 and again in 1715 until his death.\n\n _London Gazette,_ 20 January 1730; _Annual Register for the Year 1774_ (London, 1801), 6th edn., p. 192.\n\n _Flying Post or The Weekly Medley,_ 12 July 1729.\n\n Cf. Paul Langford, 'William Pitt and Public Opinion, 1757', _English Historical Review,_ 88.346 (1973), 54\u201380, esp. 63.\n\n Quote from R. Sedgwick (ed.), _The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1715\u20131745_ (London, 1970): online at www.historyofparliamentonline.org\/volume\/1715\u20131754\/member\/ward-john-1704\u201374, accessed 12 August 2012.\n\n _Journals of the House of Commons,_ Seventh Parliament of Great Britain: 6th session, p. 155, _18 May 1733._\n\n Cf. for example, _Journals of the House of Lords,_ Ninth Parliament of Great Britain: 3rd session, p. 464, _21 March 1744;_ 5th session, p. 51, _24 February 1747;_ 6th session, p. 93, _3 April 1747;_ Tenth Parliament of Great Britain: 1st session, p. 220, _26 April 1748;_ and General Index, vols XX-XXXV, p. 855.\n\n Cf., T.J. Raybould, 'The Development and Organization of Lord Dudley's Mineral Estates, 1774\u20131845', _Economic History Review,_ 21.3 ns (1968), 529\u201344.\n\n Cf., George J. Barnaby, 'Review \u2013 The Economic Emergence of the Black Country by T.J. Raybould', _Economic History Review,_ 27.3 n.s. (1974), 475\u20136.\n\n He had held an interest in land elsewhere on the Grosvenor estate since 1737.\n\n F.H.W. Sheppard, _Survey of London_ (London: English Heritage, 1980), vol. 40, pp. 210\u201321. The new building was constructed on land to the rear of numbers 30\u201336 Upper Brook Street.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 2 January 1730.\n\n Cf. for example, _British Journal,_ 11 June 1726.\n\n Sackler Archives.\n\n He became a licentiate of the RCP in 1740; the College's archives confirm his deposit of a \u00a350 surety to observe its statutes, by-laws and orders etc.: RCP, London, RCP-LEGAC\/ENV 67, _3 September 1740._\n\n For example, _St James's Evening Post,_ 22\u201324 March 1733.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Cf., Sackler Archives, EC\/1732\/12; also _An Account of the proceedings of the Governors of St George's Hospital_ (London, 1733).\n\n Cf. William Giffard, rev. Edward Hody, _Cases in Midwifery_ (London: William Hody, 1734).\n\n# CHAPTER EIGHT **The Anglo-Irish: Ascendancy and Alienation**\n\n The Acts of Union with Scotland in 1707 joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland to create the single kingdom of Great Britain. Ireland remained a separate kingdom, albeit under the same monarch as England, then Great Britain, until the Acts of Union in 1800 gave rise to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.\n\n An 'Act for the more effectual preventing his Majesty's Subjects from entering into Foreign Service' ending foreign military recruitment in Ireland was passed in 1745 at the time of the second Jacobite scare: 19 George II, c. 7. Before 1745, government policy swung between encouraging and prohibiting recruitment for service overseas partly as a function of Anglo French relations.\n\n In the 1690s, the Irish contingent in the French army comprised ten regiments of foot, two of horse and two horse troops under the command of the exiled James II, together with three regiments in Lord Mouncashel's brigade, the latter being under direct French command. The total strength was c. 18,000 men. A database of Irish nationals who served in the French army is maintained at the National University of Ireland. Cf. _The Irish in Europe Project, Irish Regiments in France Database:_ www.irishineurope.com\/about\/research\/irish-regiments-france. Cf., also, J.C. Callaghan, _History of the Irish Brigades in the service of France_ (Glasgow: Cameron & Ferguson, 1885).\n\n Basil Williams, _The Whig Supremacy, 1714\u20131761_ (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 2nd edn., p. 291.\n\n Sean McCann, _The Fighting Irish_ (London, 1972); Maurice Hennessey, _The Wild Geese: The Irish Soldier in Exile_ (London, 1973). Also cf., Peter Kartsen, 'Irish Soldiers in the British Army, 1792\u20131922: Suborned or Subordinate?', _Journal of Social History,_ 17.1 (1983), 31\u201364.\n\n Cf., _Evening Post,_ 10\u201312 March 1726; _Daily Post,_ 29 April 1726; and _Daily Journal,_ 4 June 1726.\n\n Until 1728, Catholics of sufficient affluence retained the franchise and Catholic peers who had taken a loyal oath of allegiance were permitted to sit in the Irish House of Lords. Cf. 'Disenfranchising Act (Ireland)' (1727).\n\n Cf., for example, 'An Act to prevent Papists being Solicitors': 10 Will. III c.13 (1698); and 'An Act to Restrain Foreign Education': 7 Will. III c.4 (1695).\n\n 'An Act to prevent Protestants intermarrying with Papists': 9. Will III c. 3 (1697).\n\n 'An Act for the better securing the government, by disarming papists': 7 Will III c.5 (1695).\n\n Sunderland and Townshend remained in England for the entire period of their respective lord lieutenancies.\n\n 10 Henry VII c.22.\n\n Poynings' Law was not repealed until 1782.\n\n Cf. James Kelly, _Poynings' Law and the Making of Laws in Ireland, 1660\u20131800_ (Dublin: FCP, 2007).\n\n A.T.Q. Stewart, _A Deeper Silence: Hidden Origins of the United Irishmen_ (London: Faber & Faber, 1993), p. 27.\n\n 'An Act to prevent the Exportation of Wool out of the Kingdoms of Ireland and England into Foreign Parts and for the Encouragement of the Woollen Manufactures in the Kingdom of England': 11 Will III c.13 (1699). The quoted text is from the Act's preamble.\n\n Louis M. Cullen, _Anglo-Irish Trade, 1660\u20131800_ (Manchester: MUP, 1968).\n\n F.G. James, 'Irish Smuggling in the Eighteenth Century', _Irish Historical Studies,_ 12.48 (1961), 299\u2013317.\n\n Ibid., 311\u201312.\n\n Cf., 3 Geo. II c.2, 5 Geo. II c.1 & c.2, 7 Geo. II c.2 & c.7, 9 Geo. II c.2 et al.; also, among many examples, cf. 12 Geo. I c.7 (1725) and 7 Geo. II c.11 (1737); 1 Geo. II c.16 (1727); 15 Geo. II c.1 (1741); and 21 Geo. II c.1 & c.2 (1747).\n\n Examples include iron, paper and glass manufacture, all of which were restricted until later in the eighteenth century.\n\n 6. Geo. I c.5.\n\n David Dickinson, _Arctic Ireland: the Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740\u201341_ (Belfast: White Row Press, 1997).\n\n William Molyneux, _The Case of Ireland's being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated_ (Dublin: Joseph Ray, 1698).\n\n Anonymous, _An Inquiry into Some of the Causes of the Ill Situation of the Affairs of the Irish_ (Dublin: George Grierson, 1731), p. 7.\n\n The Hibernian Patriot [Jonathan Swift], _A Collection of the Drapier's Letters to the People of Ireland_ (Dublin: A. Moor, 1730), pp. B 2\u20133.\n\n Anonymous, _An Inquiry,_ p. 9.\n\n Ibid.\n\n John Cary, _An Essay on the State of England in relation to its trade, its poor and its taxes_ (Bristol, 1695).\n\n Ibid.\n\n Indeed, even Jacobites were loyal to the crown of the three kingdoms \u2013 albeit with a different king.\n\n Charles Davenant, _An Essay upon Ways and Means of Supplying the War_ (London, 1695), p. 82.\n\n William Connolly to the duke of Grafton, 18 October 1720, quoted in Patrick Walsh, '\"The Sin of With-Holding Tribute\", contemporary pamphlets and the professionalisation of the Irish Revenue Service in the early eighteenth century', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 21 (2006), 48\u201365.\n\n Cf. A.P.W. Malcolmson, _Nathaniel Clements: Government & the Governing Elite in Ireland_ (Dublin: FCP, 2005); also, Alice E. Murray, _A History of the Commercial & Financial Relations between England & Ireland from the Period of the Restoration_ (New York: Burt Franklin, 1970), reprint, first published 1903.\n\n Cf. Curtis Nettels, 'The Menace of Colonial Manufacturing 1690\u20131720', _New England Quarterly,_ 4.2 (1931), 230\u201369, esp. 235\u20138.\n\n Toby Barnard, _Improving Ireland?_ (Dublin: FCP, 2008), p. 123.\n\n Anonymous, _An Inquiry,_ p. 3.\n\n Kelly, _Poynings' Law,_ p. 157.\n\n Arthur Dobbs, _An Essay on the Trade and Improvement of Ireland_ (Dublin: J. Smith & W. Bruce, 1729), p. 3.\n\n Ibid., p. 2.\n\n Ibid., p. 3.\n\n Ibid., pp. 27\u20138.\n\n Jonathan Swift, _Travels into the Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver_ (London: Benj. Motte, 1726), vol. 1, part II, p. 35.\n\n Swift, _A Letter to the Whole People of Ireland_ (Dublin: Harding, 1724). Cf. commentary in Temple Scott (ed.), _The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift_ (London: Bell, 1903), vol. VI, 'The Drapier's Letters', letter IV.\n\n Earl of Egmont, _Diary of the 1 st earl of Egmont_ (London: HMSO, 1923), vol. 2, p. 27.\n\n Cf. Richard Stone, _Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences, 1650\u20131900_ (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), pp. 71\u2013115, who categorised King as 'the first great economic statistician'. The quote is from the _Prologue,_ p. xxii.\n\n Cf., Gregory King, _Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England_ (London, 1696).\n\n Charles Davenant, _An Essay upon Ways and Means of Supplying the War_ (London, 1695).\n\n Ibid., p. 82.\n\n Charles Davenant, _The Political and Commercial Works of Charles D'Avenants,_ collected and revised by Sir Charles Whitworth (London, 1771), vol. II (of five), esp. p. 102.\n\n Davenant, _An Essay on the East-India Trade_ (London, 1696); _A clear demonstration, from points of fact, that the recovery, preservation and improvement of Britain's share of the trade to Africa_ (London, 1709); _Reflections upon the constitution and management of the trade to Africa_ (London, 1709); and _An account of the trade between Great-Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland_ (London, 1715). _An Essay on the East-India Trade_ was written when Davenant was seeking employment with the Company.\n\n Davenant, _Political and Commercial Works,_ vol. I, p. 354.\n\n Julian Hoppit, 'Charles Davenant', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online edn, May 2006, accessed 29 Oct. 2011).\n\n Davenant, _Political and Commercial Works,_ vol. II, p. 236.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid., p. 237.\n\n Cf., in particular, James Livesey, 'The Dublin Society in Eighteenth Century Political Thought', _Historical Journal,_ 47.3 (2004), 615\u201340.\n\n Quoted in Sarah Foster, 'Buying Irish: Consumer Nationalism in Eighteenth Century Dublin', _History Today,_ 47.6 (1997).\n\n 'Irish manufacture \u2013 A New Ballad', quoted in Henry Grattan, _Memoirs of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan_ (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), vol. 2, p. 136.\n\n J.C.D. Clark, 'Whig Tactics and Parliamentary Precedent: The English Management of Irish Politics, 1754\u20131756', _Historical Journal,_ 21.2 (1978), 275\u2013301.\n\n Cf. Thomas Bartlett (review), 'A New History of Ireland', _Past and Present,_ 116 (1987), 206\u201319.\n\n Jacqueline Hill, 'Allegories, Fictions, and Feigned Representations: Decoding the Money Bill Dispute, 1752\u20136' _Eighteenth-Century Ireland,_ 21 (2006), 66\u201388.\n\n Cf. Robert Munter, _The History of the Irish Newspaper 1685\u20131760_ (Cambridge: CUP, 1967).\n\n Anonymous [Rev. Peter Bristow], _Honesty the Best Policy or, the History of Roger_ (London, Dublin: T. Freeman, 1752).\n\n J.C. Beckett, 'Anglo-Irish Constitutional Relations in the Later Eighteenth Century', _Irish Historical Studies,_ 14.53 (1964), 20\u201338. Beckett (23) gives an example in December 1773: Harcourt to Rochford, 30 December 1773 _(Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1773\u20135,_ 121\u20133), where reference is made to earlier instances.\n\n Ibid., 21.\n\n Pitt to Rutland, 6 January 1785, in William Pitt, _Correspondence between William Pitt and Charles, Duke of Rutland, 1781\u20131787_ (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1890), pp. 72\u20133.\n\n Ibid., pp. 87\u20138.\n\n Cf., Beckett, 'Anglo-Irish Constitutional Relations in the Later Eighteenth Century'.\n\n 'Union with Ireland Act, 1800' (39 & 40 Geo. III c.67), passed by the British parliament, and 'Irish Act of Union (Ireland) Act, 1800' (40 Geo. III c.38).\n\n Antients Grand Lodge _Minutes,_ 1 July 1752.\n\n _Dublin Gazette,_ 24\u201328 June 1755. Cf., also, _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 28 June-2 July 1757.\n\n _Pue's Occurrences,_ 25\u201328 June 1757.\n\n _Dublin Mercury,_ 17\u201320 June 1769.\n\n John Money, _Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760\u20131800_ (Manchester: MUP, 1977), pp. 98\u2013102.\n\n Moses W. Redding, _Illustrated History of Freemasonry_ (Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 1997), p. 367. Originally published New York: Redding & Co, 1910.\n\n Lisa Meaney, _Freemasonry in Munster, 1726\u20131829_ (Mary Immaculate College, Ireland: 2005), unpublished. Petri Mirala, _Freemasonry in Ulster, 1733\u20131813: A Social and Political History of the Masonic Brotherhood in the North of Ireland_ (Dublin: FCP, 2007).\n\n Mirala, 'Masonic sociability and its limitations', pp. 315\u201331.\n\n Meaney, _Freemasonry in Munster,_ Introduction.\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ pp. 113\u201314.\n\n Clement XIII, _In Eminenti,_ 28 April 1738; Benedict XIV, _Providas,_ 18 May 1751.\n\n Mirala, _Freemasonry in Ulster,_ pp. 135\u20136. Also, _Irish Clubs and Societies,_ pp. 327\u20138.\n\n Ibid., pp. 136\u201340.\n\n D'Assigny's _Serious and Impartial Enquiry_ does not provide a reference point to explore eighteenth-century Irish freemasonry. The book is largely a fictional history of freemasonry '[tracing] antiquity even unto its infant state [to] our parent Adam' and argues that 'a [masonic] house divided against itself cannot stand'.\n\n# CONCLUSION\n\n Jonathan Swift, _A Short View of the State of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1728), in _The Works of Jonathan Swift_ (London: Henry Washbourne, 1841) vol. II, p. 80. The second Navigation Act, 'An Act for the Encouragement of Trade', was passed in 1663, prohibited the use of foreign ships in trade between England and its colonies and taxed a range of 'enumerated' products.\n\n Swift, _A Short View of the State of Ireland._\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n William A.S. Hewins in Murray, _History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland, Preface._\n\n Murray, _History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland._\n\n Ruth-Ann Harris, _The Nearest Place That Wasn't Ireland: Early Nineteenth Century Labor Migration_ (Iowa State UP, 1994).\n\n Eoin Kinsela, 'Hurling in Eighteenth Century London', unpublished paper, given at 'The London Irish in the Long Eighteenth Century' conference, University of Warwick, 13\u201314 April 2012.\n\n _St James's Evening Post,_ 14\u201316 August 1733.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 20 August 1733.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 23\u201325 June 1748; _General Advertiser,_ 12 May 1749.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 25\u201327 July 1751; _General Advertiser,_ 29 August 1751.\n\n# APPENDIX V **An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Irish Freemasonry**\n\n _Dublin News Letter,_ 10 July 1721; _Dublin Impartial News Letter,_ 15 August 1721. Cf., also, for example, the London _Post Boy,_ 5 August 1721.\n\n _Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,_ 5 August 1721.\n\n _Dublin Courant,_ 2 July 1722.\n\n The event was reported in _Applebee's Original Weekly Journal,_ 5 August 1721, and replicated elsewhere.\n\n Thomas Wharton's death occurred shortly after Philip married against his father's wishes, which was believed to be a contributory cause.\n\n Lawrence B. Smith, 'Philip Wharton, duke of Wharton and Jacobite duke of Northumberland', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008), accessed 29 August 2012.\n\n _Burney_ includes over 500 references to Wharton over the period 1718\u201324.\n\n The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies: D-LE\/A\/2\/4\/j, _29 November 1721._\n\n Lewis Benjamin, _South Sea Bubble_ (Manchester, New Hampshire, 1967), p. 49; also, Noorthouck, _A New History of London,_ vol. I, pp. 306\u201325.\n\n Lewis Melville, _South Sea Bubble_ (London, 1921), p. 157.\n\n _1738 Constitutions,_ p. 114; also discussed in R.F. Gould, _History of Freemasonry,_ vol. 2, p. 289.\n\n _London Journal,_ 30 June 1722. Cf. also, _Compleat Set of St James's Journals,_ 28 June 1722, et al.\n\n 'Then let us rejoice, With heart and voice, There doth one Stuart still remain; And all sing the tune, On the tenth day of June, That the King shall enjoy his own again.'\n\n Lawrence B. Smith, 'Wharton, Philip James, duke of Wharton and Jacobite duke of Northumberland (1698\u20131731)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008), accessed 25 August 2012.\n\n David Stevenson, 'James Anderson: Man & Mason', _Heredom,_ 10 (2002), 93\u2013138, quote from 107.\n\n Ibid., 108.\n\n Francis Scott, 5th earl of Dalkeith and 2nd duke of Buccleuch (1695\u20131751).\n\n Charles Lennox, 2nd duke of Richmond & Lennox (1701\u20131750). Richmond succeeded Dalkeith as Grand Master in 1724.\n\n Grand Lodge of England _Minutes._\n\n _London Journal,_ 16 June 1722.\n\n _British Journal,_ 12 December 1724.\n\n Trumbach, _Sex and the Gender Revolution,_ p. 83.\n\n 'Letter to the Countess of Mar, February 1724', in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Wharcliffe (ed.), _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_ (New York, 1893), vol. 1, p. 477. The correspondence was previously published by Richard Bentley (London, 1837).\n\n Lepper & Crossle, _History,_ vol. I, pp. 130\u20132. The present day Freemason's Hall in Dublin was constructed in Molesworth Street in 1868 on the site of Rosse's house.\n\n Turlough O'Riordan, 'Richard Parsons', _DIB_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2009; online edn, accessed 19 October 2011).\n\n _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 13 March 1731.\n\n The position of lord president of Munster was similar to that of a military governor, with control of civil, judicial and military affairs.\n\n W.J. Chetwode Crawley, _Caementaria Hibernica_ (London: William McGee, 1895), Fas., II, p. 12, quoted in Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ vol. I, p. 61.\n\n The argument is advanced by Baigent and Leigh, however, the relevant chapter, 'The Masonic Jacobite Cause', contains several errors, for example, a statement that the duke of Montagu was Ireland's first Grand Master: Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, _The Temple and the Lodge_ (London: Jonathan Cape, 1989), ch. 13.\n\n QUB, _Irish Legislation Database:_ ; sourced 10 October 2011.\n\n Jonathan Swift, _The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift_ (London: J. Johnson et al, 1808), 19 volumes, vol. V, p. 237.\n\n The Battle Axe Guards consisted of a captain, lieutenant, two sergeants and sixty men. The unit was stationed at Dublin Castle. Cf. C\u00e6sar Litton Falkiner, 'The Irish Guards, 1661\u20131798', _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,_ 24 (1902\u20131904), 7\u201330. Also, Francis Elrington Ball, 'Some Notes on the Judges of Ireland in the Year 1739', _Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquarians of Ireland,_ 5th series, 34.1 (1904), 6.\n\n Prendergast was appointed JGW of English Grand Lodge in December 1725 by James, Lord Paisley, GM, Richmond's successor.\n\n Cf. West Sussex Record Office: Goodwood\/42, 43 _12 September 1737,_ for relevant correspondence. Also, Lord March, _A Duke and His Friends,_ pp. 206\u20137, 323\u20139.\n\n Cf., Paul Hopkins, 'Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet (c.1660\u20131709)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008, accessed 17 October 2011); also, John Bergin, 'Sir Thomas Prendergast', _DIB_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2009; online edn, accessed 17 October 2011).\n\n QUB, _Irish Legislation Database:_ ; accessed 10 October 2011.\n\n John Hervey, _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_ (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1884), vol. 1, p. 194.\n\n Jonathan Swift, _On Noisy Tom_ (1733).\n\n Jonathan Swift, _A Character, Panegyric and Description of the Legion Club_ (1736).\n\n _Needham's Dublin Postman,_ 6 July 1724.\n\n Anonymous, _The Grand Mystery of the Free-Masons Disclosed_ (London: T. Payne, 1724).\n\n _Dublin Journal,_ 27 April 1725; _Dublin Journal,_ 29 April 1725; _Dublin Journal,_ 22 June 1725 et al.\n\n _The Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 26 June 1725. No extant minutes, personal correspondence or other documents have been identified; primary material is restricted to newspaper reports.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n The distinction between the two Grand Lodges with regard to this practice persists today.\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ p. 54.\n\n Morgan's father also represented Athy between 1692 and 1712.\n\n John Burke, _A Genealogical and Heraldic history of The Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland_ (London: Henry Colburn, 1838), vol. IV, pp. 13\u201314.\n\n Swift, _The Legion Club._\n\n The 'Wild Geese' was the name given to Irish Jacobite soldiers permitted to leave Ireland under the Treaty of Limerick; it was also used to refer to those seeking to leave for France and Spain and to returning Jacobite sympathisers.\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ p. 135.\n\n _Hume's Courant,_ 8 June 1726.\n\n _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 13 March 1731.\n\n Rowly (or Rowley) Hill was a member of the Ship behind the Royal Exchange in London. See below.\n\n _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 13 March 1731.\n\n Gerard O'Brien, 'William Ponsonby, 2nd earl of Bessborough (1704\u20131793)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004, online article 22504, accessed 10 Oct. 2011).\n\n Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'William Ponsonby', _DIB_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2009; online edn, accessed 17 October 2011).\n\n James Kelly, 'John Ponsonby', _DIB, ibid._\n\n Cf., P.J. Jupp, 'William Brabazon Ponsonby 1st baron Ponsonby (1744\u20131806)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004, online article 22506, accessed 10 Oct. 2011).\n\n Charles O'Conor, 'George Faulkner and Lord Chesterfield', _Irish Quarterly Review,_ 25.98 (1936), 292\u2013304.\n\n _London Journal,_ 12 June 1731.\n\n _London Journal,_ 29 September 1733; _London Evening Post,_ 4 October 1733. Mary Coke, his wife, was the daughter of Thomas Coke (1674\u20131727), a pro-Hanoverian country Tory MP and privy counsellor (1708-death) under both Anne and George I; her mother was the daughter of Philip, Earl of Chesterfield.\n\n _Universal Spectator,_ 25 November 1732; _Daily Post,_ 11 June 1733; _London Evening Post,_ 15 December 1733.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 25 May 1733; _Fog's Weekly Journal,_ 2 June 1733; _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer; Daily Post,_ 9 June 1733 et al.\n\n Cf. Bill Power, _White Knights, Dark Earls: The Rise and fall of an Anglo-Irish Dynasty_ (Cork: Collins Press, 2000).\n\n G.E. Cokayne et al. (eds), _The Complete Peerage, new ed._ (Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), vol. VII, p. 298.\n\n William J. Hughan, 'The Three Degrees of Freemasonry', _QCL Transactions,_ X (1897), p. 134.\n\n Chetwode Crawley, 'Discussion', _QCL Transactions,_ p. 143.\n\n Ibid. An example of his pro-Hanoverian stance was the celebration of victory over the Jacobites in 1746: a masonic banquet 'of such magnificence that it was chronicled in the public journals of the day'.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 31 January-2 February 1734\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ pp. 141\u20136. Also cf. the following chapter.\n\n Napier (1702\u20131773), the colonel of the regiment, was Bligh's uncle.\n\n Matthew Kilburn, 'Thomas Southwell, 1st baron Southwell (c.1665\u20131720)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004), accessed online 10 Oct. 2011.\n\n 4. Geo. II, c. 15.\n\n Cf. Thomas M. Truxes, _Irish American Trade, 1660\u20131783_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), esp. pp. 29\u201332.\n\n James Kelly, 'Harvests and Hardship: Famine and Scarcity in Ireland in the Late 1720s', _Studia Hibernica,_ 26 (1992), 65\u2013105.\n\n _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 8\u201311 February 1729.\n\n John Pennell, _Book of Constitutions_ (Dublin: Grand Lodge of Ireland, 1730).\n\n _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 10 April 1731.\n\n _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 10 July 1731.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 12 August 1732.\n\n Deidre Bryan, 'Frances Talbot (c.1649\u20131731), Duchess of Tyrconnell', _DIB,_ online edn., accessed 27 October 2011.\n\n Patrick Fagan, 'Nicholas Barnewall, 3rd viscount Barnewall of Kingsland (1668\u20131725)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004 online edn.), accessed 27 October 2011.\n\n John Lodge (rev. Mervyn Archdall), _The Peerage of Ireland_ (Dublin: James Moore, 1789), vol. V, p. 53.\n\n Richard Glover (Richard Duppa, ed.), _Memoirs by a Celebrated Literary and Political Character_ (London: John Murray, 1814), 2nd edn., p. 64. Cf. also, A.P.W. Malcomson, _The Pursuit of the Heiress: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland, 1740\u20131840_ (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2006), pp. 23\u20135.\n\n Nugent later represented Bristol (1754\u201374), before returning to sit for St Mawes from 1774 until 1784.\n\n Sean P. Donlan, 'Robert Craggs Nugent', DIB, online edition sourced 12 October 2011.\n\n Horace Walpole (Lord Drover, ed.), _Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann_ (New York: George Dearborn, 1833), vol. I, p. 299.\n\n Mr Villers, a member of the Rummer at Charing Cross.\n\n _Daily Gazetteer,_ 5 July 1737.\n\n Beresford married Catherine, the only daughter of the 3rd earl of Tyrone, in 1717. Tyrone had served as governor of the city and county of Waterford from 1695 to 1704.\n\n The membership of the Bear & Harrow included a range of former and current Grand Officers, including Montagu, GM; Thomas Batson, DGM; Desaguliers, formerly GM and DGM; George Rook and James Smythe, GWs; James Chambers, a former GW; and George Moody, the Grand Swordbearer.\n\n Cf. Francis Nichols, _The Irish Compendium_ (London: J. Knapton, 1756), 5th ed., pp. 233\u20136.\n\n _Jacobite's Journal,_ 13 August 1748; _London Daily Advertiser and Literary Gazette,_ 20 April 1751. Mountjoy also owned a house at Blackheath: _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,_ 4 August 1768.\n\n Thomas Prior, _A list of the absentees of Ireland_ (Dublin: Richard Gunne, 1729), p. 6. Cf. also the 3rd edn. (Dublin, 1745), p. 6.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 4 May 1757.\n\n The date is sometimes given as 1746, but cf. for example, _General Advertiser,_ 6 September 1748.\n\n _Public Advertiser,_ 10 June 1763.\n\n _St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post,_ 10\u201312 September 1761.\n\n Up to around 40 per cent of FRSs are thought to have been freemasons: cf. Berman, _Foundations,_ p. 107; the comparable figure for Ireland's Dublin Society cannot be determined given the almost complete lack of masonic membership data outside of a small number of lodges and the senior levels of Irish Grand Lodge.\n\n Berry, _History of the Royal Dublin Society,_ p. 24. Cf., also, the membership records of the Royal Dublin Society: http:\/\/www.rds.ie\/cat_historic_member_detail.jsp?itemID=1098672&item_name=lanesborough.\n\n Cf., James Livesey, _Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World_ (New Haven: YUP, 2009).\n\n Henry Berry, _A History of the Royal Dublin Society_ (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1915), p. 31.\n\n _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 25 May 1745.\n\n _Faulkner's Dublin Journal,_ 23 June 1747; cf., also, _General Advertiser,_ 6 July 1747.\n\n They were replaced as MPs by the rival D'arcy family. Following parliament's determination that voting rights should be linked to grazing rights, the D'arcys purchased a majority of the relevant properties which gave them effective ownership of the borough. Cf., _House of Commons Parliamentary Papers,_ 6th parliament of Great Britain: 5th session (17 January 1727\u201315 May 1727), 15 March 1727.\n\n Examples include _London Evening Post_ on 1 August, 1 September and 3 September 1730. Cf. also, John Cheny, _An historical list of horse-matches run and of plates and prizes run for in Great Britain and Ireland_ (London, 1731 et al). Wyvill was renowned as the breeder of three champions: 'Coalition Colt', 'Scarborough Colt' and 'Volunteer'.\n\n _General Evening Post,_ 19\u201322 April 1735; _Weekly Miscellany,_ 10 May 1735.\n\n He succeeded as the 3rd baron Southwell in 1766 and was created 1st viscount Southwell in 1776.\n\n D.W. Hayton, 'The Stanhope\/Sunderland Ministry and the Repudiation of Irish Parliamentary Independence' _English Historical Review,_ 113.452 (1998), 610\u201336.\n\n The earl believed that he had been cuckolded by his brother. He imprisoned his wife, who went insane, and sued his brother, whom he bankrupted and who later died in a Dublin debtors' prison.\n\n Patrick M. Geoghegan, 'Charles Moore', _DIB_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2009). Cf., also, _Irish Legislation Database,_ QUB.\n\n _Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle,_ 19\u201321 April 1762. Cf., also, _Dublin Journal, London Evening Post_ and _Public Advertiser._\n\n# APPENDIX VI **The First Irish Lodge in London \u2013 the Ship behind the Royal Exchange**\n\n Edward Jerman's Royal Exchange was the second on the site and replaced an Elizabethan building destroyed in the 1666 Great Fire. The new Royal Exchange opened in 1669 and survived until it burned down in 1838.\n\n Lane, _Masonic Records, 1717\u20131894._\n\n Voltaire, _Letters Concerning the English Nation_ (London: C. Davies, 1733), p. 44.\n\n Philip Crossle, _CC Transactions_ (Dublin: Lodge of Research No. 200, 1923), pp. 109\u201312.\n\n The list was compiled on 15 May 1723. Lane's _Masonic Records_ gives the warrant date as 5 May 1723. The latter may be the date on which the lodge was recognised by English Grand Lodge rather than the date of its inception.\n\n Ibid., p. 109.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 21 November 1727.\n\n Sir Bernard Burke, _The Landed Gentry of Ireland_ (London: Harrison & Sons, 1912), pp. 395\u20136: _Leigh of Rosegarland._\n\n A John Leigh, possibly the same man, lived at the Black Boy tavern in Leather Lane, a second tier area popular with the London Irish. Cf., _London Journal,_ 3 June 1727.\n\n Cf. Roland Metcalf, 'John Leigh (c.1689\u20131726?)', _ODNB,_ OUP, 2004, online ed. accessed 19 April 2012.\n\n Admiral Shovel was drowned off the Isles of Scilly in 1707. The inability to calculate longitude led to a navigational error. Four ships of the line were lost together with their crews, a total of about 2,000 men.\n\n John Debrett (ed.), _The Baronetage of England_ (London: F.C. & J. Rivington, 1831), 3rd ed., p. 1120.\n\n Ibid., p. 1121.\n\n William White, _Notes & Queries_ (Oxford: OUP, 1893), vol. 87, p. 255. Cloudesley Stewart is described as 'probably a descendant of James Stewart, a naval officer killed in battle (third son of Captain Andrew Stewart)'.\n\n _Post Boy,_ 6\u20138 August 1702.\n\n John B. Hattendorf, 'Sir Cloudesley Shovel _(bap._ 1650, _d._ 1707)', _ODNB_ (OUP, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008), accessed 10 October 2012.\n\n Cf., also, _Daily Journal,_ 30 July 1726. John Blackwood was the son of Sir Robert Blackwood.\n\n _Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,_ 26 April 1718.\n\n _Original Weekly Journal,_ 12\u201319 April 1718.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 20\u201322 April 1732.\n\n Christie's catalogue entry for sale 6867, 8 June 1995. Portrait of Anne Stewart, head and shoulders, wearing a green dress with a pale pink wrap; and Portrait of Cloudesley Stewart, head and shoulders, wearing an embroidered coat with a white cravat, inscribed 'Anne Stewart and Cloudesley Stewart'; ovals 30 x 25in; a pair.\n\n D.W. Jones, 'Sir Nathaniel Gould (1661\u20131728)', _ODNB_ (OUP, 2004; online edn, Jan. 2008), accessed 5 May 2012.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 26 April 1729.\n\n Ibid. Cf., also, Henry Kent, _Directory_ (London: Henry Kent, 1740).\n\n Gould & Nesbitt operated from offices in Coleman Street in the City of London until the early 1750s.\n\n Craig Bailey, 'The Nesbitts of London and their Networks', in David Dickinson et al, _Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks in Europe and Overseas in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (Gent: Academica Press, 2006), pp. 231\u201350. Quote from p. 233.\n\n Ibid., p. 236.\n\n 25 May 1747 (N.S.), Newcastle (Clumber) MSS. Quoted in _The History of Parliament:_ .\n\n Bailey, 'The Nesbitts of London', p. 235.\n\n Louis Cullen, 'The Two George Fitzgerald's of London, 1718\u20131759', in Dickinson et al, _Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks,_ pp. 251\u201370, esp. 253\u20135.\n\n Crossle's suggestion that Richard Fitzgerald was 'perhaps youngest brother and eventual heir of John Fitzgerald, Knight of Glyn, who attended a Dublin Lodge in 1739' is less persuasive.\n\n Thomas Truxes, 'London's Irish Merchant Community and North Atlantic Commerce in the Mid-Eighteenth Century', in _Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks,_ pp. 271\u2013310.\n\n Ibid., 274.\n\n Thomas Truxes, _Irish-American Trade, 1660\u20131783_ (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), esp. pp. 176\u20139.\n\n He was buried at the Catholic and non-conformist St Pancras cemetery. Cf., Walter H. Godfrey and W. McB. Marcham (eds.), _Survey of London, vol. 24: The parish of St Pancras, part 4: King's Cross Neighbourhood_ (1952), pp. 147\u201351. I am indebted to John Bergin at QUB for his assistance.\n\n _Read's Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,_ 14 June 1735. Crossle's suggestion of 'James Tobin, well known in Dublin in the 1740s as treasurer of the Charitable Music society', may be wide of the mark.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Cf., _London Evening Post,_ 27\u201330 June 1730.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 26\u201328 June 1729; _Daily Journal,_ 28 June 1732.\n\n _Daily Courant,_ 1 July 1720; 29 June 1723.\n\n Stonehewer is first mentioned in 1724 although he was a director prior to this date; his name also appears in the _Daily Journal,_ 31 October 1727. Cf. also, _London Evening Post,_ 26\u201328 June 1729 and 29 June 1732\u20131 July 1732.\n\n _London Lives_ online database, accessed 19 April 2012. Stonehewer sat on the board of the Royal Bridewell through to the 1740s.\n\n A magistrate named John Gascoyne was possibly the same person. Cf. also Kent's _Directory._\n\n Crossle appears to have an incorrect date for Thomas Watts' marriage to Susannah Gascoyne.\n\n _History of Parliament:_ accessed 12 July 2011.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 13\u201315 February 1729.\n\n Thomas Watts, _Essay on the Proper Method of Forming the Man of Business_ (London: George Strahan, 1716). A second edition was published in 1716, a third in 1717 and the fourth in 1722.\n\n _Daily Courant,_ 16 January 1719.\n\n Watts, _Essay,_ 4th edn., pp. ii\u2013iii.\n\n Benjamin Worster, _A Course of Experimental Philosophy_ (London: c.1730)\n\n Ruth Wallis, 'Thomas Watts (d. 1742)', _ODNB_ (Oxford: OUP, 2004; online edn, May 2009).\n\n F.B. Relton, _An Account of the Fire Insurance Companies, Associations, Institutions, Projects and Schemes Established and Projected in Great Britain and Ireland during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, including the Sun Fire Office_ (London, 1893), p. 286.\n\n , accessed 20 April 2012.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Edward Baumer, _The Early Days of the Sun Fire Office_ (London: Causton, 1910), p. 51.\n\n Crossle, _CC Transactions,_ p. 109.\n\n Hoope's principal correspondents were James Bolt in Bristol; Jonathan Patton and Robert Fielding in Manchester; and Jonathan Gurney and Robert Hales in London. Cf., W.H. Crawford, _The Impact of the Domestic Linen Industry in Ulster_ (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2005), pp. 35\u20136. Also, Richard L. Greaves, _Dublin's Merchant Quaker: Anthony Sharp and the Community of Friends, 1643\u20131707_ (Stanford: Stanford UP 1998), pp. 107, 128.\n\n _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 21 August 1725.\n\n _Dublin Weekly Journal,_ 13 November 1725\n\n Cf., John Bergin, 'The Irish Catholic interest at the London inns of court, 1674\u20131800', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 24 (2009), 36\u201361.\n\n _Daily Post,_ 23 January 1724.\n\n I am grateful to Toby Barnard for this observation.\n\n The name derives from 'de Lambert'; both were relatively common Huguenot names.\n\n _Debrett's Baronetage of England_ (London, 1815), vol. 2, p. 1121.\n\n _Daily Courant,_ 7 December 1725.\n\n _Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer,_ 28 November 1730.\n\n John Windele, _Historical and Descriptive Notices of the City of Cork_ (Cork: Luke H. Bolster, 1839), p. 100.\n\n John Fitzgerald, _The Cork Remembrancer_ (Cork: J. Sullivan, 1783), pp. 146, 186: _Protestant Mayors & Sheriffs of Cork._ There is also anecdotal evidence that he was mayor of Cork in 1651 during the Cromwellian wars.\n\n John Bergin, 'The Quaker Lobby and Its Influence on Irish Legislation, 1692\u20131705', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 19 (2004), 9\u201336.\n\n With respect to other political lobbyists, cf. also, Kenneth Morgan, 'Bristol West India Merchants in the Eighteenth Century', _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society,_ 6th series, 3 (1993), 185\u2013208, esp. 202.\n\n John Bergin, Edward Hoare (d.1690), _DIB_ (Cambridge: CUP & RIA), http:\/\/dib.cambridge.org, accessed 2 August 2012.\n\n Crossle, _CC Transactions,_ p. 112.\n\n John Bergin, Queens University Belfast, private communication.\n\n Cf., James Stevens Curl, _The Honourable The Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster, 1608\u20132000: The City of London and the Colonisation of County Londonderry in the Province of Ulster in Ireland. A History and Critique_ (Chichester: Phillimore & Co., 2000).\n\n _British Journal,_ 18 December 1725.\n\n _London Daily Post and General Advertiser,_ 20 January 1736.\n\n Crossle, _CC Transactions,_ p. 112.\n\n 'Captain, late Commander of the Ship Crocodile but bound for the Canaries': Will Proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 6 June 1709.\n\n _Post Man and the Historical Account,_ 10\u201312 March 1709.\n\n Cf., for example, _British Mercury,_ 28 October 1713.\n\n _Daily Courant,_ 8 June 1722.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 30 July 1730; _Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer_ , 1 August 1730.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 26\u201328 June 1729.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 29 June 1732\u20131 July 1732.\n\n Thomas Putland, Sisson's elder brother, stayed in Ireland. The membership records of the _Incorporated Society in Dublin for Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland_ show him as a member as late as 1737: _An abstract of the proceedings of the Incorporated Society in Dublin, for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland: from the opening of His Majesty's Royal Charter, on the 6th day of February, 1733 to the 25th day of March, 1737_ (Dublin, 1737), p. 35.\n\n _The Gentleman's Magazine,_ vol. 8, March 1738, p. 165.\n\n In 1723, a George Putland was the Master of the Star and Garter lodge in Covent Garden.\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 21\u201323 March 1738.\n\n Ibid., 25\u201328 March 1738.\n\n _Daily Journal,_ 12 July 1728 and _The London Magazine or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer,_ 1733, vol. 2., p. 425.\n\n _General Advertiser,_ 30 March 1751.\n\n _Journal of the House of Lords,_ 1722\u20131726, vol. 22, 21\u201331 March 1725.\n\n Ibid., 1\u201310 April 1725.\n\n Cf., for example, _British Journal,_ 23 February 1723.\n\n Cecil Headlam (ed.), _Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies_ (London: IHR, 1936), vol. 35, _America and West Indies,_ 1 & 11 March 1726, pp. 29\u201343.\n\n K.H. Ledward (ed.), _Journals of the Board of Trade and Plantations_ (London: IHR, 1928), vol. 5, January 1723\u2013December 1728, pp. 270\u20137.\n\n Lepper and Crossle, _History,_ p. 142.\n\n Ibid., pp. 143\u20134\n\n _London Evening Post,_ 13\u201315 August 1741.\n\n Cf. Robert Bashford, _History of Union Lodge of St Patrick, No. 367, Downpatrick,_ sourced at www.irishfreemasonry.com\/index.php?p=1_40_History-of-Lodge-367-Downpatrick: accessed 10 October 2011.\n\n# _Selected Bibliography_\n\n**_Principal Manuscript Collections_**\n\n**London Metropolitan Archives, London**\n\nMiddlesex Sessions of the Peace, Justices of the Peace: Sessions Papers.\n\nWestminster Sessions of the Peace, Justices of the Peace: Sessions Papers.\n\nQuarter Sessions of the Peace for the City and Liberty of Westminster, _1618\u20131844._\n\n**The Royal Society Archives, London**\n\nThe Raymond and Beverley Sackler Archive Resource.\n\n**United Grand Lodge of England, Library & Archives, London**\n\nMinutes of the Grand Lodge of England, 1723\u201331 and 1731\u201350.\n\nMinutes of the Antients Grand Lodge of England, 1752\u20131813.\n\nHistoric Correspondence.\n\nOther lodge files, MSS and publications, including:\n\nMinute Book of the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2.\n\nMinute Book of the Shakespeare's Head lodge.\n\nMinute Book of the Old King's Arms lodge.\n\nMinute Book of St George's and Corner Stone Lodge, No. 5.\n\nMinute Book of lodge No. 4 (Antients).\n\nMinute Book of lodge No. 6 (Antients).\n\nMinute Book of lodge No. 20 (Antients).\n\nMinute Book of lodge No. 55 (Antients).\n\nTreasurer's Book of lodge No. 4 (Antients).\n\n**_British and Irish Parliamentary Papers_**\n\nCalendar of State Papers, Domestic (George I and George II).\n\nCalendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies.\n\nCalendar of Treasury Books.\n\nHouse of Lords & House of Commons' Parliamentary Papers.\n\nHouse of Lords & House of Commons' Journals.\n\nStatutes of the Realm.\n\nIrish Legislation Database (Queen's University Belfast).\n\n**_Selected IHR & Victoria County History Publications_**\n\nDavies, K.G. _Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies._ Volume 44. London, 1969.\n\nHeadlam, Cecil. _Calendar of Sate Papers Colonial, America and West Indies._ Volume 33, London, 1934.\n\nLedward, K.H. _Journals of the Board of Trade & Plantations._ London, 1925.\n\nPage, William (ed.). _A History of the County of Middlesex._ London, 1911.\n\nSainty, J.C. _Office-Holders in Modern Britain._ Volumes 2 & 3. London, 1973 & 1974.\n\nShaw, William A. _Calendar of Treasury Books._ Volumes 1\u201326. London, 1897\u20131954. _Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers._ Volumes 1\u20135. London, 1897\u20131903.\n\nShaw, William A., and Slingsby, F.H. _Calendar of Treasury Books._ Volumes 27\u201332, London, 1955\u201362.\n\n**_Masonic Constitutions etc._**\n\nAnderson, James. _The Constitutions of the Freemasons_ (London, 1723).\n\n_____ The Ancient Constitutions of the Free and Accepted Masons_ (London, 1731).\n\n_____ The New Book of Constitutions._ (London, 1738).\n\nDashwood, J.R. _Early Records of the Grand Lodge of England according to the Old Institutions,_ QCA vol XI (London, 1958).\n\n_____ The Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England 1740\u201358,_ QCA vol. XII. (London, 1960).\n\nDermott, Laurence. _Ahiman Rezon_ (London, 1756) and later (London, Dublin) editions.\n\nEntick, John. _The Pocket Companion and History of Freemasons._ (London, 1759).\n\n_____ The Constitutions of the Ancient and honourable fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons_ (London, 1756).\n\nLane, John. _Masonic Records 1717\u20131894_ (Sheffield, 2009).\n\nPennell, John. _Book of Constitutions_ (Dublin, 1730).\n\nSmith, William. _A Pocket Companion for Freemasons_ (London, 1735).\n\n_____ A Pocket Companion for Freemasons_ (London, 1759).\n\nSonghurst, W.J. _The Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England 1723\u20131739,_ QCA, vol. X. (London, 1913).\n\n_CC Transactions_ (Dublin, published annually, 1922\u20132002)\n\n_QCL Transactions_ (London, published annually, 1886\u20132009).\n\n**_Newspapers (1700\u20131790)_**\n\nApplebee's Original Weekly Journal | Athenian Gazette or Casuistical Mercury\n\n---|---\n\nBritish Journal | British Journal or The Censor\n\nBritish Mercury | Caledonian Mercury\n\nCountry Journal or The Craftsman | Daily Advertiser\n\nDaily Courant | Daily Gazetteer\n\nDaily Journal | Daily Post\n\nDublin Courant | Dublin Gazette\n\nDublin Mercury | Dublin News letter\n\nDublin Weekly Journal | Evening Journal\n\nEvening Post | Faulkner's Dublin Journal\n\nFlying Post or The Postmaster | Flying Post or The Weekly Medley\n\nFog's Weekly Journal | Freeholder's Journal\n\nGazetteer and London Daily Advertiser | Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser\n\nGeneral Advertiser | General Evening Post\n\nGentleman's Magazine | Grub Street Journal\n\nGuardian | Hume's Courant\n\nLloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle | London Courant & Westminster Chronicle\n\nLondon Daily Post and General Advertiser | London Daily Advertiser\n\nLondon Chronicle | London Evening Post\n\nLondon Gazette | London Journal\n\nLondon Morning Penny Post | London Spy Revived\n\nMiddlesex Journal or Chronicle of Liberty | Mist's Weekly Journal\n\nMonthly Chronicle | Morning Herald\n\nNeedham's Dublin Postman | New England Courant\n\nOld Whig or The Consistent Protestant | Original Weekly Journal\n\nParker's General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer | Parker's London News or the Impartial Intelligencer\n\nPasquin | Penny London Post or Morning Advertiser\n\nPlain Dealer | Poor Robin's Intelligence\n\nPost Boy | Post Man and the Historical Account\n\nPublic Advertiser | Public Ledger\n\nPublic Register or The Freeman's Journal | Pue's Occurrences\n\nRead's Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer | St James's Chronicle or British Evening Post\n\nSt James's Evening Post | St James's Journal\n\nThe Censor | The Evening Post\n\nThe Spectator | The Tatler\n\nThe True Briton | Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal\n\nWeekly Journal or British Gazetteer | Weekly Journal or Saturday's Post\n\nWeekly Miscellany | Weekly Packet\n\nWhitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer\n\n|\n\n**_Other Selected Primary Sources_**\n\nAnonymous. _The Grand Mystery of the Free-Masons Disclosed_ (London, 1724). _-An Inquiry into Some of the Causes of the 1ll Situation of the Affairs of the Irish_ (Dublin, 1731).\n\n_____ A Trip through London: containing observations on Men and Things_ (London, 1728).\n\n_____ A second part of A view of London and Westminster: or, the town spy_ (London, 1725).\n\n______ [Rev. Peter Bristow]. _Honesty the Best Policy or, the History of Roger_ (Dublin, 1752).\n\nBlackerby, Nathaniel. _The Speech of Nathanial Blackerby_ (London, 1738).\n\nBriscoe, Sam. _Secret History of the Freemasons_ (London, 1724).\n\nCheny, John. _An historical list of horse-matches run and of plates and prizes run for in Great Britain and Ireland_ (London, 1731 et al.).\n\nChurchill, Sarah. _Private correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, volume II_ (London, 1838).\n\nClement XII. Papal Bull, _1n Eminenti_ (Vatican, 1738).\n\nCowper, William. _Humble Address_ (London, 1715).\n\n_____ The Charge delivered_ (London, 1730).\n\nD'Assigny's _Serious and Impartial Enquiry into the Cause of the present Decay of Freemasonry in the Kingdom of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1764).\n\nDavenant, Charles. _An Essay upon Ways and Means of Supplying the War_ (London, 1695).\n\n_____ The Political and Commercial Works of Charles D'Avenants,_ collected and revised by Sir Charles Whitworth (London, 1771).\n\n_____ An Essay on the East-India Trade_ (London, 1696).\n\n_____ A clear demonstration, from points of fact, that the recovery, preservation and improvement of Britain's share of the trade to Africa_ (London, 1709).\n\n_____ Reflections upon the constitution and management of the trade to Africa_ (London, 1709); and _An account of the trade between Great-Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland_ (London, 1715).\n\nde Veil, Sir Thomas. _Observations on the practice of a justice of the peace intended for such gentlemen as design to act for Middlesex and Westminster._ (London, 1747).\n\nDobbs, Arthur. _An Essay on the Trade and Improvement of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1729).\n\nEgmont, Earl of. _Diary of the 1 st Earl of Egmont_ (London, 1923).\n\nGrattan, Henry. _Memoirs of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan_ (London, 1839).\n\nMcCann, Timothy. _The Correspondence of the Dukes of Richmond & Newcastle 1724\u201350_ (Lewes, 1984).\n\nMacky, John. _Memoirs of the secret services_ (London, 1733), 2nd edn.\n\nMolyneux, William. _The Case of Ireland's being Bound by Acts of Parliament_ (Dublin, 1698).\n\nMorgan, William. _Morgan's map of the whole of London in 1682_ (London, 1682).\n\nNichols, Francis. _The Irish Compendium_ (London, 1756), 5th edn.\n\nNoorthouck, John. _A New History of London_ (London, 1773).\n\nPitt, William. _Correspondence between William Pitt and Charles, Duke of Rutland, 1781\u20131787_ (Edinburgh, 1890).\n\nPrior, Thomas. _A list of the absentees of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1729 & 1745).\n\nRichmond, Charles. _A Duke and His Friends_ (London, 1911).\n\nStow, John. _Survey of London._ London: Nicholas Bourn, 1633.\n\nSwift, Jonathan. _Gulliver's Traverls_ (London, 1726).\n\n_____ A Letter to the Whole People of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1724).\n\n_____ A Character, Panegyric and Description of the Legion Club_ (Dublin, 1736).\n\n_____ On Noisy Tom_ (Dublin, 1733).\n\nVoltaire, _Letters Concerning the English Nation_ (London, 1733). Walpole, Horace. _Reminiscences._ (London, 1788).\n\n_____ Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann_ (New York, 1833).\n\nWatts, Thomas. _Essay on the Proper Method of Forming the Man of Business_ (London, 1716).\n\nWharcliffe, Lord (ed.). _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_ (New York, 1893).\n\nWharton, Philip. _The life and writings of the Duke of Wharton_ (London, 1732). Whiston, W. _An Account of the Past and Present State of the Amicable Society_ (London, 1732).\n\nWorster, Benjamin. _A Course of Experimental Philosophy_ (London, 1730).\n\n**_Selected Journal Articles_**\n\nBall, Francis Elrington. 'Some Notes on the Judges of Ireland in the Year 1739', _Royal Society of Antiquarians of Ireland,_ 5th series, 34.1, (1904).\n\nBartlett, Thomas. 'A New History of Ireland', _Past and Present,_ 116 (1987), 206\u201319.\n\nBeckett, J.C. 'Anglo-Irish Constitutional Relations in the Later Eighteenth Century', _Irish Historical Studies,_ 14.53 (1964), 20\u201338.\n\nBergin, John. 'The Irish Catholic interest at the London inns of court, 1674\u20131800', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 24, (2009), 36\u201361.\n\n______ 'The Quaker Lobby and its Influence on Irish Legislation, 1692\u20131705', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 19 (2004), 9\u201336.\n\nClark, J.C.D. 'Whig Tactics and Parliamentary Precedent: The English Management of Irish Politics, 1754\u20131756', _Historical Journal,_ 21.2 (1978), 275\u2013301.\n\nErwin, Timothy. 'Parody and Prostitution', _Huntington Library Quarterly,_ 68.4 (2005), 677\u201384.\n\nFalkiner, Caesar Litton. 'The Irish Guards, 1661\u20131798', _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,_ 24 (1902\u20134), 7\u201330.\n\nFoster, Sarah. 'Buying Irish: Consumer Nationalism in Eighteenth Century Dublin', _History Today,_ 47.6 (1997).\n\nHayton, D.W. 'The Stanhope\/Sunderland Ministry and the Repudiation of Irish Parliamentary Independence' _English Historical Review,_ 113.452 (1998), 610\u201336.\n\nHill, Berekeley. 'Illustrations of the Working of the Contagious Diseases Act', _British Medical Journal,_ 1.386 (1868), 505\u20136.\n\nHill, Jacqueline. 'Allegories, Fictions, and Feigned Representations: Decoding the Money Bill Dispute, 1752\u20136' _Eighteenth-Century Ireland,_ 21 (2006), 66\u201388.\n\nKelly, James. 'Harvests and Hardship: Famine and Scarcity in Ireland in the Late 1720s', _Studia Hibernica,_ 26 (1992), 65\u2013105.\n\nKent, D.A. 'Ubiquitous but Invisible: Female Domestic Servants in Mid-Eighteenth Century London', _History Workshop,_ 28 (1989), 111\u201328\n\nKirkland, Richard. 'Reading the Rookery: The Social Meaning of an Irish Slum in Nineteenth Century London', _New Hibernia Review,_ 16.1, (2012), 16\u201330.\n\nLivesey, James. 'The Dublin Society in Eighteenth Century Political Thought', _Historical Journal,_ 47.3, (2004), 615\u201340.\n\nMulvey-Roberts, Marie. 'Hogarth on the Square: Framing the Freemasons', _Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies,_ 26.2, (2003), 251\u201370.\n\nMurphy, S\u00e9an. 'Irish Jacobitism and Freemasonry', _Eighteenth-Century Ireland\/Iris an d\u00e1 chult\u00far,_ 9 (1994), 75\u201382.\n\nNettels, Curtis. 'The Menace of Colonial Manufacturing 1690\u20131720', _New England Quarterly,_ 4.2 (1931), 230\u201369.\n\nPink, Andrew. 'A music club for freemasons: _Philo-musicae et -architecturae societas Apollini,_ London, 1725\u20131727', _Early Music,_ 38.4, (2010), 523\u201336.\n\nRogers, Nicholas. 'Money, Land and Lineage: The Big Bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London', _Social History,_ 4.3 (1979), 437\u201354.\n\nStevenson, David. 'James Anderson: Man & Mason', _Heredom,_ 10 (2002), 93\u2013138.\n\nSwift, Roger. 'Heroes or Villains?: The Irish, Crime, and Disorder in Victorian England' _Albion,_ 29.3 (1997), 399\u2013421.\n\n**_Selected Secondary Sources_**\n\nBarnard, Toby. _Improving Ireland?_ (Dublin, 2008).\n\nBeames, _The Rookeries of London_ (London, 1852).\n\nBenjamin, Lewis. _South Sea Bubble_ (Manchester (NH), 1967).\n\nBerry, Henry. _A History of the Royal Dublin Society_ (London, 1915).\n\nBurke, Sir Bernard. _The Landed Gentry of Ireland_ (London, 1912).\n\nBurke, John. _A Genealogical and Heraldic history of The Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland_ (London, 1838).\n\nCallaghan, John Cornelius. _History of the Irish Brigades in the service of France_ (Glasgow, 1885).\n\nCrawley, Chetwode. _Caementaria Hibernica_ (London, 1895).\n\nCrossle, Philip. _Transactions_ (Dublin, 1923), pp. 109\u2013112.\n\nCullen, Louis M. _Anglo-Irish Trade, 1660\u20131800_ (Manchester, 1968).\n\nCurl, James Stevens. _The Honourable The Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster, 1608\u20132000_ (Chichester, 2000).\n\nDeane, Phyllis and Cole W.A., _British Economic Growth, 1688\u20131959_ (Cambridge, 1969) 2nd ed.\n\nDickinson, David. _Arctic Ireland: the Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740\u201341_ (Belfast, 1997).\n\nDickinson, David et al., _Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks in Europe and Overseas in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (Gent, 2006).\n\nDyer, Colin, _The Grand Stewards and their Lodge_ (London, 1985).\n\nEccleshall, George. _A History of the Old King's Arms Lodge, 1725\u20132000_ (London, 2001).\n\nEngels, Frederick. _The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844_ (London, 1887.\n\nGlover, Richard. _Memoirs by a Celebrated Literary and Political Character_ (London, 1814), 2nd edn.\n\nGould, R.F. _Atholl Lodges_ (London, 1879).\n\n_____ The History of Freemasonry: Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, Etc_ (London, 1885).\n\n_____ The History of Freemasonry_ (Philadelphia, 1902).\n\n_____ The Concise History of Freemasonry_ (London, 1951).\n\n_____ Military Lodges: the Apron and the Sword_ (London, 1899).\n\n_____ Gould's History of Freemasonry throughout the World, vols I, II and III_ (New York, 1936).\n\nHervey, John. _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_ (Philadelphia, 1884).\n\nHewitt, Regina and Rogers, Pat (eds.), _Orthodoxy and Heresy in Eighteenth Century London_ (Cranbury, N.J., 2002).\n\nKelly, James. _Poynings' Law and the Making of Laws in Ireland, 1660\u20131800_ (Dublin, 2007).\n\nLepper, J.H. & Crossle, P. _History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1925).\n\nLivesey, James. _Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World_ (New Haven, 2009).\n\nLodge, John (rev. Mervyn Archdall). _The Peerage of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1789).\n\nMalcolmson, A.P.W. _Nathaniel Clements: Government & the Governing Elite in Ireland_ (Dublin, 2005).\n\n_The Pursuit of the Heiress: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland, 1740\u20131840_ (Belfast, 2006).\n\nMcLynn, Frank. _Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England_ (Abingdon, 1989).\n\nMeaney, Lisa. _Freemasonry in Munster, 1726\u20131829_ (Mary Immaculate College, Ireland, 2005).\n\nMelville, Lewis. _South Sea Bubble_ (London, 1921).\n\nMirala, Petri. _Freemasonry in Ulster, 1733\u20131813: A Social and Political History of the Masonic Brotherhood in the North of Ireland_ (Dublin, 2007).\n\n______ 'Masonic sociability and its limitations: the case of Ireland' in James Kelly & Martin J. Powell (eds.), _Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland_ (Dublin, 2010).\n\nMoney, John. _Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760\u20131800_ (Manchester, 1977).\n\nMunter, Robert. _The History of the Irish Newspaper 1685\u20131760_ (Cambridge, 1967).\n\nPaley, Ruth (ed.), _Justice in eighteenth century Hackney: The Justicing notebook of Henry Norris_ (London, 1991).\n\nPower, Bill. _White Knights, Dark Earls: The Rise and fall of an Anglo-Irish Dynasty_ (Cork, 2000).\n\nRedding, Moses W. _Illustrated History of Freemasonry_ (New York, 1910.)\n\nRelton, F.B. _An Account of the Fire Insurance Companies, Associations, Institutions, Projects and Schemes Established and Projected in Great Britain and Ireland during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (London, 1893).\n\nStewart, A.T.Q. _A Deeper Silence: Hidden Origins of the United Irishmen_ (London, 1993).\n\nStone, Richard. _Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences, 1650\u20131900_ (Cambridge, 1997).\n\nThornbury, Walter. _Old and New London_ (London, 1878).\n\nTrumbach, Randolph. _Sex and the Gender Revolution: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London_ (Chicago, 1998).\n\nTruxes, Thomas M. _Irish American Trade, 1660\u20131783_ (Cambridge, 2004).\n\nWilliams, Basil. _The Whig Supremacy, 1714\u20131761_ (Oxford, 1997), 2nd edn.\n\nWindele, John. _Historical and Descriptive Notices of the City of Cork_ (Cork, 1839).\n\n**_Selected Online Resources_**\n\nBritish Periodicals Online | britishperiodicals.chadwyck.co.uk \n---|--- \nBurney Collection | gale.cengage.co.uk \nEarly English Books Online | gale.cengage.co.uk \nEighteenth Century Collections Online | gale.cengage.co.uk \nHistory of Parliament | histparl.ac.uk \nHouse of Commons Parliamentary Papers | parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk \nInstitute of Historical Research | history.ac.uk \nIrish Dictionary of Biography | dib.cambridge.org \nLondon Lives, 1690\u20131800 | londonlives.org. \nOld Bailey Online | oldbaileyonline.org \nOxford Dictionary of National Biography | oxforddnb.com \nRoyal Dublin Society | rds.ie. \nRoyal Society of London | royalsociety.org\n\n**1** _1 st Degree Tracing Board_ (date unknown).\n\n**2** Antients _Grand Register,_ Attendance List, extract.\n\n**3** Antients _Grand Register,_ Membership List, extract.\n\n**4** 'Ceremony of making a Free-Mason'; engraving from _Hiram, or The Grand Master Key_ (1764).\n\n**5** Early Moderns' Masonic Apron (date unknown).\n\n**6** John Senex, _Map of London_ (1720).\n\n**7** William Stewart, 1st earl of Blessington (1709\u20131769); oil painting by Stephen Slaughter (1744).\n\n**8** John Murray, 3rd duke of Atholl (1729\u20131774); engraving by unknown artist (undated).\n\n**9** Thomas Alexander Erskine, 6th earl of Kelly (1731\u20131781); engraving by Lizars after portrait by Robert Home ( _c_. 1780).\n\n**10** Sir Cecil Wray (1734\u20131805); engraving (unknown artist) published by J. Walker of Paternoster Row (1784).\n\n**11** Robert Freke Gould (1836\u20131915); engraving by Chardon-Whitman, Paris (c. 1899).\n\n**12** Henry Sadler (1840\u20131911); cabinet print of a photograph by Burt Sharp, Brighton (1879).\n\n**13** 'Sword of State of the Moderns Grand Lodge'; engraving, printed and sold by Bro. Scott of Paternoster Road (undated).\n\n**14** 'Reception des Compagnons'; engraving from L. Travenol, _Nouvea_ _Catechisme des Franc-Ma\u00e7on_ (1749).\n\nThank you for reading this Sussex Academic e-Library book.\n\nSussex Academic serves the international academic community and promotes learning and scholarship to a global audience. The editorial and production staff are committed to publishing to the highest standards across a wide range of academic subject disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. 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Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings and emperors, exert an influence on mankind.\"_\n\nHENRY DAVID THOREAU, 1817\u201362\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\nPublished by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39\u201341 North Road, London N7 9DP \nEmail: info@iconbooks.com \nwww.introducingbooks.com\n\nISBN: 978-184831-977-6\n\nText copyright \u00a9 2012 Icon Books Ltd\n\nIllustrations copyright \u00a9 2012 Icon Books Ltd\n\nThe author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights\n\nOriginating editor: Richard Appignanesi\n\nNo part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.\n\n## Contents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nWhat is Evolutionary Psychology?\n\nCognitive Psychology\n\nActions Are Caused by Mental Processes\n\nBehaviourist Psychology\n\nThe Mind is a Computer\n\nMetaphors of the Mind\n\nA Testable Model\n\nEvolutionary Biology\n\nHeredity and Mutation\n\nGenes\n\nHeredity\n\nMutation\n\nAdaptation and Natural Selection\n\nUseful Design\n\nThe Argument from Design\n\nNot by Coincidence...\n\nNatura non facit saltum\n\nImprovement by Accident\n\nThe Evolution of the Eye\n\nThe Blind Watchmaker\n\nFitting the Pieces of the Jigsaw Puzzle Together\n\nGeneral-Purpose Problem-Solver?\n\nLearning a Language\n\nLanguage Acquisition\n\nVision\n\nModularity\n\nMassive Modularity\n\nNo Central Processes\n\nModules and Adaptations\n\nAdaptations and Environments\n\nEvolving Modules\n\nShared and Unique Modules\n\nOut of Africa\n\nThe Social Environment\n\nAdaptive Problems\n\nPredator-Avoidance Modules\n\nDetecting Predators\n\nFalse Alarms\n\nTwo Neural Pathways\n\nFood Preference Modules\n\nFat and Sugar\n\nEnvironmental Mismatch\n\nDisgust\n\nAlliance-Formation Modules\n\nLiving in Groups\n\nAlliances and Coalitions\n\nIncreasing the Group\n\nReciprocal Altruism\n\nThe Free-Rider Problem\n\nThe Evolution of Cooperation\n\nTit-for-Tat\n\nCognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange\n\nModules for Helping Children and Other Relatives\n\nKin Selection\n\nHow Related Are You?\n\nHamilton's Rule\n\nThe Evolution of Nepotism\n\nThe Truth About Cinderella\n\nAllocating Resources to Offspring\n\nThe Resource-Allocation Module\n\nParent-Offspring Conflict\n\nHow Much For Me?\n\nWeaning\n\nThe Benefit of Weaning\n\nGroup Size and Social Intelligence\n\nMind-reading Modules\n\nEnter Machiavelli\n\nTheory of Mind\n\nFolk Psycology\n\nThe Sally-Ann Test\n\nTheory of Mind and Autism\n\nLying and Tactical Deception\n\nLanguage Modules\n\nThe Language Acquisition Device\n\nThe Evolution of Language\n\nReciprocal Altruism Again\n\nGossip\n\nIndirect Reciprocity\n\nThe Importance of Reputation\n\nMate-Selection Modules\n\nThe Mating Game\n\nThe Genes are in the Selection\n\nThe Importance of Looking Good\n\nBody Symmetry\n\nWhat's the Evidence for Symmetry?\n\nThe Biology of Beauty\n\nThe Fertility Factor\n\nSelecting a Mate for Parental Care\n\nHuman Pair Bonds\n\nParental Care and Human Brain Size\n\nWill You Make a Good Parent?\n\nSex Differences in Mate Preferences\n\nDads and Cads\n\nBattle of the Sexes \u2013 or Evolutionary Arms Race?\n\nThe Myth of the Monogamous Female\n\nWomen's Extra-Pair Mating\n\nWhat's the Best Strategy?\n\nMen with Resources\n\nTesting Mate Preferences\n\nAttractiveness and Age\n\nAge and Reproduction\n\nFidelity: Sexual and Emotional\n\nMale and Female Jealousy\n\nMapping the Mind\n\nCriticisms of Evolutionary Psychology\n\nPan-adaptationism\n\nSide-effects and By-products\n\nNot Everything is a Module\n\nHypotheses and Confirmations\n\nJust-So Stories?\n\nIs Logic a By-product?\n\nThe Wason-selection Task\n\nCheater-Detection\n\nTwo Features of Mental Modules\n\nModularity Again\n\nReductionism\n\nThe Simplest Accurate Theory\n\nGenetic Determinism\n\nIs Too Much Importance Attached to Genes?\n\nNature vs. Nurture\n\nBehavioural Genetics\n\nHuman Variation and Human Nature\n\nAre Human Behaviours Inevitable and Unchangeable?\n\nDoes Evolutionary Psychology Justify the Status Quo?\n\nThe Naturalistic Fallacy\n\nMistaken Criticisms and Misunderstandings\n\nThe Legacy of History\n\nThe Future of Evolutionary Psychology\n\nThe Darwinian Revolution\n\nThe Future of Psychology\n\nFurther Reading\n\nThe Author\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nIndex\n\n## What is Evolutionary Psychology?\n\nEvolutionary psychology is the combination of two sciences \u2013 **evolutionary biology** and **cognitive psychology.** These two sciences are like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We need both pieces if we want to understand human behaviour.\n\nWe will begin by looking at each of these sciences separately. Then we will see how evolutionary psychology puts them together to arrive at a complete scientific account of human nature.\n\n## Cognitive Psychology\n\nCognitive psychology is the most powerful theory of the mind ever developed. It has transformed psychology from a vague set of unclear ideas into a true science. There are two main ideas.\n\n**(1)**\n\nActions are caused by mental processes.\n\n**(2)**\n\nThe mind is a computer.\n\nyou mean, the mind is like a computer? no, and you'll see why in a moment ...\n\nLet's have a look at these two ideas in more detail.\n\n## Actions Are Caused by Mental Processes\n\nPsychology is the science of human behaviour. It attempts to explain why humans act the way they do.\n\nWe are all amateur psychologists. We constantly offer explanations for our actions and for the actions of others. For example, when I see Jim pick up an umbrella as he leaves the house, I might explain this action in the following way.\n\njim thinks it's going to rain, and he wants to stay dry. this kind of explanation is called a mentalistic explanation because it refers to mental processes like beliefs and desires.\n\nWhen we say that \"Jim _thought_ it was going to rain\", we are saying that Jim had a certain _belief._ When we say that \"Jim _wanted_ to stay dry\", we are saying that Jim had a certain _desire._\n\n## Behaviourist Psychology\n\nWhen we explain actions by referring to beliefs and desires, we are claiming that these mental processes are the _causes_ of our actions. This way of explaining actions in terms of beliefs and desires is so common that philosophers call it \"commonsense psychology\" or \"folk psychology\". Folk psychology has been around for thousands of years.\n\nIn the 1920s, some psychologists claimed that folk psychology was unscientific. **J.B. Watson** (1878-1958) and **B.F. Skinner** (1904-90) argued that beliefs, desires and other mental processes were not real things. They thought that the only way for psychology to become a true science was to give up talking about such \"mythical entities\".\n\nit isn't necessary to refer to \"the mind\" when explaining behaviour. behaviour is not caused by thoughts, but by external stimuli.\n\nThis view is known as Behaviourism. From the 1920s until the 1960s, most psychologists were Behaviourists. During these years, most psychologists denied the existence of \"the mind\".\n\nIn the 1960s, psychologists began to reject behaviourism. There were two main reasons for this. On the one hand, as a purely logical matter, philosophers realized that they simply could not eliminate talk about beliefs and desires from explanations of human behaviour. On the other hand, the development of computers, and work in artificial intelligence, provided a way of testing \u2013 and refuting \u2013 Behaviourist theories of learning.\n\nWith the abandonment of Behaviourism, it once again became acceptable for scientists to talk about \"the mind\".\n\nthe mind is a valid scientific concept after all. this is the first main idea of cognitive psychology.\n\nIn this sense, cognitive psychology has a lot in common with folk psychology. Like folk psychology, cognitive psychology explains actions by referring to mental processes. Unlike folk psychology, however, cognitive psychology has a very precise idea of what these mental processes are \u2013 they are _computations_. This takes us on to the second main idea of cognitive psychology.\n\n## The Mind is a Computer\n\nThe second main idea of cognitive psychology is that the mind is a computer program. But cognitive psychologists mean something very special by the term \"computer\". Basing themselves on the pioneering work of the British mathematician **Alan Turing** (1912-54), cognitive psychologists define a computer as a set of operations for processing information.\n\nin othe words, a computer is not a physical machine, but rather an abstract specification of a possible machine. a computer, in this sense, may be built in many different ways.\n\nMany different sorts of physical machine could process information in the same way. In this case, even though the machines would have physically different designs, they would all be the same kind of computer.\n\nSo, a computer is not a piece of hardware, but a piece of software. The essence of a computer does not lie in the materials from which it is made, but in the programs it executes. In order to run a program, such as a computer game, you need a machine to run it on. But you can run the same program on different kinds of machine.\n\nThe machines are physically different, but when you install the same program on them, they behave in the same way.\n\nthe key to the behaviour is the program, not the materials out of which the machine is made.\n\nFor cognitive psychology, then, the mind is a piece of **software.** It is a very complicated kind of program. Cognitive psychologists can describe this program in the language of information-processing without needing to describe the details of the brain. The brain is just the physical machine that runs the program called the mind. The brain is the hardware, the mind is the software.\n\n## Metaphors of the Mind\n\nPeople have often attempted to understand the mind by comparing it with the latest technology. In the past few hundred years, the mind has been described as a clock, a watch, a telegraph system, and much else. In the late 19th century, **Sigmund Freud** (1856-1939) borrowed from contemporary developments in hydraulics, and compared the mind to a system of channels and waterways.\n\nThe waterways could somenmes be blocked, in which case the fluid would soon overflow into another channel.\n\nThe problem with all these comparisons was that they were little more than interesting metaphors. They did not help very much to advance understanding of the mind because there was no clear way of generating testable predictions from them.\n\n## A Testable Model\n\nAll this changed with the advent of cognitive psychology. Comparing the mind to a computer was different from previous technological analogies because the precise language of information-processing allowed **testable hypotheses** about the mind to be clearly formulated.\n\nAlso, there is a much better reason for comparing the mind to a computer than to a clock or an irrigation system \u2013 they have the same function.\n\nthe function of the mind, like that of the computer, is to process information. it is not to tell the time or to distribute water.\n\nUnlike earlier comparisons, then, the computational theory of mind can be taken literally; the mind is not just _like_ a computer, it _is_ a computer.\n\nThis concludes our brief overview of cognitive science. It is now time to examine the other piece of the jigsaw puzzle: **evolutionary biology.**\n\n## Evolutionary Biology\n\nDuring the last two thousand years, most people in the West believed that human beings had been created directly by God. According to the Bible, the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, had no father or mother, and sprang into existence in adult form. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, some people began to question this view, including **Erasmus Darwin** (1731-1802), grandfather of Charles.\n\ni wrote a poem about evolution before charles was even born\n\nBut it wasn't until **Charles Darwin** (1809-82) published _The Origin of Species_ in 1859 that the sceptics had an alternative explanation for the origin of humanity. This alternative is evolutionary biology.\n\nAccording to evolutionary biology, human beings are descended from ape-like ancestors and ultimately share a single common ancestor with all other living things on earth. This common ancestor, the first living thing, lived about 4 billion years ago. It was very simple.\n\nin fact, it was far less complex than a single cell.\n\nAbout 3.5 billion years ago, some of these little creatures began to gang up together and form the first cells. Around 600 million years ago, the first multicellular organisms began to appear: small worms and other sea-dwelling creatures.\n\nA hundred million years later, the first land-dwelling organisms appeared \u2013 first microbes, then plants. This paved the way for terrestrial animals, including insects, and then amphibians. From amphibians came reptiles, birds and mammals. The first primates appeared around 55 million years ago.\n\nthey were agile tree-dwellers that ate fruit and looked rather like modern lemurs.\n\nFrom these creatures are descended monkeys, apes and humans. The first true humans _(Homo sapiens sapiens)_ appeared about 150,000 years ago in Africa.\n\n## Heredity and Mutation\n\nHow did all of this come about? What is it that drives evolution? There is no mysterious deity guiding the process. It all happens because of two things: **heredity** and **mutation.**\n\nheredity means that offspring tend to resemble their parents.\n\nHEREDITY\n\nmutation means that sometimes this! resemblance is not perfect.\n\nMUTATION\n\nIn order to understand both of these things, we must understand something about _genes._\n\n## Genes\n\nEvery cell in every organism contains a full set of instructions for making a copy of that organism. These instructions are called \"genes\" and are written not in ink but in a molecule called DNA. We can imagine genes as little beads threaded along a long string inside each cell. Each bead is an instruction (or a group of instructions) that says something like: brown hair, blue eyes, short temper, etc.\n\nwell, actually, the gene doesn't say precisely this. it just says \"make protein **x** in situation **y\".**\n\nHowever, since one result of making protein x in environment y is that you end up with brown hair, or blue eyes, or a short temper, it's fine to say that the gene is an instruction for brown hair, blue eyes, etc.\n\n## Heredity\n\nThe reason why offspring tend to resemble their parents is that they inherit their genes from their parents. An elephant baby looks like an elephant, not like a panda, because the elephant baby inherits elephant genes from its parents. We can think of all the different elephant genes as existing in a separate pool from panda genes.\n\neach elephant is made from a set of genes drawn from the elephant gene pool.\n\neach panda is made from a set of genes from the panda gene pool.\n\nIn the elephant gene pool, there are genes that influence the size of the elephant, genes that influence the length of its trunk, etc. And the reason tall elephants generally have tall children is that they pass genes for tallness on to their children.\n\n## Mutation\n\nBut what about mutation? Why do offspring sometimes look different from their parents? This may happen because sometimes, a gene inside one cell just happens to change. For example, a gene that normally makes people taller than average might change into a gene that makes people grow an extra finger (unlikely, but not impossible). A new gene has been born!\n\nwe call the birth of a new gene a \"mutation\". this doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. biologists use the word in a neutral way.\n\nAs a matter of fact, however, most mutations are harmful. Only a few mutations turn out to be beneficial, in the sense of increasing your chances of surviving and reproducing.\n\nWhen a mutant gene arises, it is the only one of its kind in the gene pool. If its effect is to decrease one's chances of surviving and reproducing, then it probably won't get passed on to any offspring. In other words, it won't last long in the gene pool. On the other hand, if it increases your chances of surviving and reproducing, it will get passed on to more offspring, who will pass it on to even more offspring, and eventually there will be lots of copies of the gene in the gene pool.\n\nIn this way, each gene pool gradually changes over time. One by one, mutant genes arise and spread through the gene pool. After many generations, the gene pool is filled with lots of new genes. The bodies built by these genes look very different from the bodies built by the genes that once filled the gene pool. A new species has evolved.\n\n## Adaptation and Natural Selection\n\nWe have just seen how the evolution of life on earth is driven by two processes: heredity and mutation. These two processes are enough to explain how a single living thing that existed 4 billion years ago gave rise to the thousands of different species we see on the earth today. However, evolutionary biologists are not just interested in the diversity of species; they are also interested in the particular characteristics that distinguish each species, many of which give the appearance of having been \"designed\" for a particular purpose.\n\nin order to explain these features, heredity and mutation are not enough. they can be explained only by a third process \u2013 **natural selection.**\n\nThe classic example of a characteristic that seems to have been \"designed\" for a particular purpose is the eye. The eye seems to have been designed for seeing. Like a camera, it has a focusing lens and a light-sensitive screen positioned just at the focal plane of the lens. It has a transparent cornea that protects the lens, and an iris that gets bigger and smaller to let in just the right amount of light. All these things make sense only when we realize that they are part of a complex machine designed for seeing.\n\n## Useful Design\n\nThe same can be said of many other parts of animals and plants.\n\nwings are well designed for flying. hearts are well designed for pumping blood. flowers are well designed for attracting insects.\n\nAll of these things have features that a knowledgeable engineer might have built into them to achieve their purposes. Biologists refer to these things as **adaptations.**\n\n## The Argument from Design\n\nFor hundreds of years, people in the West thought that adaptations were an irrefutable proof of the existence of God. The most famous exponent of this view was the English theologian **William Paley** (1743-1805). In his book, _Natural Theology_ (1802), he compared adaptations like eyes or wings to complex machines designed by humans, such as clocks and watches.\n\nif you found a watch lying on the ground, you wouldn't think it had just appeared by chance. you wouldn't naturally infer that it had been made by an intelligent designer.\n\nAnd just as a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker, Paley claimed, the eye implies the existence of an eyemaker \u2013 God.\n\n## Not by Coincidence...\n\nPaley was right about one thing. Complex machines like watches and eyes are extremely improbable arrangements of matter. To claim that they could have come into existence in one single cosmic coincidence would be ludicrous. That would be about as likely as a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747 out of the scrap metal.\n\n## Natura non facit saltum\n\nBut Paley was wrong in thinking that the only alternative to such a ludicrous scenario was that eyes and other adaptations had been designed by God. Darwin's theory of natural selection provides another alternative. Darwin argued that complex machines like the eye could evolve by a completely natural process, without the aid of any supernatural being.\n\nit evolves by accumulating many small changes over a long period of time. long before darwin, i pointed out that nature does not make leaps ... non facit saltum.\n\n## Improvement by Accident\n\nThis is how evolutionary biology explains the evolution of complex designs like the eye. Adaptations do not come about all in one go, by a single large mutation, but evolve gradually by accumulating hundreds of very small mutations. The mutations occur at random, with no plan in mind.\n\nmost mutations are not improvements and they do not survive in the gene pool. but sometimes a beneficial mutation occurs, and this spreads through the gene pool.\n\n## The Evolution of the Eye\n\nIn the case of the eye, for example, the first small change was probably a slight increase in the sensitivity to light of a small piece of skin. All skin is slightly sensitive to light anyway, and it is not difficult to imagine that the offspring of one of our eyeless ancestors happened to be born with a bit of skin slightly more sensitive to light than normal. This was just an accident, of course.\n\nmy eyeless ancestor didn't \"decide\" to have a mutant baby. i just had one because one of my genes mutated.\n\nIt also just happened that this particular accident was a lucky accident, because it allowed the mutant baby to detect the shadow of a predator more quickly, and thus escape faster than its eyeless parents and siblings could do.\n\neven one per cent of an eye is better than no eye at all.\n\nOf course, there were many other accidents that weren't quite so lucky \u2013 many other mutant babies whose unusual features were disadvantageous rather than beneficial. These mutants did not have any offspring.\n\nBut the lucky mutant was more successful and had lots of offspring. Moreover, it passed the new gene for light-sensitive skin-bits on to its offspring, so the new gene spread through the population and eventually everyone had the light-sensitive skin patches. Later on, there were other mutations, some of which were also beneficial. The light-sensitive skin patches became light-sensitive concave dips, which were then filled in with transparent fluid and finally covered over with a lens. The eye had evolved by a process of natural selection.\n\n## The Blind Watchmaker\n\nNatural selection, then, builds adaptations by accumulating many small accidental changes The British biologist **Richard Dawkins** (b. 1941) has compared natural selection to a \"blind watchmaker\". It is a watchmaker because it produces complex designs, but it is blind because it doesn't produce these designs by conscious foresight, but simply by accumulating a series of random accidents.\n\nonly the beneficial mutations accumulate, because the other mutations are not passed on to offspring. the currency of natural selection is reproductive success.\n\nThis concludes our brief survey of evolutionary biology Now it is time to fit the two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.\n\n## Fitting the Pieces of the Jigsaw Puzzle Together\n\nEvolutionary psychology is the combination of cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology. But why should we combine these two sciences? What have they got to do with each other? The answer is simple.\n\ncognitive psychology tells us that the mind exhibits a very complex design. evolutionary biology tells us that complex designs in nature can only come about by natural selection. therefore, the design of the mind must have evolved by a process of natural selection.\n\nWhat is meant by saying that the mind is a \"complex design\"? Just how complex is the mind?\n\n## General-Purpose Problem-Solver?\n\nWhen cognitive psychologists first began to investigate the mind, they thought that it would be a very simple kind of program.\n\nwe thought that it would be an abstract, general-purpose problem-solver. all that the mental software required was a few general procedures that could be applied to any, information.\n\nWhen they set out to test this hypothesis, however, the cognitive psychologists found that they were wrong. They wrote some very simple programs that could solve very abstract problems, but they found that these programs were unable to do many of the things that humans do easily.\n\n## Learning a Language\n\nOne of these things that humans do easily is learning a language. In the late 1950s, the American linguist **Noam Chomsky** (b. 1928) showed that a general-purpose learning program simply could not learn a language under the same conditions as normal human children.\n\nin order for children to learn a language, they must first hear adults speaking it. how's you then you tired?... er... time for beddy-byes. but adult speech contains lots of errors, and no indication of what is correct and incorrect.\n\nThe technical term for this faulty data is \"the poverty of the stimulus\". Learning a language based on this information alone would be like trying to figure out the rules of chess just by observing a few chess games in which some of the moves were illegal (but without knowing _which_ moves were illegal). This would be impossible unless you already knew what information to look for.\n\n## Language Acquisition\n\nSo the only program that could learn a human language is a specific one that has been pre-programmed with specific information relevant just to language learning. Chomsky concluded that there is an innate \"language acquisition device\" (LAD) in the mind which knows what kinds of rules human languages can have. Human languages have a limited number of structures, which are collectively known as \"Universal Grammar\".\n\nwhen a child learns its first language, he or she doesn't start from scratch. they simply select from their innate knowledge of universal grammar the rules that they hear being used around them.\n\nIn a sense, language isn't something that is _learned_ ; it is more appropriate to say that it just _develops_ naturally, like a biological organ or an instinct.\n\n## Vision\n\nChomsky's pioneering work on language was followed by similar discoveries in other areas of psychology. **David Marr** (1945-80) showed how another apparently simple task \u2013 seeing \u2013 was also very complex. Writing a program that could enable a robot to recognize even simple objects proved incredibly difficult.\n\njust as i found that language learning required a special-purpose program... so i found that vision required special software for seeing, with specific rules for detecting edges motion, colour and depth.\n\nDavid Marr's theory of vision: we reconstruct three-dimensional images by building them up from simpler shapes like cylinders.\n\n## Modularity\n\nCognitive psychologists began to realize that the mind was far more complex than they had first imagined. In 1983, the American philosopher and psychologist **Jerry Fodor** (b. 1935) reached a stunning conclusion.\n\nthe mind could not possibly be a single, general-purpose program. instead, it has to be a collection of many special-purpose programs each with its own rules.\n\nFodor called these special-purpose programs \"modules\".\n\nThe modular theory of mind is still quite new, and is not yet accepted by all cognitive psychologists, but it is becoming more influential. Although it is a very new idea, in a way it is also a return to a very old idea. For hundreds of years, people have divided the mind into \"faculties\". In the 19th century, **Franz Joseph Gall** (1758-1828) divided the mind into dozens of distinct capacities.\n\njust as the older universities were divided into different \"faculties\"...\n\nFaculty psychology was largely abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century, but now, with the modular theory of mind, it is regaining prominence.\n\n## Massive Modularity\n\n**John Tooby** and **Leda Cosmides** , two American psychologists who have pioneered many developments in evolutionary psychology, argue that there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of these special-purpose modules in the human mind.\n\nwe compare the mind to a swiss-army knife with lots of different gadgets. each one is designed for a specific task.\n\nThis view is sometimes called the \"massive modularity\" thesis to distinguish it from a more limited view of modularity.\n\nWhen Fodor proposed a return to the tradition of \"faculty psychology\" in his 1983 book, _The Modularity of Mind_ , he didn't envisage hundreds of modules. He proposed that there were only a few of them. There were modules for processing sensory input (vision, sound, taste, touch, smell and language), but no more. Fodor claimed that these \"input systems\" fed information into general-purpose programs called \"central processes\". The central processes were not modular in Fodor's account. Fodor thinks evolutionary psychology has gone too far.\n\nthis is modularity gone mad!\n\n## No Central Processes\n\nEvolutionary psychologists are opposed to Fodor's idea of \"general-purpose central processes\" for the same reason as they are opposed to the idea that the whole mind is a general-purpose program.\n\ngeneral-purpose problem solvers don't work because there are no \"general problems\", only specific ones. if the input systems are modular, why not the central processes too?\n\n## Modules and Adaptations\n\nA modular mind is clearly far more complex than a single general-purpose program. It has lots of interlocking parts that function smoothly together to process information. It has an innate structure that develops naturally, like a biological organ. According to evolutionary biology, these characteristics occur only as a result of natural selection.\n\nwe can therefore ask (how the different bits of the mind evolved. evolutionary psychology is the research program that attempts to answer this question.\n\n## Adaptations and Environments\n\nAccording to evolutionary psychology, the various mental modules are adaptations designed by natural selection. Every adaptation is designed to solve an adaptive problem. An adaptive problem is something that an organism needs to solve in order to survive and reproduce.\n\nfor example, one important adaptive problem faced by many animals is the problem of staying warm. some animals solve this problem by developing coats of fur. others solve it by thick layers of blubber.\n\n## Evolving Modules\n\nDifferent environments pose different adaptive problems and so require different adaptations. There is not much point in having eyes if you live deep underground, where there is no light. If you want to understand any adaptation, therefore, you must know something about the environment in which it evolved.\n\nWhat was the environment in which the various modules in the human mind evolved? This is a tricky question, because the modules did not all evolve at the same time, so they did not all evolve in the same environment.\n\nSome modules evolved relatively recently, after the human species split from that of our closest relative, the chimpanzee. These modules are unique to humans.\n\n## Shared and Unique Modules\n\nOther modules evolved a long time ago, when the common ancestor of humans and reptiles was alive. These modules are not unique to humans. There are similar modules in the minds of reptiles. This does not mean that we have a \"reptilian\" bit in our mind, however. Mental modules, like all adaptations, do not stop evolving once they have appeared. They keep changing along with the environment. So, for example, both humans and crocodiles have eyes because they are descended from the same ancestral species in which eyes first evolved. But this does not mean that humans have reptilian eyes.\n\nhumans and crocodiles have slightly different kinds of eye. because our eyes have evolved in different ways since the human lineage diverged from the reptilian lineage.\n\nIf we want to investigate the most distinctively human modules, the ones we don't share with any other animals, we will have to look at the environment in which our ancestors lived after the human lineage split from that of the chimpanzee.\n\nthis occurred about six million years ago. from that time on, until about 100,000 years ago,we lived on the east african savannahs.\n\n## Out of Africa\n\nAround 100,000 years ago, some of our ancestors began to emigrate out of Africa, and eventually colonized the whole world. But 100,000 years is only about 5,000 generations \u2013 too short a time for evolution to produce any major changes. Humans haven't changed much in that time, so we can ignore it when discussing the evolution of the mind. This means that all the history of human civilization and culture, from the birth of agriculture some 10,000 years ago until the present, is irrelevant to understanding the design of the human mind.\n\nour minds did not evolve in a world of cities and cars, nor even in a world of ploughs and farming. we are all \"stone-agers living in the fast lane\".\n\n## The Social Environment\n\nWhat was life like on the African savannahs? The climate was hot and sunny, and the flat plains were covered in long grass dotted with trees, some of which were rich in high-quality food like fruit and nuts. This was the _physical_ environment in which the human mind evolved. However, when we are considering the evolution of the human mind, it is just as important \u2013 perhaps even more important \u2013 to consider the _social_ environment.\n\nthe social environment refers to the other minds around you.\n\nLike most primates, our ancestors lived in tightly-knit groups with a complex social structure. Interacting with the other people in the group was just as important for their survival as being able to detect and escape from predators.\n\n## Adaptive Problems\n\nNow that we know a little bit about the environment in which our most recent ancestors lived, we can ask what adaptive problems they faced. When we know what adaptive problems they faced, we can make some educated guesses about the kinds of mental adaptations (mental modules) that natural selection might have produced to solve them. Then, as with any other science, we can try to find evidence to see whether these guesses are right or wrong.\n\nSo what were the adaptive problems faced by our hominid ancestors? Various considerations drawn from biology, primatology, archaeology and anthropology suggest what the most important adaptive problems would have been.\n\nAll of these things are crucial for passing on your genes. So we should expect natural selection to have designed mental modules that enabled our ancestors to achieve these objectives in the ancestral environment. In the next part of this book we will examine these modules in more detail, beginning with predator avoidance.\n\n## Predator-Avoidance Modules\n\nAvoiding predators is a very important problem from the genes' point of view. Genes cannot get themselves passed on to the next generation if their owner is eaten. Any genes that tend to make their owners avoid predators will therefore spread throughout the population.\n\nbut genes do not cause behaviour directly. rather, they help to build mental modules, and the mental modules cause behaviour. genes for predator-avoidance work by building a predator-avoidance module.\n\nWhat would a predator-avoidance module look like? It would have to be able to detect possible predators, distinguish those that were real dangers from those that weren't, and \u2013 in the case of real dangers \u2013 trigger avoidant or defensive behaviours.\n\nin fact, each of these tasks might be carried out by a separate module. so the task of predator-avoidance might be subserved by a group of modules rather than a single module.\n\n## Detecting Predators\n\nThe first module in the predator-avoidance system would detect possible predators. With any detection system, however, there is a trade-off between accuracy and speed. Think of a burglar alarm. On the one hand, you want the alarm to be accurate \u2013 you don't want it to be triggered by stray cats. You don't want false alarms. On the other hand, you also want an alarm that goes off immediately a burglar attempts to break in. It's not much use having a burglar alarm that rings five minutes after the burglar has left the house.\n\nthe problem is that it takes time to figure out whether the animal entering the house is a burglar or a cat.\n\nThe more accurate the alarm is, the slower it is. Conversely, if you want a faster alarm, you will have to put up with a higher rate of false alarms.\n\nWhich is more costly \u2013 a false alarm or a slow detector? If it is a question of detecting predators, a false alarm causes you to waste energy by running away from something that is not in fact a danger. A slow detector, however, can cause you to be eaten. So it is better to have a fast system that occasionally gives false alarms than a slow system that is always accurate. So we should expect the predator-detection module to be fast and inaccurate rather than slow and precise.\n\nis it harmles or not?\n\n## False Alarms\n\nWhile you are reacting to the alarm given off by the predator-detection module, another module can then take a bit more time to decide whether or not the alarm was triggered by a genuine danger. If it was, then the avoidance behaviours are maintained. If the second module decides that the first module gave a false alarm, however, it can override the avoidance behaviour.\n\n## Two Neural Pathways\n\nThere is some evidence that this is in fact the case. The American neuroscientist **Joseph LeDoux** has shown that the emotion of fear \u2013 which prepares us to flee from predators or _freeze_ to avoid being seen \u2013 is subserved by _two_ neural mechanisms. One \"fast and dirty\" mechanism is, as the name suggests, very quick but not very accurate. It often gives false alarms. The other mechanism is much more accurate but slower.\n\nfor example, suppose you are walking in the jungle. you look down and see a long, thin object. you freeze, because the fast and dirty mechanism thinks it's a snake. then, milliseconds later, you relax, because the slower, more accurate mechanism realizes that the object is in fact a stick. having both of these mechanisms is a bonus.\n\nThe fast and dirty mechanism gets you out of trouble quickly but gives off some false alarms. The slow and clean mechanism tells you when the alarms are false, and so stops you wasting too much energy in reacting to them. Sometimes the slow and clean mechanism doesn't kick in, and we continue reacting to false alarms. This may be what happens in some phobias.\n\n## Food Preference Modules\n\navoiding predators is vital for survival, but so is consuming the right food. of all the potentially edible things around you, some are very nutritious, some are poisonous, and some are neither.\n\nGenes that predisposed their owners to consume nutritious food and avoid poisonous food would spread through the population. As with predator-avoidance, however, genes do not cause this behaviour directly. They build mental mechanisms that lead us to desire some foods and dislike others.\n\n## Fat and Sugar\n\nAnimal fat and sugar are highly nutritious, but they were relatively scarce in the African savannah where our ancestors lived. To get animal fat it was necessary to kill an animal or scavenge one that had already been killed. To get sugar it was necessary to find ripe fruit. Both of these were complicated \u2013 and sometimes dangerous \u2013 tasks. In a situation like this, it would have been highly adaptive to have strong desires for fat and sugar.\n\nthose who have such strong desires will be more likely to seek out fat and sugar... despite the attendant difficulties and dangers.\n\nOn balance, they would tend to consume more of these nutritious foods, and so they would be more likely to pass on their genes \u2013 including their genes for liking fat and sugar.\n\n## Environmental Mismatch\n\nFat and sugar are bad for you if you eat too much of them, but in ancestral environments these resources were scarce, so there wasn't much chance of consuming too much. Today, however, we have supermarkets and fast-food restaurants to cater for our evolved tastes. Fat and sugar are no longer difficult to find.\n\nour strong desires for fat and sugar haven't changed. many people now eat more of these things than is good for them.\n\nWe were designed to live in such a different environment, and this \"environmental mismatch\" is the source of many current problems.\n\n## Disgust\n\nEating the right food does not just involve seeking out nutritious food. It is also important to avoid poisonous food. Just as natural selection has designed modules that make us prefer fat and sugar, so it has also designed modules that make us avoid eating rotting flesh and faeces.\n\nthese poison-detector modules work by means of the emotion of disgust.\n\nIn other words, when the module detects a food that it thinks is poisonous, it activates the feeling of disgust, and it is this feeling \u2013 not any conscious deliberation \u2013 that makes us avoid the food.\n\n## Alliance-Formation Modules\n\nThe two adaptive problems we have just examined \u2013 avoiding predators and eating the right food \u2013 are problems posed by the physical environment. However, as we have already seen, when considering the evolution of the mind, it is just as important to consider the problems posed by the social environment.\n\nThe social environment refers to the other conspecifics (animals of the same species) with whom you live. For many animals, the social environment is virtually non-existent, because they live solitary lives.\n\ni live on my own.\n\ni only meet other toads when i want to mate.\n\n## Living in Groups\n\nPrimates are unusual in that they live in tightly-knit social groups with complex hierarchies and alliances.\n\nliving in groups benefits primates because it provides extra defences against predators.\n\nIt is harder for a predator to catch an animal in a group than an isolated animal because groups have more eyes to detect predators, and because other group members can come to the aid of one who is being attacked.\n\n## Alliances and Coalitions\n\nBut group living also poses adaptive problems for primates. With lots of other conspecifics around you, all with the same food preferences, competition becomes more intense. Squabbles for scarce resources become common.\n\nthe way we tend to solve this problem is forming alliances between small numbers. two or three of us form a coalition to provide mutual support against the other members of the group.\n\n## Increasing the Group\n\nOur ancestors continued and extended this primate lifestyle. After the human lineage split from the chimpanzee lineage some six million years ago, the size of human groups began to increase.\n\nthe increase in group-size meant that forming alliances became even more important for survival.\n\nFor our ancestors, forming alliances and friendships was just as vital as eating the right food. Those who lacked the ability to form alliances and friendships were in as much danger as those who lacked the ability to detect predators.\n\n## Reciprocal Altruism\n\nBut forming alliances is not an easy task. The main problem is the risk of defection. An alliance is an \"I'll help you if you help me\" arrangement. It is all about exchanging favours \u2013 which biologists call \"reciprocal altruism\". But there is a problem with any such arrangement.\n\nthere is always a risk that one of the members of the alliance may take the benefits without paying the costs i may accept favours from the other members of the alliance and never return them.\n\nThis is known as the \"free-rider\" problem and it is the fundamental adaptive problem posed by group living.\n\n## The Free-Rider Problem\n\nThose animals that cannot solve the free-rider problem cannot live in groups. To see why, imagine a group of animals that strikes up an alliance in which one of the members is a free-rider. Whenever the freerider is in danger, or hungry, the other members of the alliance come to his aid. The other members pay a cost for helping the free-rider, by risking their lives for him or by giving him some of their precious food. The free-rider enjoys these benefits, but never pays the costs of returning the favours.\n\nundetected, the free-rider will obviously be more successful at surviving and reproducing than the public-spirited suckers.\n\nso genes for free-riding will become more frequent in the gene pool.\n\neventually, everyone will be a free-rider.\n\nBut then, no one will be helping anyone else. Alliances will disintegrate and group-living will no longer be possible.\n\n## The Evolution of Cooperation\n\nAll animals that live in groups have found ways of solving the free-rider problem. Different species solve the problem in different ways, but there are some fundamental conditions that any solution must meet. These conditions were worked out by an American political scientist called **Robert Axelrod** in the early 1980s. Axelrod showed that the free-rider problem can only be solved if the following three conditions are satisfied.\n\n1. organisms encounter the same organisms repeatedly. 2. organisms can recognise those they have met before and distinguish them from strangers. 3. organisms can remember how those they have met before have treated them on previous encounters. i discovered these three conditions by organizing a **tournament** in which different computer programs competed against each other.\n\n## Tit-for-Tat\n\nWhy are Axelrod's three conditions necessary for solving the free-rider problem? The answer has to do with punishment and reward. When these three conditions are satisfied, free-riders can be punished and cooperators can be rewarded. Free-riders who have refused to do return favours can be punished by refusing to do any more favours for them. Cooperators can be rewarded by continuing to help them when they need it.\n\nThis simple strategy is called \"tit-for-tat\". When a group of organisms interact on the basis of tit-for-tat, free-riders no longer have the advantage. Cooperation can evolve and group cohesion can be maintained.\n\nthanks for feeding me. the next time i'll do the same for you. i'm not feeding you \u2013 you didn't help me when i was hungry.\n\nAll three conditions for using tit-for-tat were present in our hominid ancestors. In the small, tightly-knit groups of fifty to a hundred people in which they lived, the first condition was easily satisfied. Day after day, we interact with the same people. The second condition is satisfied by the evolution of a sophisticated face-recognition module. The third condition is met by the evolution of a sophisticated memory for recording social interaction.\n\nhow much have they done for me? how much i have done for them?\n\nFor each acquaintance, we keep a mental tally of how much they have done for us and how much we have done for them. If the tally shows that someone has consistently done less for us than we have done for them, then the next time they ask for help, we will be less inclined to give it. We punish free-riding by refusing to cooperate.\n\n## Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange\n\nin order to keep a mental tally, we must have some way of working out the value of the favours that others do for us. there must be some way of comparing this with the value of the favours that we do for others.\n\nLeda Cosmides and John Tooby have argued that humans evolved special modules for calculating these things. They propose that these cognitive adaptations are the basis of all human behaviour involving exchange \u2013 from trading favours to trading stocks and shares.\n\nThe calculations performed by these \"social accounting\" modules must take into account a whole range of variables when working out the value of a favour. The value of a favour depends both on the cost to the donor and the benefit to the recipient. A favour that costs the donor a lot is worth more than a favour that costs the donor little. A favour that benefits the recipient a lot is worth more than a favour that benefits the recipient a little. The value of a favour is the ratio between the cost to the donor and benefit to the recipient.\n\nThe costs and benefits of any kind of favour are not fixed in advance, but depend on the context.\n\nif you hand over your last piece of bread to a friend, this favour costs you a lot if you are on the verge of starvation. but it costs you little if you have just had a big meal. the same favour benefits your friend a lot if he is on the verge of starvation. but doesn't benefit me very much if i've just been to a banquet.\n\nThe social accounting modules must consider all these details.\n\n## Modules for Helping Children and Other Relatives\n\nAll this talk about social accounting and tit-for-tat suggests that altruism and cooperation can only evolve on a strictly reciprocal basis. If this were true, no animal would ever help another animal unless there was a good chance of receiving an equally valuable favour in return. But this is clearly not the case.\n\nnature is full of examples of animals that provide help to other animals from whom they cannot expect any repayment. and humans are no exception.\n\nParenting is the most obvious example of such non-reciprocal altruism. In all species that care for their young, parents provide help that they never expect their offspring to repay. Humans provide more intensive and long-lasting care for their offspring than any other species, and this is entirely non-reciprocal. So there must be another element that enters into the social-cooperation modules besides the social accounting already described. What is it?\n\nwhen you grow up, you'll care for me in my old age, won't you?\n\nsorry, i'll be too busy looking after my own children\n\n## Kin Selection\n\nThe example of parenting provides a clue to what this element is. When biologists examined the examples of non-reciprocal altruism in the animal kingdom, they noticed that they all had one feature in common. This kind of altruism is directed exclusively towards genetic relatives. In 1964, the British biologist **William Hamilton** came up with a theory to explain why this was the case. He argued that the fundamental unit of evolution was not the organism but the individual gene.\n\nclose relatives share many genes, so genes which predispose their bearers to help close kin are in effect helping copies of themselves. a gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. if so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness.\n\nNon-reciprocal altruism at the level of the organism, such as the care that parents provide for their children, is the result of \"selfishness\" at the level of the gene. In 1975, the British biologist **Richard Dawkins** popularized Hamilton's ideas in his famous book, _The Selfish Gene._\n\n## How Related Are You?\n\nHamilton showed that non-reciprocal altruism could evolve whenever organisms had some means of estimating their \"degree of relatedness\" to other organisms. The degree of relatedness is the chance that a randomly chosen gene in one organism will be shared by another organism as a result of common descent. The British geneticist **Sewall Wright** (1889-1988) had already coined the symbol _**r**_ in 1922 for this concept which he called the \"coefficient of relatedness\".\n\ni calculated the following values for r.\n\n## Hamilton's Rule\n\nHamilton showed that non-reciprocal altruism can evolve whenever there are mechanisms that ensure that the coefficient of relatedness will tend to exceed the cost-benefit ratio of the altruistic act. This can be written as the following equation.\n\n\"c\" stands for the cost of the favour to the donor... this is known as hamilton's rule\", and \"b\" stands for the benefit of the favour to the recipient.\n\n## The Evolution of Nepotism\n\nWhat mental mechanisms evolved to help our ancestors follow Hamilton's rule? Clearly, they must have had some mechanism for distinguishing kin from non-kin, and assessing the degree of relatedness \u2013 a **kin-recognition** module. This must have played a vital part in the system of modules governing the provision of favours and help to others.\n\nsuppose the chances of being repaid were low or nil? then the social-cooperation module might consult the kin-recognition module to see whether the potential beneficiary was a relative or not. if they were, then help could be provided without any expectation that it would be returned.\n\nAlliances and cooperation would therefore have been more likely to develop between close relatives than between unrelated individuals. In other words, evolutionary psychology predicts that humans should have instinctual tendencies towards nepotism.\n\n## The Truth About Cinderella\n\nIn the 1980s, two Canadian psychologists, **Martin Daly** and **Margo Wilson** , set out to test this Darwinian prediction. In one study, they compared the childcare provided by natural parents and by stepparents. Step-parents are in a very unusual situation from an evolutionary point of view. They are caring for a child who they know is not their own. Even though they may care for the child conscientiously, evolutionary theory predicts that the childcare modules will not be activated in the same way as in biological parents. But is this true?\n\nwhy do they get to go out, while i , have to stay in and work?\n\nLooking for a way to compare the parental love shown by biological parents and step-parents, Daly and Wilson reasoned that, since love inhibits violence, those with greater love would show, on average, lower levels of violence.\n\nchild abuse by step-parents is rare. but we predict that child abuse by biological parents will be even rarer.\n\nWhen Daly and Wilson looked at statistics of child abuse in North America, they found a striking confirmation of the Darwinian prediction. In the USA, they found that a child living with one or more substitute parents was about 100 times as likely to be fatally abused as a child living with natural parents only. A similar pattern was observed in Canada, where statistics showed that, for children of two or younger, the risk of being killed by a step-parent was about 70 times that from a natural parent. These data provide strong support for the existence of childcare modules in humans that help parents to recognize their own children and to channel parental investment preferentially towards them.\n\n## Allocating Resources to Offspring\n\nAnother problem that parents face, besides that of distinguishing their own children from those of others, is the problem of resource allocation. Parents have limited time, energy and food, and they must decide how much of these precious resources to give to each of their children, and how much to use for their own survival.\n\nparents who allocate minimal resources to their children will survive for longer than more generous parents. but the children of the stingy parents will have less chance of surviving, and so less chance of passing on the parents genes. so it pays parents to be generous to their children.\n\nOn the other hand, parents who are so generous that they compromise their own survival risk dying and having no more offspring. There is a trade-off, then, between parental generosity, which raises the survival chances of _actual_ offspring, and parental withholding, which raises the survival chances of _future_ offspring.\n\n## The Resource-Allocation Module\n\nWe should expect natural selection to have designed special mental machinery for calculating the optimal amount of resources to allocate to each child at any given moment. This resource-allocation module will have to take into account a number of decisive factors.\n\nthe **age** of the children... the **health** of the children... older children are more capable of fending for themselves, and so need fewer resources to be provided by their parents. sick children need more care \u2013 unless they are so sick that it's better to let them die. and how many more children you can reasonably expect to have in the future.\n\n## Parent-Offspring Conflict\n\nThe problem of allocating resources to children is made more complicated by the fact that the children themselves may disagree with their parents about how much they should be given. Children may want more than their parents are prepared to give. The evolutionary basis for this was set out by the American biologist **Robert Trivers** in 1974, in a famous paper on \"Parent-Offspring Conflict\".\n\nTrivers argued that the crux of the matter lies with the fact that a child is _**twice**_ as related to itself as it is to its siblings. Everyone is 100% genetically related to himself, but only 50% related to his brothers and sisters.\n\nin my mind, i'm worth twice as much as my brothers and sisters. to me, you're all worth as much as each other.\n\nSo, even though you care about your brothers and sisters, you care about yourself even more. From the parents' point of view, though, things are somewhat different. Parents have the same degree of relatedness to all their children, and so value them all equally. This is the source of parent-offspring conflict.\n\n## How Much For Me?\n\nTo illustrate the problem, imagine a mother who wants to divide a cake between her two children. The children are equally related to her, so, other things being equal, she should cut the cake in half. But now think of it from the point of view of each child. Each child has a genetic stake in the welfare of the other child.\n\nbut neither is it in my interest to divide the cake in half. so it's not in my interest to eat the whole cake and leave nothing to her.\n\nEach child is 100% related to itself, but only 50% related to its sibling, so (other things being equal) each child should want twice as much cake for itself as for its sibling. If the child could divide the cake up, it should give a third to the sibling, and keep two thirds for itself.\n\n## Weaning\n\nThis simplified example illustrates the general principle behind the evolutionary theory of parent-offspring conflict. The conflicts arise because children always want slightly more than what their parents think is their \"fair share\". Take weaning, for example. No child wants to breast-feed forever.\n\na younger brother or sister could benefit much more from this milk. tlme for me to move to other food...\n\nThere comes a time when the benefit that a child derives from the mother's milk is less than half the benefit that a younger sibling would gain from the same milk.\n\n## The Benefit of Weaning\n\nSo a point does come when it is in the child's genetic interest to seek alternative sources of nourishment, and let a younger sibling have the mother's milk to itself. The problem is that this point in time is always later than the point at which the mother comes to the same conclusion. The mother wants to wean the child when the benefit it gains from breastfeeding is _less than the benefit_ that a younger sibling would gain.\n\ni want to wean myself when the benefit gain from breastfeeding is **less than half the benefit** that a younger sibling would gain.\n\nSo the mother always wants to wean the child before the child wants to wean itself.\n\n## Mind-reading Modules\n\nWe have seen that the various modules for social exchange evolved to help our primate ancestors solve the free-rider problem. This enabled them to form the stable alliances that hold together the social groups in which all higher primates live. But the increasing size of these groups posed a problem in itself \u2013 a problem which was solved by learning how to \"mind-read\".\n\ni wonder what she's thinking...\n\nOf course, we don't read other people's minds by direct telepathy. This is not what evolutionary psychologists mean by \"mind-reading\". Mind-reading involves guessing what people are thinking on the basis of observing their actions and their words.\n\n## Group Size and Social Intelligence\n\nThe size of the groups in which our ancestors lived increased dramatically during the course of hominid evolution. Around six million years ago, when our ancestors resembled modern chimpanzees, the average group size was about 50. By three million years ago, our \"australopithecine\" ancestors were living in groups of about 70. A million years later, our \"habiline\" (tool-making) ancestors were living in groups of about 80. The first true humans _(Homo sapiens sapiens)_ , who emerged around 150,000 years ago, probably lived in groups of around 150.\n\nAs groups got bigger, the problems posed by group living got more complex. Not only did our ancestors need bigger memories to keep track of the fast-changing pattern of alliances in the group, but they also needed more sophisticated social reasoning capacities to maintain a delicate balance between their conflicting loyalties.\n\nin order to play the political games vital to survival in a large group of primates, we have to become amateur psychologists.\n\n## Enter Machiavelli\n\nThis idea is known as the \"Machiavellian intelligence\" hypothesis, after **Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli** (1469-1527), the infamous Italian political theorist. Machiavelli's book _The Prince_ (1514) outlines some of the dirty tricks that successful politicians use to obtain and maintain power. The Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis starts from the idea that these dirty tricks are not just the preserve of politicians.\n\nwe all use them in our everyday life, as we help our friends and attempt to outsmart our enemies, make (and break) promises, and tell lies. i wrote about machiavellian intelligence in 1975.\n\nEven this \"everyday politics\" requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of human psychology \u2013 in particular, a special mental module for \"reading other people's minds\".\n\n## Theory of Mind\n\nThis \"mind-reading module\" is usually referred to by evolutionary psychologists as the \"Theory of Mind\" module. This is because it seems to operate on the basis of a theory of how the human mind works. The theory that the module uses is, apparently, the very same theory that we find in \"folk psychology\" and in cognitive science \u2013 the \"belief\/desire\" theory which states that actions are caused by mental processes like beliefs and desires.\n\nwhy is she looking at me like that? has she guessed...?\n\n## Folk Psycology\n\nIn other words, folk psychology is not just a cultural invention. It is an innate part of the human mind. Adults do not _teach_ children to understand human behaviour in terms of beliefs and desires. Rather, children instinctively _develop the_ ability to do this, because they are genetically programmed to do so.\n\ni can already read other people's minds!\n\nThe Theory of Mind module develops during the first years of life, and is usually complete by the age of four-and-a-half. At that age, children can pass \"false-belief tests\".\n\n## The Sally-Ann Test\n\nA classic false-belief test is the so-called \"Sally-Ann\" test. A psychologist introduces a child to two dolls called Sally and Ann. Then the child watches while Sally puts some sweets under a cushion and leaves the room. While Sally is out of the room, Ann takes the sweets from under the cushion and puts them in her pocket. When Sally comes back into the room, the psychologist questions the child.\n\nwhere does sally think the sweets are? in ann's pocket!\n\nBefore the age of four-and-a-half, this is what children usually say. Lacking a fully-developed Theory of Mind, they cannot comprehend the notion that other people can hold beliefs that are different from their own. They assume that everyone believes what they believe.\n\n## Theory of Mind and Autism\n\nAfter the age of four-and-a-half, children respond very differently to the Sally-Ann test. When asked where Sally thinks the sweets are, they now reply, \"Under the cushion\".\n\ni know the sweets are in ann's pockets, but i now have a fully-developed theory of mind. so they understand that other people can hold beliefs that differ from their own. they also understand that these beliefs can be false. autism occurs when children fail to develop a properly functioning theory of mind module.\n\nAccording to the British psychologist **Simon Baron-Cohen** , autistic people are \"mindblind\".\n\n## Lying and Tactical Deception\n\nWithout a Theory of Mind, it would be very difficult to play the political games necessary for living in human society. For one thing, it would be impossible to lie.\n\nin order to lie, you must first understand that other people can hold different beliefs from yours. and those beliefs can be false.\n\nOnly then can you attempt to manipulate another person into holding a false belief. This is why children under the age of three cannot lie convincingly.\n\n## Language Modules\n\nAll animals that regularly interact with other members of their own species face the problem of communicating with each other. Different species solve this problem in different ways, but many use sounds because, unlike visual signals, sounds can be perceived at night and over long distances. All primates use their vocal cords to produce different kinds of signals to convey different kinds of information. Humans, however, have evolved the most sophisticated communication system in the animal kingdom \u2013 language.\n\ni'm telling you, he's a real snake in the grass... you don't say...\n\n## The Language Acquisition Device\n\nSpecial mental machinery is required in order to learn and use a human language. We have already seen how Chomsky's work in the 1950s and 60s showed that it would be impossible for children to learn a language as quickly as they do unless they were pre-programmed to do so. In other words, all children must be born with a special-purpose language-learning program, or Language Acquisition Device.\n\nThe Language Acquisition Device is unique to humans.\n\nsome primatologists argue that chimpanzees also have the capacity to acquire language. but most linguists reject this view. is that all he can say \u2013 ask for a banana?\n\nDespite valiant attempts to teach them to use English and sign language, chimpanzees have never succeeded in learning more than a few dozen words and producing a few very simple sentences. Human children, on the other hand, learn thousands of words and master the most complex rules of grammar by the age of five.\n\n## The Evolution of Language\n\nNo one knows when our ancestors acquired the capacity to use language, but it must have been before they moved out of Africa, some 100,000 years ago. After that time, different human groups became separated from each other for thousands of years. If the language modules evolved after the emigration from Africa, it would mean that exactly the same mental machinery had evolved independently in all the different human groups. This is extremely unlikely.\n\nAnatomical studies suggest that the capacity to use language evolved between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. It was then that the position of the larynx changed to its current position, which is much lower down than the larynx of other primates. The lower larynx of humans enables them to produce a much wider range of sounds. The lower tracheal opening is also responsible for the human capacity for choking. Our ability to speak was only purchased at the price of an increased risk of asphyxiating on our food.\n\nWhy did our ancestors evolve such a sophisticated communication system? One theory is that it enabled them to hunt more effectively. According to this view, the primary function of language was to exchange information about the physical and ecological environment. In 1993, the British anthropologist, **Robin Dunbar** , challenged this theory. Dunbar suggested that the primary function of language was to exchange information about the _social_ environment.\n\ni saw some buffaloes the other day you don't say... you don't say! do you know what mrs flintstone is... psst, psst...\n\n## Reciprocal Altruism Again\n\nDunbar's argument was based on the observation that, some time between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago, our ancestors began to live in much larger groups than before. Dunbar estimated that group size increased to about 150 individuals. We have already seen how primate groups are held together by networks of alliances formed by reciprocal altruism.\n\nyou need to be able to distinguish the cheats from the cooperators. but for reciprocal altruism to work, you need information about who you can trust and who you can't.\n\nChimps gain this information by direct personal interaction, especially grooming. They spend large amounts of time removing fleas and dirt from each other's backs, and this mutual grooming is the social cement that holds their alliances together. A chimp in trouble is far more likely to receive help from a grooming partner than any other chimp.\n\nmmmm... that's nice i'll remember this favour.\n\nSince reciprocal altruism depends on having direct interactions with others, there are limits to the size of the group that can be held together by this mechanism. There is a limit to the number of people you can meet and interact with on a regular enough basis to get information about how likely they are to cooperate.\n\n## Gossip\n\nDunbar argued that language evolved to provide our ancestors with another way to get the valuable social information about who you can trust. Instead of discovering whether someone is a cheat the hard way by being cheated \u2013 our ancestors were able to find this out by talking to other people. In Dunbar's view, the first function of language was gossip. This might explain why humans are so fascinated by gossip about other people's behaviour.\n\nyou don't say... flintstone went nuts when he heard his wife was cheating on him...\n\n## Indirect Reciprocity\n\nBy facilitating the exchange of social information, language enabled humans to reap the rewards of living in larger groups. Reciprocal altruism could hold these larger groups together because it no longer needed to be direct.\n\ndirect reciprocity is when you give something to someone in the hope that they will return the favour later on... i'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.\n\nindirect reciprocity is when you give something to someone in the hope that **someone else** will return the favour. it works because of a crucial thing \u2013 reputation. and this will cause others to be generous to you.\n\n## The Importance of Reputation\n\nIf other people see or hear about your acts of generosity, and if other people tend to be generous to those with a good reputation, then it pays you to be generous. Even if the recipient of a favour never returns the favour directly, it will get you a good reputation. And this will cause others to be generous to you. On the other hand, if you are not generous, you will acquire a reputation for stinginess. And others will punish you for this by being stingy to you. I won't scratch your back if you don't scratch theirs.\n\nhere, have some of my food. thanks, i'm starving! what a generous person!\n\nnow i haven't got any food.\n\nhe deserves, it! take some of my food.\n\n## Mate-Selection Modules\n\nMost of the adaptive problems that we have discussed so far \u2013 avoiding predators, eating the right food, forming alliances, reading other people's minds and communicating with other people \u2013 relate to the fundamental problem of survival. But while an organism's survival is vitally important from the genes' point of view, there is something even more important.\n\nthe most important thing of all is reproduction. this ensures that the genes are passed on to the next generation. an organism is just the genes' way of making more copies of themselves.\n\nFrom the gene's point of view, the survival of the organism is merely a means to this end. If an organism lives for a hundred years, but has no offspring, this is of no use to the genes.\n\n## The Mating Game\n\nSome species reproduce by dividing into two parts, each of which becomes a separate individual. In these \"asexual\" species, there is no need to find a mate, since you can reproduce without one. Most species, however, reproduce sexually. This involves finding a mate and swapping genes with them. Biologists still disagree about why sex evolved. Most argue that sexual reproduction confers some advantage to the individual organism, but there is no consensus about what this advantage is.\n\nHumans are a sexually-reproducing species. In order for us to reproduce, we must first find a mate.\n\nfinding a mate is not an easy task. first, you must choose a suitable candidate from among the many possible mates available. second, you must persuade at least one of them to choose you.\n\nWe should expect natural selection to have designed special mental mechanisms that enabled our ancestors to solve the problems specific to choosing and obtaining a suitable mate. Selecting a suitable mate is very important because mates provide two things on which the survival of your offspring depends: genes and parental care. The survival chances of offspring depend on the quality of these two resources. We will now look at each of them in more detail.\n\n## The Genes are in the Selection\n\nThe first way in which your mate affects the survival chances of your offspring is by providing \u2013 or failing to provide \u2013 good genes. In a sexually-reproducing species, offspring inherit 50% of their genes from each parent. If you mate with someone who has bad genes (\"bad\" in the sense that they lower your chances of surviving and reproducing), your offspring will probably inherit some of these bad genes. That will lower their chances of surviving and reproducing.\n\nwe may not live to pass on the genes that we inherited from you. but if i mate with someone who has good genes... we will probably inherit some of these good genes.\n\nThat will raise their chances of surviving and reproducing, and so raise the chances of your genes getting passed on to future generations.\n\n## The Importance of Looking Good\n\nHow did our ancestors solve the problem of selecting mates with good genes and avoiding those with bad genes?\n\nobviously, we weren't born with dna testing-kits, so we evolved more indirect measures. sensitivity to small differences in physical appearance is one such measure.\n\nPhysical appearances provide important clues to the quality of one's genes.\n\n## Body Symmetry\n\nFor example, the more symmetrical your body is, the better on average your genes are. This is because less robust genes are more likely to get knocked off course by environmental setbacks such as physical injuries and parasites.\n\nif the left and right sides of the body are very similar... then the more likely it is that the genes are quite robust.\n\nAnyone who was sensitive to small differences in bodily symmetry, and who preferred to mate with more symmetrical people, would tend to have children with better genes. So we would expect natural selection to have designed a mate-selection module that was geared to detect and prefer more symmetrical mates.\n\n## What's the Evidence for Symmetry?\n\nIs there any evidence to show that humans do, in fact, prefer more symmetrical mates? There is. The psychologist **Steve Gangestad** and the biologist **Randy Thornhill** measured various features, from foot breadth and hand breadth to ear length and ear breadth, and combined these measurements to produce an overall index of bodily symmetry for each person in their study.\n\nwe then asked volunteers to evaluate these same people for attractiveness, and compared the results. we found that there was a close correlation between the attractiveness-rating and the degree of symmetry.\n\nMore symmetrical people were seen as more attractive.\n\n## The Biology of Beauty\n\nMany people today think that standards of beauty are entirely cultural artefacts. But in the past few decades, evidence has increasingly emerged to show that there are many aesthetic preferences that are both universal and innate. Preferences for more symmetrical people, for example, are universal.\n\nanother universal preference is the male preference for the classic \"hourglass\" figure.\n\nThe psychologist **Devendra Singh** has found that while cultures vary in their view of the ideal weight for women, the ideal waist-hip ratio is always the same \u2013 people everywhere rate a waist-hip ratio of 0.7 as the most attractive. This is the classic \"hourglass figure\".\n\n## The Fertility Factor\n\nWhy has natural selection endowed men with a preference for the hourglass figure? Because the waist-hip ratio is a good indicator of **fertility.** Women with a 0.7 waist-hip ratio tend to be more fertile than those who have a higher or lower waist-hip ratio. This is a clear example of the way that natural selection has sculpted men's sense of beauty.\n\nancestral men who preferred women with this figure tended to mate with more fertile women, and so had more children. our preferences were passed on to our offspring.\n\nJust as natural selection endowed us with appetites to make us seek out the most nutritious foods, so it endowed us with a sense of beauty to make us seek out mates with high-quality genes.\n\n## Selecting a Mate for Parental Care\n\nThe other way in which your mate affects the survival chances of your offspring is by providing \u2013 or failing to provide \u2013 parental care. Not all sexually-reproducing species care for their young. In some species, the offspring are left to fend for themselves as soon as they are born. Of the species that do care for their young, most leave the task entirely to the mother.\n\nwhen my baby is born, i look after it on my own, without any help from the father. with humans, it is much more common for fathers to take an active role in providing protection and resources for their children.\n\nIn the jargon of evolutionary biology, the human species shows an unusually high level of \"male parental investment\".\n\n## Human Pair Bonds\n\nHuman children, then, are typically cared for not just by a single mother, but by a mother and father together.\n\nand we have been doing this for millions of years. unlike other primates, human parents form stable \"pair-bonds\" \u2013 long-lasting monogamous relationships \u2013 to care for their children.\n\n## Parental Care and Human Brain Size\n\nThis probably played an important part in the massive increase in brain size that took place during the past few million years of human evolution. Big brains are expensive organs that take time to develop.\n\n**Graph Showing the Increase in Brain Volume During the Past Four Million Years of Human Evolution**\n\nduring this time, the infant cannot take care of itself and must be looked after by others. humans have bigger brains, relative to the size of their bodies, than any other animal. human infants thus take longer to become independent than the offspring of any other species.\n\nThe time and energy required to care for a growing human infant cannot be provided by a single parent acting alone.\n\n## Will You Make a Good Parent?\n\nWhen choosing a mate, therefore, our ancestors had to consider not just the quality of the mate's genes, but also the mate's capacity and willingness to invest time and energy in helping to bring up the children.\n\nthis poses a different problem. physical appearances do not provide any clues to a person's capacity and willingness to invest in parenting.\n\nIf you want to get information about whether someone will make a good parent or not, you have to pay attention to their _behaviour_ , not their physical appearance.\n\nWhat behavioural clues indicate that someone will make a good parent? Parenting is a cooperative venture, a particular kind of alliance, so the same criteria that allow us to decide who will be a good ally in general can be used to determine if someone will make a good parent for one's own children.\n\nanything that indicates kindness, patience, generosity and trustworthiness will be a useful clue to parenting ability. so natural selection should have favoured the incorporation of these criteria in the mate-selection module.\n\nAnd there is evidence that this is indeed the case. All over the world, people of both sexes say that these are the characteristics they most desire in a long-term partner.\n\n## Sex Differences in Mate Preferences\n\nThe minds of men and women are largely identical, because most of the adaptive problems faced by our ancestors were the same for men and women. The problem of avoiding predators was largely the same for both sexes, as was the problem of eating the right food, the problem of forming alliances, and the problem of mind-reading.\n\nso we should expect the modules concerned with these tasks to be , largely identical in both sexes. fine. but when it comes to choosing a partner \u2013 what then?\n\nWhat about the mate-selection modules? Do men and women differ in their mate preferences? Many of the problems involved in choosing a long-term mate were identical for both sexes.\n\nwe both want partners who can contribute good genes and parental care to their offspring. but there are other problems involved in choosing a mate that differ for men and women.\n\nThese different problems required different solutions, and so we should expect the mate-selection modules of men and women to reflect these differences.\n\n## Dads and Cads\n\nChoosing a mate poses different problems for men and women because the same reproductive strategies are not available to both sexes. Both sexes can look for a long-term partner and establish a pair-bond with them to rear children together. Biologists refer to this as a \"longterm mating strategy\", and it is the same for both men and women. The alternative is the \"short-term mating strategy\". This option is also available to both sexes, but not in the same way.\n\nfor us, the short-term mating strategy involves having sex with a woman and then abandoning her to look after the baby. clearly, this is not a viable option for **us** , because is women, not men, who get pregnant.\n\nThis difference between men and women posed an adaptive problem for ancestral women. They had to be able to tell the difference between a man who was pursuing a long-term mating strategy and a man who was pursuing a short-term mating strategy. Women who could not tell the difference ran the risk of becoming single mothers, which lowered their child's chances of survival. Natural selection endowed women with various mental mechanisms to help them avoid this fate. One such mechanism lies behind the delaying tactics of women. Women tend to be more cautious than men about having sex.\n\nwe're more willing to delay the moment to have sex with someone we like. during this waiting period, she may try to extract material resources from me as proof of my commitment to her.\n\nIn ancestral environments, this was a way of making sure that the man was interested in a long-term relationship and was not simply looking for a one-night stand.\n\n## Battle of the Sexes \u2013 or Evolutionary Arms Race?\n\nHowever, if ancestral women had never agreed to have sex without looking for signs of commitment from the man, then natural selection would have eliminated those men who could not show signs of commitment.\n\nwe would never have been able to have sex \u2013 so our genes would have quickly died out. perhaps some of us would have become good at tricking women into having sex by feigning commitment and then deserting. but then natural selection would have favoured those of us who were good at detecting liars \u2013 and the liars would have been eliminated.\n\n## The Myth of the Monogamous Female\n\nSince the male tendency to pursue casual sex has clearly not died out, this must be because ancestral women were not completely monogamous either. The idea that men only want casual sex, while women only want commitment, is not supported by evolutionary psychology.\n\nboth sexes use both long-term and short-term mating strategies.\n\n## Women's Extra-Pair Mating\n\nBut what advantages could _women_ derive from casual sex? If women did not have the option of leaving men holding the baby, why would they have bothered with a short-term mating strategy?\n\none possibiltty is that ancestral women may have used the short-term mating strategy for purposes other than reproduction. for example, ancestral women may have swapped sex for food, much as chimpanzees do today.\n\nAnother possibility is that an ancestral woman who was already in a long-term relationship might have had casual sex with other men and then passed the resulting children off as her partner's.\n\nthis \"cuckold strategy\" gets a woman the best of both worlds...... a diverse mix of genes from her various lovers \u2013 and the resources of her doting partner. he looks just like you!\n\nThis is the female version of the short-term mating strategy.\n\n## What's the Best Strategy?\n\nEven with these potential benefits, however, casual sex was still riskier for ancestral women than for ancestral men. Those women without a long-term partner could still be left holding the baby, and those with a long-term partner ran the risk of being discovered and punished. So natural selection favoured women who were more cautious about having casual sex than men.\n\n... they do not use them to the same extent. even though both sexes use both long-term and short-term mating strategies...\n\nMen are more inclined to pursue the short-term strategy than women because it is less costly and the benefits are potentially much greater to them. A man who has sex with a thousand women can potentially have a thousand children. But a woman can only have a few children in her lifetime, no matter how many men she has sex with.\n\n## Men with Resources\n\nBecause women preferred a long-term mating strategy, men who did not look as if they would be good fathers were less successful in the mating game. So natural selection favoured men who looked as if they would be good fathers. What are the things that make a man a good father? In the world of the stone-age, a key factor in being a good father was being able to provide resources for the child. So females should have evolved preferences for men with the capacity to acquire costly resources. Mae West, the diva of film comedy, summed it up.\n\nwomen like a man with a past, but they prefer a man with a present.\n\n## Testing Mate Preferences\n\nIn the 1980s, an American psychologist called **David Buss** set out to test these evolutionary predictions about mate preferences. If mate preferences have evolved by natural selection, they should be cross-cultural and universal. So Buss and his team carried out interviews with over 10,000 people in 33 countries located on six continents and five islands.\n\nwe found that in **every** country, women valued \"good financial prospects\" in a potential mate more highly than men did. the evolutionary prediction about female preference for men with resources was confirmed.\n\nAs with most studies of differences between men and women, the data obtained by Buss showed a big overlap in the scores of each sex. Nevertheless, the difference between the average of all male values and the average of all female values was often statistically significant. When discussing the differences between men and women, it is important to remember that we are talking about averages of groups, and not individuals. Some men are shorter than some women, but it is still true that men are, on average, taller than women, and that difference needs explaining.\n\n## Attractiveness and Age\n\nBuss's survey also showed that, all over the world, women prefer mates older than they are. This may also be related to the female preference for men with the capacity to acquire resources.\n\nmen tend to get better at acquiring resources as they get older. men, on the other hand, universally prefer younger mates.\n\nThe evolutionary explanation for this is that reproductive success is much more related to age in women than it is in men.\n\n## Age and Reproduction\n\nSperm counts do decline slightly as a man gets older, but a man can still have children when he is eighty. In women, on the other hand, fertility reaches a peak in the early twenties, declines rapidly after the age of thirty, and ceases absolutely at menopause (which probably occurred in the forties during the stone-age, when our diets were less nutritious). So it is much more important for a man to find a young mate.\n\nmen do indeed value signs of youth in women...... much more than women value youth in men.\n\nMen prefer mates who have physical features associated with youth \u2013 such as smooth skin, good muscle tone, lustrous hair, and full lips \u2013 as well as behavioural clues, such as high energy level.\n\n## Fidelity: Sexual and Emotional\n\nwhen looking for a long-term partner, rather than for casual sex, both men and women look for someone who can be faithful. however, men place a higher value on sexual fidelity than women do because the risks are greater.\n\nIf a man has sex with another woman, this poses a threat to his partner because the man might divert some of his resources to the other woman. But if a woman has sex with another man, this poses an even greater threat to _her_ partner because the woman might get pregnant, and her partner might end up investing lots of time and energy in caring for another man's child.\n\n## Male and Female Jealousy\n\nBecause female infidelity is a greater threat to male reproductive success than male infidelity is to female reproductive success, men should have evolved to be more concerned about sexual fidelity than women. This does seem to be the case.\n\nexperiments have shown that when women get jealous, they are more concerned about their partner's affections, for other women. men tend to be more concerned about their partners having sex with someone else.\n\nThis pattern fits the evolutionary theory exactly, which predicts that women should be more concerned about their partner diverting resources away to another person, while men should be more concerned about the possibility of being duped into caring for a child that is not their own.\n\n## Mapping the Mind\n\nThis concludes our survey of some of the modules in the human mind. We have only scratched the surface, however. According to Cosmides and Tooby, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of modules.\n\nthe aim of evolutionary psychology is eventually to understand all of these modules and chart their relationships.\n\nWhen this has been achieved, we will be able to produce a complete map of the human mind. Just as anatomy texbooks contain diagrams of the human body, complete with all the organs and physiological systems, so psychology textbooks will one day contain diagrams of the human mind, complete with all the modules.\n\n## Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology\n\nDespite the fact that evolutionary psychology is based on two of the most successful scientific theories ever developed \u2013 evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology \u2013 it has many critics. In the last part of this book, we shall look at some of these criticisms and show how evolutionary psychologists have responded to them.\n\nThe critics accuse evolutionary psychology of the following three things.\n\n## Pan-adaptationism\n\nAs we have already seen, the concept of adaptation is central to evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology.\n\nan adaptation is a biological trait that is well designed for a particular function. evolutionary psychologists argue that the modules that make up the human mind, just like the organs that make up the human body, are adaptations designed by natural selection to solve particular problems posed by the ancestral environment.\n\n## Side-effects and By-products\n\nNot all biological traits are adaptations, however \u2013 some are just side-effects or by-products of traits that _are_ adaptations. For example, the complex structure of bones is an adaptation that solves the problem of providing a strong but light framework on which soft tissue can be arranged.\n\nbut the white colour of bones serves no function at all. it is simply a side-effect of the fact that bones are made from calcium.\n\n## Not Everything is a Module\n\nThe same point applies to the mind. Mental modules are adaptations, but there are many other mental phenomena that are just by-products of these adaptations. Take reading, for example. The capacity to read was not directly designed by natural selection. Writing was only invented some 5,000 years ago, which is not nearly enough time for natural selection to design a complex adaptation.\n\nthere is no \"reading module\" in the human mind.\n\nThe capacity to read must therefore be a side-effect of various other modules that were designed by natural selection \u2013 such as the modules for vision and language.\n\n## Hypotheses and Confirmations\n\nThis means that evolutionary psychologists must be careful when attempting to map the mind. They must not assume that there is a module for every complex capacity, because some capacities are just side-effects of modules designed for other things.\n\nif they think that some behaviour is caused by a module designed to produce that behaviour, they must devise a way of testing their idea. until they test it, the idea remains just a hypothesis.\n\nThere is nothing wrong with hypotheses, of course. The way scientists discover new things is by inventing new hypotheses and then testing them. If the tests confirm the hypothesis, it becomes part of our scientific knowledge. If the tests refute the hypothesis, it is rejected and the scientists try to come up with alternative hypotheses. This is just good scientific practice.\n\nwhat is **not** good scientific practice is to accept a hypothesis before it has been properly tested.\n\n## Just-So Stories?\n\nSome critics accuse evolutionary psychologists of this scientific sin. The American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, for example, has claimed that evolutionary psychologists are too ready to believe in evolutionary explanations for human behaviours.\n\nevolutionary psychologists accept adaptive hypothesis just because they are good stories, without properly testing them.\n\nGould thinks that this leads evolutionary psychologists to forget that many mental phenomena are just side-effects (which Gould calls \"spandrels\"). The name for this tendency to believe that **everything** is an adaptation is \"pan-adaptationism\".\n\nAre evolutionary psychologists guilty of pan-adaptationism? Do they really forget that many mental phenomena are just side-effects? All the evidence points the opposite way. Evolutionary psychologists are reluctant to call something an adaptation unless there is firm evidence to show that it is. In this, evolutionary psychologists follow the rule of thumb put forward by the American biologist **George Williams** in his 1966 book, _Adaptation and Natural Selection_.\n\nadaptation is a special and onerous concept that should be used only where it is really necessary.\n\nEvolutionary psychologists accept that much of human behaviour today is a side-effect of modules designed for other things. Humans today play computer games, build aeroplanes, and do hundreds of other things that our ancestors did not do.\n\nthe abilities to do these things are not to be explained by postulating modules for computer games and building aeroplanes. these abilities are by-products of modules with other functions.\n\nIn fact, most of the great products of human civilization \u2013 including art, religion and science \u2013 are probably side-effects of modules that were originally designed for other purposes. Perhaps the greatest challenge for evolutionary psychology is to show exactly _how a_ mind that was designed for life in the stone-age is capable of such extraordinary cultural achievements.\n\n## Is Logic a By-product?\n\nA good example of an evolutionary analysis of a cognitive side-effect is provided by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.\n\nmany of our mental capacities for abstract reasoning that permit modern humans to solve complex logical problems...... are by-products of the modules involved in regulating social exchange. what does logic have to do with \"social exchange\"? what's your evidence?\n\nSome evidence to support Cosmides and Tooby's claim comes from the results of a psychological test called the Wason-selection task. See if you can do it on the next page.\n\n## The Wason-selection Task\n\nThere is a pack of cards which have numbers on one side and letters on the other. Four of these cards are placed on the table in front of you as follows:\n\nYou are told that the following rule applies: _If a card has a \"D\" on one side, then it has a \"3\" on the other side._\n\nwhich cards do you need to turn over to find out if this is true?\n\nMost people give the wrong answer when presented with the problem in this way. But when Cosmides and Tooby changed the way the task was presented, most people got the right answer. Their version of the task is on the next page...\n\nYou are the bouncer in a bar. You must make sure that no under-age drinkers drink beer. Each card is a customer; it says the customer's age on one side, and what he or she is drinking on the other side. Now which cards do you have to turn over?\n\nto see if you've figured it out, turn to page 146...\n\n## Cheater-Detection\n\nThe correct answer for both versions of the task is that you have to turn over the first and last cards. Both tests have exactly the same logical form.\n\nso why do people it find easier to get the right answer on the second version? the second version is easier because it is all about detecting cheats.\n\nThe fact that the same logical problem is easy in one context and hard in another suggests that the mind is not a single, general-purpose reasoning device, but rather a collection of special-purpose mechanisms.\n\nCosmides and Tooby did lots of control tests to eliminate other hypotheses. They found that people could only pass the test easily when it was framed in the context of a situation involving cheats.\n\nSo, if our ability to reason deductively evolved specifically to help us detect cheats and police social contracts, then we would expect that it would be easier to use deductive reasoning in the context of cheater-detection than in other contexts.\n\nto put it another way, our capacities for deductive reasoning may belong to a module that evolved specifically for detecting cheats.\n\n## Two Features of Mental Modules\n\nIn order to follow the argument of Cosmides and Tooby, it is necessary to understand two important features of mental modules.\n\n## Modularity Again\n\nTooby and Cosmides claim that among the modules for regulating social exchange, there is a cheater-detection module. Some of the rules for deductive reasoning may be stored in this module. Like all modules, the cheater-detection module is informationally encapsulated, so other modules do not have access to the rule for deductive reasoning.\n\nthe rules can only be accessed by the cheater-detection module. but the cheater-detection module will not be activated unless information is provided in a relevant form.\n\nThe first version of the Wason-selection task provided the information in an abstract form.\n\nso, the cheater-detection was not activated and the innately stored information about deductive reasoning could not be accessed.\n\nIn the second version of the Wason-selection task...\n\nthe information was provided in the form of a concrete social problem involving detecting cheats...\n\n...so the cheater-detection mechanism was activated and the rules for deductive reasoning could be employed.\n\n## Reductionism\n\nAnother accusation often hurled at evolutionary psychology by its critics is that of \"reductionism\". The critics use this word as if it were a term of abuse, but in fact it refers to the basic procedure of all science. Science is all about explaining lots of apparently distinct phenomena in terms of a few underlying principles.\n\nfor example, newton's theory of gravity \"reduces\" the many bizarre movements of the planets and stars to single force. it's all due to one thing \u2013 gravity.\n\n## The Simplest Accurate Theory\n\nThere is nothing wrong with looking for simple theories, of course. What is wrong is pursuing simplicity at the expense of accuracy. Scientists seek _the simplest theory that is accurate_ \u2013 not the simplest theory, full stop. If a scientist simplifies a theory so much that it can no longer explain all the data, that is not good science.\n\nthe american philosopher daniel dennett refers to this mistake as \"greedy reductionism\", to distinguish it from reductionism itself, which is good scientific practice. reductionism is just good science. greedy reductionism is. bad science.\n\nAre evolutionary psychologists guilty of \"greedy reductionism\"? Evolutionary psychologists _are_ reductionists, in the sense that they try to explain apparently distinct phenomena in terms of common principles. They deny being greedy reductionists, because they do not oversimplify the complex phenomena they are dealing with.\n\npsychology can be reduced to one basic principle: the association of ideas. the mind _can_ be understood \u2013 but not just in terms of a _single_ principle. the human mind is too complex to be fully understood.\n\n## Genetic Determinism\n\nSome critics also accuse evolutionary psychologists of promoting \"genetic determinism\". What they mean by this phrase is that evolutionary psychologists place too much importance on genes and not enough on environment. The critics think that this leads evolutionary psychologists to believe that many human behaviours are inevitable and unchangeable.\n\nthe critics argue that this is not only incorrect...... but politically dangerous, because it seems to justify the status quo and discourage efforts to improve society.\n\nThere are three important problems with this line of reasoning. We shall look at each of them in turn. When we have examined them, we will see that the accusation of \"genetic determinism\" is entirely wrongheaded.\n\n## Is Too Much Importance Attached to Genes?\n\nFor hundreds of years, people have argued about whether human behaviour is the result of _nature_ or _nurture._ On the side of nature, people like **Francis Galton** (1822-1911) argued that personality traits and cognitive differences are fixed at birth.\n\ngeniuses and idiots are born, not made. these arguments were rejected by others, who i argued that everyone was born with the same potential. genes aren't everything; the environment matters too.\n\n## Nature vs. Nurture\n\nWith the advent of genetics in the 20th century, these competing theories were rephrased in scientific terms. \"Nature\" was equated with genetic causes and \"nurture\" was equated with environmental causes. But though the terminology changed, the arguments were the same. People continued to approach the debate as if it were an either\/or issue.\n\nthe \"genetic determinists\" argued that human behaviour was entirely genetic. while the \"environmental determinists\" argued that it was entirely caused by environmental factors.\n\n## Behavioural Genetics\n\nIn the 1960s, the science of behavioural genetics began to emerge as a way of testing these competing theories by using innovative methods such as twin-studies and adoption studies. Since then, behavioural geneticists have discovered that most psychological traits are influenced by a combination of both genetic _and_ environmental factors, though the relative importance of each differs from trait to trait.\n\nautism, for example, has been found to be largely genetic. while intelligence is about half genetic and half environmental.\n\n## Human Variation and Human Nature\n\nWhen behavioural geneticists say that intelligence is \"half genetic\", they mean that about half of variation in intelligence scores of the people in a given range of environments can be attributed to genetic differences. But evolutionary psychologists are not really concerned with such individual differences. Unlike behavioural genetics, evolutionary psychology is concerned with the underlying **similarities** in human behaviour.\n\npeople have differently-sized hearts and brains, but they all have hearts and brains. in the same way, people have differently- \"sized\" mental modules, but they all have the same basic mental design.\n\nEvolutionary psychologists are interested in the basic design features of the mind that all humans share \u2013 human nature.\n\nInsofar as evolutionary psychologists say anything about the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in causing individual differences, they accept the results of behavioural genetics. In other words, they accept that most traits are influenced by both genetic and environmental causes. Evolutionary psychologists stress the importance of understanding how genetic and environmental factors interact, and point out that genes often build different minds in response to different environments.\n\nthis is a long way from genetic determinism!\n\n## Are Human Behaviours Inevitable and Unchangeable?\n\nEvolutionary psychologists accept that it is possible to change most human behaviour. Every kind of behaviour results from the way in which our minds interact with our environment, and the mind results from the interaction of the environment with our genes. Different environments will lead the mind to develop differently and change the way in which the mind causes behaviour.\n\nindeed, this **flexibility** is an important part of the way we are designed. natural selection has programmed human development to be contingent on various environmental triggers.\n\nHowever, humans are not infinitely flexible. Changes in the environment still interact with a relatively stable genome and a relatively fixed mental architecture.\n\nif you want to understand how environmental changes will alter the way people behave...... you must understand the way in which the environment interacts with these non-environmental factors. we can't make people fly just by giving them plastic wings.\n\n## Does Evolutionary Psychology Justify the Status Quo?\n\nEvolutionary psychology provides no moral justification for any political programme. Evolutionary psychology is a science, and science is about discovering facts, not about making value-judgements. A statement about the way in which humans _actually_ behave may be true or false, but a claim about how humans _should_ behave is neither true nor false \u2013 it is just a subjective opinion that stands alone.\n\njust because humans do in fact have an evolved tendency to favour relatives over non-relatives does not mean that nepotism is good. evolutionary psychology describes what human nature is like \u2013 it does not prescribe what humans should do.\n\n## The Naturalistic Fallacy\n\nArguing that something is good because it is natural is called the \"naturalistic fallacy\". It is based on the mistaken idea that you can deduce moral lessons from observing nature.\n\ni pointed out that you can't derive any simple \"is\" statement from any simple \"ought\" statement. even if we collected all the facts about the way the world is, we would not be able to **prove** any moral conclusion on the basis of these facts alone. factual claims and value-judgements are different kinds of statements.\n\nThe sciences, including evolutionary psychology, restrict themselves to making factual claims, and leave the business of value-judgements to ethics. Ethical questions cannot be settled by science. Perhaps this is the key to human freedom.\n\n## Mistaken Criticisms and Misunderstandings\n\nThe accusations of \"genetic determinism\" that some critics level at evolutionary psychology are completely unfounded. Evolutionary psychology does not place too much importance on genes.\n\nit does not claim that human behaviours are inevitable or unchangeable, and makes no moral, pronouncements. so why are these criticisms levelled at evolutionary psychology in the first place? why is there so much misunderstanding?\n\n## The Legacy of History\n\nThe answer lies with history. Darwin's ideas about evolution have been distorted by many people in an attempt to justify various political projects, some of which have been truly evil. For example, in Victorian times, **Herbert Spencer** (1820-1903) and other \"social Darwinists\" (as they were known) thought they could find support in Darwin's ideas for their ruthless _laissez-faire_ economic policies.\n\nthis is natural selection. it's the survival of the fittest. that's your phrase, mr spencer, not mine.\n\nIn Germany in the 1930s and 40s, the Nazis looked to Darwin to justify their racist eugenic policies, which culminated in the extermination of millions of Jews during the Second World War.\n\nThe social Darwinists and the Nazi eugenicists claimed that their policies were rooted in Darwinian theory, but this is a gross error. Darwin never claimed that his theories justified social inequality or eugenic policies. However, the mud stuck. After the Second World War, any mention of evolutionary theory in connection with human psychology automatically tended to make people recall the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Today, many people react the same way to evolutionary psychology, even though evolutionary psychologists have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the evils of social Darwinism and Nazi eugenics. The critics of evolutionary psychology may be wrong in accusing it of genetic determinism, but their fears become more understandable in the light of history.\n\n## The Future of Evolutionary Psychology\n\nEvolutionary psychologists have responded to these fears in two ways. On the one hand, they remind the critics that they are only attempting to describe what human nature is like, not to prescribe what humans should do. On the other hand, they argue that the discoveries of evolutionary psychology could be used to inform left-wing policies just as much as, if not more than, right-wing policies. For example, policy-makers who wish to promote a more equal distribution of wealth might take heart from the finding that humans are adapted to live in groups in which inequality is relatively low.\n\ndarwinism is strictly neutral, so there is no reason why its insights into ourselves should not be employed by the left.\n\nEvolutionary psychology is still in its infancy. Even though Darwin's theory of evolution has been around for over a century, it was not until the 1970s that psychologists began to see the relevance of evolutionary theory for understanding the human mind. As with any new science, some of the first studies had serious flaws. But evolutionary psychologists have learned from these mistakes, and more recent studies have been much more sophisticated.\n\n## The Darwinian Revolution\n\nIn the last ten years especially, evolutionary psychology has made great progress. Each year, more and more studies have appeared that confirm evolutionary hypotheses about the human mind. Many commentators have remarked that a new paradigm is being born.\n\nthe standard social science model, which fostered a radical division between the social sciences and the natural sciences, has been discredited. its place is being taken by the darwinian model.\n\nThe Darwinian Model makes more accurate predictions and integrates our knowledge of humans with the rest of our scientific knowledge.\n\n## The Future of Psychology\n\nIn the future, the study of human psychology will be completely transformed by the Darwinian approach. Just as we have learned much about the human body by studying the selective processes that \"designed\" it, so we are learning much about the human mind by studying its evolutionary history. In the words of George Williams...\n\nis it not reasonable to anticipate that our understanding of the human mind would be aided greatly by knowing the purpose for which it was designed? in the future, it won't be called \"evolutionary psychology\". it will just be called \"psychology\".\n\n## Further Reading\n\nTwo very good introductions to evolutionary psychology are recommended.\n\n_How the Mind Works_ , by Steven Pinker (UK: Penguin, 1998; US: Norton, 1997). Over 600 pages, but an easy-to-read introduction by one of the pioneers of evolutionary psychology.\n\n_The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life_ , by Robert Wright (UK: Abacus, 1995; US: Pantheon, 1994). Slightly shorter than Pinker's book and more informal. Illustrates lots of evolutionary psychology with examples from Darwin's life, so you get a potted biography of Darwin too!\n\nFor primary sources, try some of the following pioneering studies in evolutionary psychology.\n\n_Homicide_ , by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson (Aldine de Gruyter, 1988). Reveals the cross-cultural patterns in homicide data and provides a Darwinian explanation.\n\n_The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating_ , by David Buss (UK: HarperCollins, 1994; US: Basic Books, 1994). Examines the different sexual strategies of men and women from an evolutionary perspective. Based on the massive survey that Buss conducted, involving 10,000 people from 33 countries.\n\n_The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture_ , edited by Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (Oxford University Press, 1992). Classic collection of original studies, including the famous study by Cosmides and Tooby about cheater-detection. Style and format are rather academic, but the arguments are compelling.\n\n_Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology_ , edited by Charles Crawford and David Krebs (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997). A more recent collection of original papers. Quite technical. Not for the beginner.\n\nFor some of the basic biological theory underlying evolutionary psychology, you couldn't do better than read the following.\n\n_The Selfish Gene_ , by Richard Dawkins (Oxford University Press, 1989). First published in 1976, this book popularized the discoveries of George Williams, William Hamilton, Robert Trivers and other evolutionary biologists. It remains one of the most important contributions to contemporary Darwinian thinking.\n\n_The Blind Watchmaker_ , also by Richard Dawkins (UK: Penguin, 1988; US: Norton, 1988). Gives a very clear account of how natural selection works and corrects many common misunderstandings.\n\n_The Ant and the Peacock_ , by Helena Cronin (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Describes how evolutionary biologists solved some important puzzles by developing the fascinating theories of kin selection, reciprocal altruism and the theory of sexual selection.\n\nFor information about our human and hominid ancestors, try the following.\n\n_The Day Before Yesterday: Five Million Years of Human History_ , by Colin Tudge (UK: Jonathan Cape, 1995; US: _(The Time Before History)_ Scribner, 1996). A good survey of human evolution by one of the finest contemporary science-writers.\n\n_Humans Before Humanity: An Evolutionary Perspective_ , by Robert Foley (Blackwell, 1997). A more academic look at the palaeontological record.\n\nAnd here are two excellent books on the evolution of language.\n\n_The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind_ , by Steven Pinker (UK: Penguin, 1994; US: William Morrow, 1994). Summarizes the latest developments in linguistics and sets these discoveries in the context of evolutionary theory.\n\n_Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language_ , by Robin Dunbar (UK: Faber, 1996; US: Harvard University Press, 1997). Dunbar explains his theory that language first evolved as a means of swapping social information.\n\nFinally, the _Darwinism Today_ series (edited by Helena Cronin and Oliver Curry, and published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in the UK and Yale University Press in the US) explores new developments in evolutionary psychology in short, highly readable essays.\n\n## Evolutionary Psychology Journals\n\nBooks are always a few years behind the latest research. For the most up-to-date work in any science, you need to consult scholarly journals. Evolutionary psychology is well served in this respect with two journals dedicated exclusively to work in this field: _Evolution and Human Behavior_ (formerly _Ethology and Sociobiology)_ is published bi-monthly by Elsevier Science, and _Human Nature_ is published quarterly by Aldine de Gruyter. Many important papers on evolutionary psychology can also be found in _Behavioral and Brain Sciences_ , which is published quarterly by Cambridge University Press.\n\n## Evolutionary Psychology on the Internet\n\n_the evolutionist_ is a site containing interviews with leading evolutionary thinkers. You can find it on the web at: \n\nYou can also visit the website of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society at: \n\n\n## The Authors\n\n**Dylan Evans** is a research student in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. He is writing his PhD about cognitive science and the emotions.\n\n**Oscar Zarate** has illustrated six other Icon _Introducing_ titles: _Freud, Stephen Hawking, Quantum Theory, Machiavelli, Melanie Klein_ and _Mind & Brain_, as well as _Lenin for Beginners_ and _Mafia for Beginners._ He has also produced many acclaimed graphic novels, including _A Small Killing_ , which won the Will Eisner Prize for the best graphic novel of 1994, and has edited _It's Dark in London_ , a collection of graphic stories, published in 1996.\n\n## Acknowledgements\n\nThe author would like to thank Helena Cronin and Oliver Curry for reading various drafts of the manuscript and providing invaluable constructive criticism. Thanks are also due to Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate for their suggestions and for helping to make the book such fun to write. Last but not least, thanks to all those who supplied photos of themselves and other people for Oscar to work with.\n\nThe artist would like to thank Judy Groves and Joe Rainer for their technical help and extends his gratitude to Miguel Zarate for his valuable support.\n\nOscar dedicates his part of this work to the memory of his mother Antonia.\n\n## Index\n\nadaptations ref 1, ref 2\n\nproblems ref 1\n\n_see also_ pan-adaptationism\n\nAfrica ref 1\n\nage and reproduction ref 1\n\nalliance formation module ref 1\n\naltruism ref 1, ref 2\n\nape ancestors ref 1\n\nappearance ref 1\n\nattractiveness ref 1\n\nautism ref 1, ref 2\n\nAxelrod, Robert ref 1\n\nbeauty, biology of ref 1\n\nbehaviour, human ref 1\n\nbehavioural genetics ref 1\n\nbehaviourism ref 1\n\nbelief ref 1\n\nbiology _see_ evolutionary biology\n\nbody symmetry ref 1\n\nbones ref 1\n\nbrain size, human ref 1\n\ncentral processes ref 1\n\ncheater-detection module ref 1\n\nchimpanzees\n\nbartering with sex ref 1\n\nlanguage ref 1\n\nsocial cooperation ref 1\n\nChomsky, Noam ref 1\n\ncognitive psychology ref 1, ref 2\n\ncooperation ref 1, ref 2\n\nCosmides, Leda ref 1, ref 2\n\nDaly, Martin ref 1\n\nDarwin, Charles ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nDarwinian model ref 1\n\nDawkins, Richard ref 1, ref 2\n\ndeception ref 1\n\ndeduction _see_ Wason-selection test\n\nDennett, Daniel ref 1\n\ndesire ref 1\n\nDNA ref 1\n\nDunbar, Robin ref 1\n\nenvironment\n\ninfluence ref 1\n\nsocial ref 1, ref 2\n\nenvironments ref 1\n\nethics ref 1\n\nevolution, theory of ref 1\n\nevolutionary\n\nbiology ref 1\n\npsychology\n\ncriticisms of ref 1\n\ndefined ref 1\n\nfuture of ref 1\n\nextra-pair mating, female ref 1\n\neye, evolution of ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nface-recognition module ref 1\n\nfaculty psychology ref 1, ref 2\n\nfalse-belief test ref 1\n\nfat, eating ref 1\n\nfavours ref 1\n\nfear ref 1\n\nfemale mating strategies ref 1\n\nfertility, indication of ref 1\n\nfidelity ref 1\n\nFodor, Jerry ref 1, ref 2\n\nfolk psychology ref 1\n\nfood preference module ref 1\n\nfree-rider problem ref 1\n\nFreud, Sigmund ref 1\n\nGall, Franz Joseph ref 1\n\nGalton, Francis ref 1\n\nGangestad, Steve ref 1\n\ngenerosity ref 1\n\ngenes ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\ngenetic determinism ref 1\n\nand reproduction ref 1\n\nGod ref 1, ref 2\n\nGould, Stephen Jay ref 1\n\ngreedy reductionism ref 1\n\ngroup living ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nHamilton, William ref 1\n\nheredity ref 1, ref 2\n\nhumans, first ref 1\n\nHume, David ref 1, ref 2\n\nintelligence ref 1\n\nsocial ref 1\n\njealousy ref 1\n\nkin-recognition module ref 1\n\nlanguage learning ref 1, ref 2\n\nLinnaeus, Carolus ref 1\n\nlogic ref 1\n\nlong-term mating strategy ref 1\n\nlying ref 1\n\nMachiavelli, Niccol\u00f2 ref 1\n\nmale\n\nmating strategies ref 1\n\npreferences, testing ref 1\n\nMarr, David ref 1\n\nmassive modularity ref 1\n\nmate, selecting\n\nappearance ref 1\n\ncommitment ref 1\n\ndifferences, sexes ref 1\n\nfertility ref 1\n\ngenes ref 1\n\nparental care ref 1\n\nmating preferences ref 1, ref 2\n\nstrategies ref 1\n\nmemory ref 1\n\nmind, the ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nas a computer ref 1\n\nmap of ref 1, ref 2\n\nreading ref 1\n\ntestable hypotheses ref 1\n\nmodules ref 1, ref 2\n\nalliance formation ref 1\n\ncheater-detection ref 1\n\nevolving ref 1\n\nface-recognition ref 1\n\nfood preference ref 1\n\nkin-recognition ref 1\n\nmate-selection ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4\n\npredator-avoidance ref 1\n\nresource-allocation ref 1\n\nshared ref 1\n\nside effects ref 1\n\nsocial accounting ref 1\n\nunique ref 1\n\n_Modularity of Mind, The_ ref 1\n\nmonogamy, female ref 1\n\nmutation ref 1, ref 2, ref 3\n\nnatural selection ref 1, ref 2\n\n_Natural Theology_ ref 1\n\nnature vs. nurture ref 1\n\nNazis, the ref 1\n\nnepotism ref 1\n\nnon-reciprocal altruism ref 1\n\n_Origin of Species, The_ ref 1\n\nPaley, William ref 1\n\npan-adaptationism ref 1\n\nparent-offspring conflict ref 1\n\nparenting ref 1, ref 2\n\npartner, long-term _see_ long-term mating strategy phobias ref 1\n\npoison, avoidance ref 1\n\npredator-avoidance module ref 1\n\nprimates, group living ref 1\n\nprimitive man ref 1\n\npsychology ref 1\n\ncognitive ref 1, ref 2\n\nfaculty ref 1, ref 2\n\npunishment\/reward ref 1\n\nreading capability ref 1\n\nreciprocal altruism ref 1,ref 2\n\nreductionism ref 1\n\nreproduction ref 1\n\nreputation ref 1\n\nresource-allocation module ref 1\n\nresources for offspring ref 1\n\nrelatedness ref 1\n\nreward\/punishment ref 1\n\nSally-Ann test ref 1\n\n_Selfish Gene, The_ ref 1\n\nsex\n\nbartering with ref 1\n\ndifferences, humans ref 1\n\nsexes, battle of ref 1\n\nshort-term mating strategy ref 1\n\nSingh, Devendra ref 1\n\nSkinner, B.F. ref 1\n\nsocial accounting module ref 1\n\nspecies, new ref 1\n\nSpencer, Herbert ref 1\n\nstep-parents ref 1\n\nsugar, nutritional value ref 1\n\nTheory of Mind ref 1\n\nThornhill, Randy ref 1\n\ntit-for-tat ref 1\n\nTooby, John ref 1, ref 2\n\nTrivers, Robert ref 1\n\ntrust ref 1\n\nTuring, Alan ref 1\n\nuniversal grammar ref 1\n\nvision ref 1, ref 2\n\n_see also_ eye, evolution of\n\nWason-selection test ref 1\n\nWatson, J.B. ref 1\n\nweaning ref 1\n\nWilliams, George ref 1, ref 2\n\nWilson, Margo ref 1\n\nWright, Sewall ref 1\n**Many Introducing Graphic Guides are now available in ebook format \u2013 including the titles below. Check in at introducingbooks.com\/ebooks\/ to keep up to date with more titles as they are published in ebook format.**\n\n**9781848319769 \u2013 Introducing Sartre**\n\n**9781848319783 \u2013 Introducing Machiavelli**\n\n**9781848319790 \u2013 Introducing Hegel**\n\n**9781848319806 \u2013 Introducing Philosophy of Science**\n\n**9781848319813 \u2013 Introducing Marx**\n\n**9781848319820 \u2013 Introducing Newton**\n\n**9781848319837 \u2013 Introducing Existentialism**\n\n**9781848319844 \u2013 Introducing Baudrillard**\n\n**9781848319851 \u2013 Introducing Descartes**\n\n**9781848319868 \u2013 Introducing Aristotle**\n\n**9781848318564 \u2013 Introducing Jung**\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \nILAN PAPPE\n\nDie ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas\n\n_Aus dem Englischen von Ulrike Bischoff_\n\nDie englische Originalausgabe ist 2006 unter dem Titel \n\u00bbThe Ethic Cleansing of Palestine\u00ab erschienen. \nPublished by arrangement with Oneworld Publications, Oxford. \nCopyright \u00a9 2006 by Ilan Pappe.\n\nAbbildungsnachweise: Umschlagfoto Copyright \u00a9 Foto Ullstein; \nSeiten 376 f., 380, 381 oben, 384 ff. \u00a9 United Nations Relief an Works Agency \n(UNRWA); S. 382 f. sowie die Karten S. 389 f., 393 Institute of Palestine Studies, Beirut, \naus: W. Khalidi (Hg.), All That Remains; S. 374 oben, 381 unten \u00a9 Bettmann\/Corbis; \nS. 372 \u00a9 Hultman-Deutsch Collection\/Corbis; S. 375 \u00a9 Getty Images; \nS. 378 \u00a9 New York Times.\n\nAlle Rechte f\u00fcr die deutsche Ausgabe und \u00dcbersetzung \n\u00a9 2014 Haffmans _&_ Tolkemitt GmbH, \nInselstra\u00dfe 12, D-10179 Berlin. \nwww.haffmans-tolkemitt.de\n\nAlle Rechte vorbehalten, insbesondere das Recht der mechanischen, \nelektronischen oder fotografischen Vervielf\u00e4ltigung, der Einspeicherung \nund Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen, des Nachdrucks in \nZeitschriften oder Zeitungen, des \u00f6ffentlichen Vortrags, der Verfilmung \noder Dramatisierung der \u00dcbertragung durch Rundfunk, \nFernsehen oder Internet, auch einzelner Text- und Bildteile, \nsowie der \u00dcbersetzung in andere Sprachen.\n\nLektorat und Register der deutschen Ausgabe: \nEkkehard Kunze (B\u00fcro W, Wiesbaden). \nKorrektorat: Ursula Maria Ott, Frankfurt. \nUmschlaggestaltung: Studio Ingeborg Schindler, Frankfurt\/Berlin. \nSatz: Dieter Kohler GmbH, Wallenstein \nE-Book Konvertierung von Calidad Software Services, Puducherry, Indien\n\nISBN: 978-3-942989-86-2 \nE-Book ISBN: 978-3-942989-87-9\n**Inhalt**\n\nVorwort\n\nDas Rote Haus\n\n1. Eine \u00bbangebliche\u00ab ethnische S\u00e4uberung?\n\nDefinitionen ethnischer S\u00e4uberung\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung als Verbrechen\n\nRekonstruktion einer ethnischen S\u00e4uberung\n\n2. Das Streben nach einem ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdischen Staat\n\nDie ideologische Motivation des Zionismus\n\nMilit\u00e4rische Vorbereitungen\n\nDie Dorfdossiers\n\nFrontstellung gegen die Briten: 1945 bis 1947\n\nBen Gurion: Der Architekt\n\n3. Teilung und Zerst\u00f6rung: Die UN-Resolution 181 und ihre Folgen\n\nDie Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas\n\nDer UN-Teilungsplan\n\nDie arabische und pal\u00e4stinensische Position\n\nDie j\u00fcdische Reaktion\n\nDie Beratergruppe nimmt die Arbeit auf\n\n4. Aufstellen eines Masterplans\n\nDie Methoden der S\u00e4uberung\n\n[Der Stimmungsumschwung in der Beratergruppe: \nVon Vergeltung zu Einsch\u00fcchterung](09_chapter04.html#ch4_2)\n\nDezember 1947: Erste Aktionen\n\nJanuar 1948: Abschied vom Vergeltungsgedanken\n\nDie lange Tagung: 31. Dezember bis 2. Januar\n\nFebruar 1948: \u00bbShock and Awe\u00ab\n\nM\u00e4rz 1948: Letzte Abstimmungen der Blaupause\n\n5. Die Blaupause der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung: Plan Dalet\n\nOperation Nachshon: Die erste Plan-Dalet-Operation\n\nDer Urbizid in Pal\u00e4stina\n\nWeitere ethnische S\u00e4uberungen\n\nEiner \u00fcberlegenen Macht erlegen\n\nArabische Reaktionen\n\nAuf dem Weg zum \u00bbrealen Krieg\u00ab\n\n6. Der Scheinkrieg und der reale Krieg um Pal\u00e4stina: Mai 1948\n\n_Tihur-_ Zeit\n\nDas Massaker in Tantura\n\nDie blutige Spur der Brigaden\n\nRachefeldz\u00fcge\n\n7. Die Eskalation der S\u00e4uberungsaktionen: Juni bis September 1948\n\nDie erste Waffenruhe\n\nOperation Palme\n\nZwischen den Waffenruhen\n\nDie Waffenruhe, die keine war\n\n[8. Abschluss der S\u00e4uberungen: Oktober 1948 \nbis Januar 1949](13_chapter08.html)\n\nOperation Hiram\n\nIsraels Antirepatriierungspolitik\n\nEin Kleinimperium im Werden\n\nLetzte S\u00e4uberungen im S\u00fcden und Osten\n\nDas Massaker in Dawaymeh\n\n9. Die Besatzung und ihr h\u00e4ssliches Gesicht\n\nUnmenschliche Haftbedingungen\n\nMisshandlungen w\u00e4hrend der Besatzung\n\nTeilen der Beute\n\nEntweihung heiliger St\u00e4tten\n\nZementierung der Besatzung\n\n10. Der Memorizid an der Nakba\n\nDie Neuerfindung Pal\u00e4stinas\n\nPraktischer Kolonialismus und der JNF\n\nDie JNF-Erholungsgebiete in Israel\n\n11. Die Leugnung der Nakba und der \u00bbFriedensprozess\u00ab\n\nErste Friedensbem\u00fchungen\n\nAusschluss der Ereignisse von 1948 aus dem Friedensprozess\n\nDas R\u00fcckkehrrecht\n\n12. Festung Israel\n\nDas \u00bbdemografische Problem\u00ab\n\nEpilog\n\nDas Gr\u00fcne Haus\n\nAnmerkungen\n\nBibliografie\n\nAnhang\n\nZeittafel\n\nHistorisches Bildmaterial\n\nKarten und Tabellen\n\nRegister\n\nDank\n\n\u00dcber den Autor\nVorwort\n\nDas Rote Haus\n\n_Wir betrauern nicht den Abschied Wir haben keine Zeit f\u00fcr Tr\u00e4nen Wir begreifen nicht den Moment des Abschieds Aber es ist der Abschied Und uns bleiben nur die Tr\u00e4nen_\n\nMuhammad Ali Taha (1988), \nFl\u00fcchtling aus Saffuriyya\n\n_\u00bbIch bin f\u00fcr Zwangsumsiedlung; darin sehe ich nichts Unmoralisches.\u00ab_\n\nDavid Ben Gurion an die Exekutive \nder Jewish Agency, Juni 1938\n\nDas \u00bbRote Haus\u00ab, ein typischer Bau aus den Gr\u00fcnderjahren Tel Avivs, war der ganze Stolz der j\u00fcdischen Bauarbeiter und Handwerker, die es in den 1920er Jahren als Hauptsitz des \u00f6rtlichen Arbeiterverbandes errichteten. Diese Funktion behielt es bis Ende 1947, als die Hagana, die gr\u00f6\u00dfte zionistische Untergrundmiliz in Pal\u00e4stina, es zu ihrem Hauptquartier machte. Es stand in K\u00fcstenn\u00e4he an der Yarkon Street im Norden Tel Avivs und bildete eine sch\u00f6ne Erg\u00e4nzung f\u00fcr die erste \u00bbhebr\u00e4ische\u00ab Stadt am Mittelmeer, die \u00bbWei\u00dfe Stadt\u00ab, wie Literaten und Intellektuelle sie liebevoll nannten. Denn im Unterschied zu heute tauchte damals das makellose Wei\u00df der H\u00e4user die ganze Stadt noch in das opulente Licht, das so typisch war f\u00fcr mediterrane Hafenst\u00e4dte dieser Region in jener Zeit. Die elegante Verbindung von Bauhausmotiven mit heimischer pal\u00e4stinensischer Architektur zu einer Mischung, die man im positivsten Sinne als levantinisch bezeichnete, machte die Stadt zu einer wahren Augenweide. Und das galt auch f\u00fcr das \u00bbRote Haus\u00ab mit seinen schlichten kubischen Formen und den Rundb\u00f6gen, die den Eingang rahmten und die Balkons in den beiden Obergeschossen trugen. Zu seinem Namen kam das Haus entweder, weil die Verbindung zur Arbeiterbewegung das Attribut \u00bbrot\u00ab nahelegte oder weil es bei Sonnenuntergang eine r\u00f6tliche F\u00e4rbung annahm. Die erste Erkl\u00e4rung war passender, da das Geb\u00e4ude auch sp\u00e4ter noch mit der zionistischen Sozialismusvariante assoziiert wurde, als die israelische Kibbuzbewegung in den 1970er Jahren hier ihren Hauptsitz hatte. H\u00e4user wie dieses waren bedeutende historische Denkm\u00e4ler der Mandatszeit und veranlassten die UNESCO 2003, Tel Aviv in die Liste des Weltkulturerbes aufzunehmen.\n\nDas Rote Haus existiert heute nicht mehr: Das architektonische Relikt fiel dem Bauboom zum Opfer und wurde abgerissen, um Platz f\u00fcr ein Parkhaus neben dem neuen Sheraton Hotel zu schaffen. So ist auch in dieser Stra\u00dfe keine Spur mehr von der \u00bbWei\u00dfen Stadt\u00ab zu finden, die sich nach und nach in das moderne Tel Aviv verwandelt hat: eine ausufernde, verpestete, extravagante Metropole.\n\nIn diesem Geb\u00e4ude sa\u00dfen am 10. M\u00e4rz 1948, einem kalten Mittwochnachmittag, elf M\u00e4nner zusammen \u2013 altgediente zionistische F\u00fchrer und junge j\u00fcdische Offiziere \u2013 und legten letzte Hand an einen Plan f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas. Noch am selben Abend ergingen milit\u00e4rische Befehle an die Einheiten vor Ort, die systematische Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser aus weiten Teilen des Landes vorzubereiten. Die Befehle gaben detailliert die Einsatzmethoden zur Zwangsr\u00e4umung vor: gro\u00df angelegte Einsch\u00fcchterungen; Belagerung und Beschuss von D\u00f6rfern und Wohngebieten; Niederbrennen der H\u00e4user mit allem Hab und Gut; Vertreibung; Abriss und schlie\u00dflich Verminung der Tr\u00fcmmer, um eine R\u00fcckkehr der vertriebenen Bewohner zu verhindern. Jede Einheit erhielt eine Liste mit D\u00f6rfern und Stadtvierteln, den Zielen dieses Masterplans. Er trug den Codenamen Plan D ( _Dalet_ in Hebr\u00e4isch) und war die vierte und endg\u00fcltige Version vorausgegangener Planungen f\u00fcr das Schicksal, das die Zionisten f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina und seine heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung vorsahen. Die ersten drei Pl\u00e4ne hatten nur vage umrissen, wie die zionistische F\u00fchrung mit der Anwesenheit so vieler Pal\u00e4stinenser in dem Land, das die j\u00fcdische Nationalbewegung f\u00fcr sich haben wollte, umzugehen gedachte. Diese vierte und letzte Blaupause sprach es klar und deutlich aus: Die Pal\u00e4stinenser mussten raus. Als einer der ersten Historiker erkannte Simcha Flapan die Bedeutung dieses Plans; er schrieb: \u00bbDas milit\u00e4rische Vorgehen gegen die Araber einschlie\u00dflich der \u203aEroberung und Zerst\u00f6rung l\u00e4ndlicher Gebiete\u2039 war Teil des ... \u203aPlans Dalet\u2039 der Hagana.\u00ab Ziel des Plans war tats\u00e4chlich die Zerst\u00f6rung l\u00e4ndlicher wie auch st\u00e4dtischer Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nWie die ersten Kapitel dieses Buches zu zeigen versuchen, war dieser Plan einerseits das zwangsl\u00e4ufige Ergebnis der ideologischen zionistischen Bestrebung, in Pal\u00e4stina eine ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdische Bev\u00f6lkerung zu haben, und andererseits eine Reaktion auf Entwicklungen vor Ort, nachdem die britische Regierung beschlossen hatte, das Mandat zu beenden. Zusammenst\u00f6\u00dfe mit pal\u00e4stinensischen Milizen boten einen perfekten Kontext und Vorwand, die ideologische Vision eines ethnisch ges\u00e4uberten Pal\u00e4stina umzusetzen. Die zionistische Politik zielte zun\u00e4chst auf Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge f\u00fcr pal\u00e4stinensische Angriffe im Februar 1947 und m\u00fcndete im M\u00e4rz 1948 in eine Initiative, das ganze Land ethnisch zu s\u00e4ubern.\n\nNachdem die Entscheidung gefallen war, dauerte es sechs Monate, den Befehl auszuf\u00fchren. Als es vorbei war, waren mehr als die H\u00e4lfte der urspr\u00fcnglichen Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas, ann\u00e4hernd 800000 Menschen, entwurzelt, 531 D\u00f6rfer zerst\u00f6rt und elf Stadtteile entv\u00f6lkert. Der am 10. M\u00e4rz 1948 beschlossene Plan und vor allem seine systematische Umsetzung in den folgenden Monaten war eindeutig ein Fall ethnischer S\u00e4uberung, die nach heutigem V\u00f6lkerrecht als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit gilt.\n\nNach dem Holocaust ist es fast unm\u00f6glich geworden, Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit zu vertuschen. Unsere moderne, von Kommunikation gest\u00fctzte Welt l\u00e4sst es besonders seit dem Aufkommen elektronischer Medien nicht mehr zu, von Menschen verschuldete Katastrophen vor der \u00d6ffentlichkeit zu verbergen oder zu leugnen. Und dennoch ist ein solches Verbrechen fast vollst\u00e4ndig aus dem weltweiten \u00f6ffentlichen Ged\u00e4chtnis gel\u00f6scht worden: n\u00e4mlich die Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser durch Israel 1948.\n\nDieses h\u00f6chst pr\u00e4gende Ereignis in der modernen Geschichte des Landes Pal\u00e4stina wurde seit damals systematisch geleugnet und ist bis heute nicht als historische Tatsache, geschweige denn als ein Verbrechen anerkannt, dem man sich politisch wie moralisch zu stellen hat.\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung ist ein Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit, und die Menschen, die es begehen, gelten heute als Verbrecher, die es vor spezielle Tribunale zu bringen gilt. Es mag schwer zu entscheiden sein, wie man diejenigen, die 1948 in Pal\u00e4stina die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen in die Wege leiteten und durchf\u00fchrten, bezeichnen soll oder wie juristisch mit ihnen zu verfahren sei. Aber man kann durchaus ihre Verbrechen rekonstruieren und zu einer zutreffenderen geschichtlichen Darstellung als bisher und auch zu einer moralischen Einstellung von gr\u00f6\u00dferer Integrit\u00e4t gelangen.\n\nWir kennen die Namen derer, die in jenem Raum im obersten Stock des Roten Hauses sa\u00dfen, umgeben von marxistischen Postern mit Parolen wie \u00bbWaffenbr\u00fcder\u00ab und \u00bbDie st\u00e4hlerne Faust\u00ab und darauf abgebildeten \u00bbneuen\u00ab \u2013 muskul\u00f6sen, gesunden, sonnengebr\u00e4unten \u2013 Juden, die hinter Verteidigungsstellungen ihre Gewehre im \u00bbtapferen Kampf\u00ab gegen \u00bbfeindliche arabische Invasoren\u00ab richteten. Wir kennen auch die Namen der Offiziere, die die Befehle an Ort und Stelle ausf\u00fchrten. Alle sind bekannte Pers\u00f6nlichkeiten im Pantheon israelischer Helden. Vor nicht allzu langer Zeit lebten viele von ihnen noch und spielten eine wichtige Rolle in Israels Politik und Gesellschaft; mittlerweile sind nur noch sehr wenige von ihnen unter uns.\n\nPal\u00e4stinensern und allen, die sich weigerten, die zionistische Darstellung zu \u00fcbernehmen, war schon lange, bevor dieses Buch geschrieben wurde, klar, dass diese Leute Verbrechen begangen hatten, aber der Justiz erfolgreich entgangen waren und wahrscheinlich nie f\u00fcr ihre Taten vor einem Gericht zur Rechenschaft gezogen w\u00fcrden. Abgesehen von dem erlittenen Trauma war es f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stinenser zutiefst frustrierend, dass das verbrecherische Tun, f\u00fcr das diese M\u00e4nner verantwortlich waren, seit 1948 so gr\u00fcndlich geleugnet und das Leid der Pal\u00e4stinenser so vollst\u00e4ndig ignoriert wurde.\n\nVor etwa drei\u00dfig Jahren begannen die Opfer der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung das historische Bild, das die offizielle israelische Darstellung von der Zeit von 1948 mit allen Mitteln vertuscht oder verdreht hatte, wieder zu rekonstruieren. Das M\u00e4rchen, das die israelische Geschichtsschreibung erfunden hatte, sprach von massivem \u00bbfreiwilligem Transfer\u00ab Hunderttausender Pal\u00e4stinenser, die sich entschlossen h\u00e4tten, vor\u00fcbergehend ihre H\u00e4user und D\u00f6rfer zu verlassen, um den vordringenden arabischen Truppen Platz zu machen, die den jungen j\u00fcdischen Staat vernichten wollten. In den 1970er Jahren sammelten pal\u00e4stinensische Historiker, namentlich Walid Khalidi, authentische Erinnerungen und Dokumente \u00fcber das, was ihrem Volk zugesto\u00dfen war, und konnten so einen betr\u00e4chtlichen Teil des Bildes wiederherstellen, das Israel auszul\u00f6schen versucht hatte. Sehr schnell wurden sie jedoch \u00fcbert\u00f6nt von Publikationen wie Dan Kurzmans _Genesis 1948_ , das 1970 erschien und 1992 neu aufgelegt wurde (dieses Mal mit einer Einleitung von einem Mann, der an der Ausf\u00fchrung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas beteiligt war, Yitzhak Rabin, zu dieser Zeit Ministerpr\u00e4sident Israels). Es gab jedoch auch manche, die die pal\u00e4stinensischen Bem\u00fchungen unterst\u00fctzten. So erh\u00e4rtete Michael Palumbo in seinem Buch _The Palestinian Catastrophe_ (1987) die pal\u00e4stinensische Version der Ereignisse von 1948 anhand von UN-Dokumenten und Interviews mit pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlingen und Exilanten, deren Erinnerungen an das, was sie w\u00e4hrend der Nakba durchgemacht hatten, noch erschreckend lebendig war.\n\nIm Ringen um die Erinnerung in Pal\u00e4stina h\u00e4tte es zu einem politischen Durchbruch kommen k\u00f6nnen, als in den 1980er Jahren die \u00bbneue Geschichte\u00ab in Israel aufkam. Eine kleine Gruppe israelischer Historiker versuchte damals die zionistische Darstellung des Krieges von 1948 zu revidieren. Ich war einer von ihnen. Aber wir, die neuen Historiker, leisteten nie einen signifikanten Beitrag zum Kampf gegen die Leugnung der Nakba, da wir die Frage der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung umgingen und uns auf Details konzentrierten, wie es f\u00fcr diplomatische Historiker typisch ist. Dennoch gelang es den revisionistischen israelischen Historikern \u2013 in erster Linie anhand von israelischen Milit\u00e4rarchiven \u2013 zu zeigen, wie falsch und absurd die israelische Behauptung war, die Pal\u00e4stinenser h\u00e4tten das Land \u00bbaus freien St\u00fccken\u00ab verlassen. Sie konnten viele F\u00e4lle massiver Vertreibungen aus D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten nachweisen und enth\u00fcllen, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen eine betr\u00e4chtliche Zahl von Gr\u00e4ueltaten bis hin zu Massakern begangen hatten.\n\nEine der bekanntesten Pers\u00f6nlichkeiten, die \u00fcber dieses Thema schrieb, war der israelische Historiker Benny Morris. Da er sich ausschlie\u00dflich auf Dokumente aus israelischen Milit\u00e4rarchiven st\u00fctzte, gelangte Morris zu einem sehr einseitigen Bild des Geschehens vor Ort. Manchen seiner israelischen Leser gen\u00fcgte es jedoch, um zu erkennen, dass die \u00bbfreiwillige Flucht\u00ab der Pal\u00e4stinenser ein Mythos war und das israelische Selbstbild, 1948 einen \u00bbmoralischen\u00ab Krieg gegen eine \u00bbprimitive\u00ab und feindselige arabische Welt gef\u00fchrt zu haben, voller Fehler und m\u00f6glicherweise eine komplette F\u00e4lschung war.\n\nMorris' Bild war einseitig, weil er die israelischen Milit\u00e4rberichte, die er in den Archiven fand, f\u00fcr bare M\u00fcnze nahm. So konnte er von Juden begangene Gr\u00e4ueltaten ignorieren, wie das Vergiften der Wasserversorgung von Akko (Acre) mit Typhus, zahlreiche F\u00e4lle von Vergewaltigung und Dutzende Massaker. Au\u00dferdem beharrte er \u2013 zu Unrecht \u2013 darauf, dass es vor dem 15. Mai 1948 keine Zwangsr\u00e4umungen gegeben habe. Pal\u00e4stinensische Quellen belegen eindeutig, dass es den j\u00fcdischen Truppen schon Monate vor dem Einmarsch arabischer Truppen in Pal\u00e4stina, w\u00e4hrend die Briten noch f\u00fcr Recht und Ordnung im Land zust\u00e4ndig waren \u2013 n\u00e4mlich vor dem 15. Mai \u2013, gelungen war, nahezu eine Viertelmillion Pal\u00e4stinenser zwangsweise zu vertreiben. H\u00e4tten Morris und andere Historiker auch arabische Quellen verwendet oder m\u00fcndlich \u00fcberlieferte Geschichte hinzugezogen, w\u00e4ren sie vielleicht besser in der Lage gewesen, die systematische Planung zu erkennen, die hinter der Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser 1948 stand, und eine wahrheitsgetreuere Darstellung der ungeheuren Verbrechen zu geben, die die israelischen Soldaten begangen haben.\n\nDamals wie heute besteht eine historische und politische Notwendigkeit, \u00fcber solche Darstellungen, wie sie bei Morris zu finden sind, hinauszugehen, und zwar nicht nur, um das Bild (um die andere H\u00e4lfte) zu vervollst\u00e4ndigen, sondern auch \u2013 was weitaus wichtiger ist \u2013, weil es f\u00fcr uns keinen anderen Weg gibt, die Wurzeln des gegenw\u00e4rtigen israelisch-pal\u00e4stinensischen Konflikts umfassend zu verstehen. Vor allem aber besteht selbstverst\u00e4ndlich ein moralischer Imperativ, den Kampf gegen die Leugnung dieser Verbrechen weiterzuf\u00fchren. Diese Bestrebungen wurden bereits von anderen begonnen. Das bedeutendste Werk \u2013 was angesichts seiner vorherigen betr\u00e4chtlichen Beitr\u00e4ge zum Kampf gegen die Leugnung durchaus zu erwarten war \u2013 ist Walid Khalidis bahnbrechendes Buch _All That Remains_. Dieser Almanach der zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer ist nach wie vor unverzichtbar f\u00fcr jeden, der die ungeheuren Ausma\u00dfe der Katastrophe von 1948 begreifen m\u00f6chte.\n\nEigentlich h\u00e4tte die bereits aufgedeckte Geschichte dazu f\u00fchren m\u00fcssen, dass man sich beunruhigende Fragen stellt. Doch die Darstellung der \u00bbneuen Geschichte\u00ab und die j\u00fcngeren Beitr\u00e4ge pal\u00e4stinensischer Geschichtsforschung drangen nicht in den \u00f6ffentlichen Bereich moralischen Bewusstseins und Handelns vor. In diesem Buch m\u00f6chte ich sowohl die Mechanismen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung von 1948 als auch das kognitive System untersuchen, das es der Welt und den T\u00e4tern erm\u00f6glichte, die von der zionistischen Bewegung 1948 am pal\u00e4stinensischen Volk begangenen Verbrechen zu vergessen beziehungsweise zu leugnen.\n\nMit anderen Worten: Ich m\u00f6chte das Paradigma ethnischer S\u00e4uberung etablieren und anstelle des Kriegsparadigmas zur Basis der wissenschaftlichen Forschung und \u00f6ffentlichen Debatte \u00fcber die Ereignisse von 1948 machen. F\u00fcr mich steht au\u00dfer Zweifel, dass das bisherige Fehlen des Paradigmas ethnischer S\u00e4uberung mit ein Grund ist, weshalb die Katastrophe so lange geleugnet werden konnte. Als die zionistische Bewegung ihren Nationalstaat gr\u00fcndete, war es keineswegs so, dass sie einen Krieg f\u00fchrte, der \u00bbtragischerweise, aber unvermeidbar\u00ab zur Vertreibung eines \u00bbTeils\u00ab der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung f\u00fchrte; vielmehr war es umgekehrt: Hauptziel war die ethnische S\u00e4uberung ganz Pal\u00e4stinas, das die Bewegung f\u00fcr ihren neuen Staat haben wollte. Einige Wochen, nachdem die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen begonnen hatten, schickten die benachbarten arabischen Staaten eine kleine Armee \u2013 klein, gemessen an ihrer gesamten milit\u00e4rischen St\u00e4rke \u2013 und versuchten vergeblich, die ethnische S\u00e4uberung zu verhindern. Bis sie im Herbst 1948 erfolgreich abgeschlossen war, brachte der Krieg mit den regul\u00e4ren arabischen Truppen die ethnische S\u00e4uberung nicht zum Stillstand.\n\nManchen mag diese Herangehensweise \u2013 das Paradigma ethnischer S\u00e4uberung a priori als Basis f\u00fcr die Darstellung der Ereignisse von 1948 zu nehmen \u2013 vom Ansatz her als Anklage erscheinen. In mancherlei Hinsicht ist es tats\u00e4chlich mein eigenes _J'accuse!_ gegen die Politiker, die die ethnische S\u00e4uberung planten, und gegen die Gener\u00e4le, die sie durchf\u00fchrten. Aber wenn ich ihre Namen nenne, so tue ich es nicht, weil ich sie posthum vor Gericht gestellt sehen m\u00f6chte, sondern um T\u00e4tern wie Opfern ein Gesicht zu verleihen: Ich m\u00f6chte verhindern, dass die Verbrechen, die Israel begangen hat, auf so schwer fassbare Faktoren geschoben werden wie \u00bbdie Umst\u00e4nde\u00ab, \u00bbdie Armee\u00ab oder, wie Morris sagt, \u00bb _\u00e0 la guerre comme \u00e0 la guerre\u00ab_ und \u00e4hnlich vage Verweise, die souver\u00e4ne Staaten aus der Verantwortung entlassen und Individuen straflos davonkommen lassen. Ich klage an, aber ich bin auch Teil der Gesellschaft, die in diesem Buch verurteilt wird. Ich f\u00fchle mich sowohl verantwortlich f\u00fcr als auch beteiligt an der Geschichte und bin ebenso wie andere in meiner Gesellschaft \u00fcberzeugt \u2013 wie der Schluss dieses Buches zeigt \u2013, dass eine derart schmerzhafte Reise in die Vergangenheit der einzige Weg nach vorn ist, wenn wir eine bessere Zukunft f\u00fcr uns alle, Pal\u00e4stinenser wie Israelis, schaffen wollen. Darum geht es in diesem Buch.\n\nSoviel ich wei\u00df, hat bisher noch niemand einen solchen Ansatz versucht. Die beiden offiziellen historischen Darstellungen, die um das Geschehen 1948 in Pal\u00e4stina konkurrieren, ignorieren beide den Begriff der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung. Die Version der Zionisten\/Israelis behauptet, die lokale Bev\u00f6lkerung sei \u00bbfreiwillig\u00ab gegangen, und die Pal\u00e4stinenser sprechen von der \u00bbKatastrophe\u00ab, der Nakba, die sie ereilt habe, was in gewisser Weise auch ein ausweichender Begriff ist, da er sich mehr auf das Ungl\u00fcck an sich als darauf bezieht, wer oder was es verursacht hat. Der Begriff Nakba wurde aus verst\u00e4ndlichen Gr\u00fcnden in dem Versuch gew\u00e4hlt, dem moralischen Gewicht des Holocaust an den Juden (Shoa) etwas entgegenzusetzen, aber da er die T\u00e4ter ausspart, mag er in gewisser Weise dazu beigetragen haben, dass die Welt die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas 1948 und danach fortw\u00e4hrend leugnete.\n\nDieses Buch beginnt mit einer Definition ethnischer S\u00e4uberung, die, wie ich hoffe, transparent genug ist, um f\u00fcr alle annehmbar zu sein, eine Definition, die als Grundlage f\u00fcr die strafrechtliche Verfolgung von T\u00e4tern gedient hat und dient, die solche Verbrechen in der Vergangenheit und in unserer Zeit begangen haben. An die Stelle des sonst so komplexen und (f\u00fcr die meisten von uns) unverst\u00e4ndlichen juristischen Diskurses tritt hier eine \u00fcberraschend klare Sprache ohne jeden Fachjargon. Diese Schlichtheit mindert weder die Abscheulichkeit der Tat noch t\u00e4uscht sie \u00fcber die Schwere des Verbrechens hinweg. Im Gegenteil: Das Ergebnis ist eine klare Beschreibung einer abscheulichen Politik, \u00fcber die stillschweigend hinwegzusehen die internationale Gemeinschaft sich heutzutage weigert.\n\nDie allgemeine Definition, worin ethnische S\u00e4uberung besteht, trifft fast w\u00f6rtlich auf den Fall Pal\u00e4stina zu. So gesehen, stellen sich die Ereignisse von 1948 als unkompliziertes, aber deshalb durchaus nicht simplifiziertes oder zweitrangiges Kapitel in der Vertreibungsgeschichte Pal\u00e4stinas dar. Der Blick durch das Prismenglas der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung erm\u00f6glicht es ohne weiteres, den Deckmantel der Komplexit\u00e4t zu durchdringen, den israelische Diplomaten fast instinktiv ausbreiten und hinter dem israelische Akademiker sich regelm\u00e4\u00dfig verstecken, wenn sie Kritik von au\u00dfen am Zionismus oder am j\u00fcdischen Staat wegen seiner Politik und seines Verhaltens abwehren. In meinem Land sagen sie: \u00bbAusl\u00e4nder begreifen diese komplizierte Geschichte nicht und k\u00f6nnen sie auch nicht begreifen\u00ab, deshalb brauche man gar nicht erst zu versuchen, sie ihnen zu erkl\u00e4ren. Wir sollten dem Ausland auch nicht erlauben, sich an L\u00f6sungsversuchen des Konflikts zu beteiligen \u2013 es sei denn, es akzeptiere den israelischen Standpunkt. Alles, was das Ausland tun k\u00f6nne, sei (wie die jeweiligen israelischen Regierungen der Welt seit Jahren erkl\u00e4rt haben), \u00bbuns\u00ab \u2013 die Israelis, als Repr\u00e4sentanten der \u00bbzivilisierten\u00ab und \u00bbrationalen\u00ab Seite in diesem Konflikt \u2013 eine gerechte L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr \u00bbuns selbst\u00ab suchen zu lassen und f\u00fcr die andere Seite, die Pal\u00e4stinenser, die schlie\u00dflich der Inbegriff der \u00bbunzivilisierten\u00ab und \u00bbemotionalen\u00ab arabischen Welt seien, zu der Pal\u00e4stina geh\u00f6rt. In dem Moment, als die Vereinigten Staaten bereit waren, diese sich selbst zurechtgebogene Herangehensweise zu \u00fcbernehmen und die ihr zugrunde liegende Arroganz zu unterst\u00fctzen, hatten wir einen \u00bbFriedensprozess\u00ab, der nirgendwohin f\u00fchrte und f\u00fchren konnte, weil er den Kern des Problems v\u00f6llig au\u00dfer Acht lie\u00df.\n\nAber die Geschichte der Ereignisse von 1948 ist durchaus nicht kompliziert. Daher richtet sich dieses Buch gleicherma\u00dfen an Leser, die sich zum ersten Mal mit diesem Thema befassen, wie an solche, die sich seit vielen Jahren und aus unterschiedlichen Gr\u00fcnden mit der Pal\u00e4stinafrage und dem Versuch, uns einer L\u00f6sung n\u00e4her zu bringen, besch\u00e4ftigt haben. Es ist die einfache, aber entsetzliche Geschichte der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas, eines Verbrechens gegen die Menschlichkeit, das Israel leugnen und die Welt vergessen machen wollte. Es ist unsere Pflicht, es aus der Vergessenheit zu holen, und zwar nicht nur als l\u00e4ngst \u00fcberf\u00e4llige historiographische Rekonstruktion oder professionelle Aufgabe; meiner Ansicht nach ist es eine moralische Entscheidung, der allererste Schritt, den wir tun m\u00fcssen, wenn wir wollen, dass Vers\u00f6hnung jemals eine Chance haben und der Frieden in den zerrissenen L\u00e4ndern Pal\u00e4stina und Israel Fu\u00df fassen sollen.\nKAPITEL 1\n\nEine \u00bbangebliche\u00ab ethnische S\u00e4uberung?\n\n_Nach Auffassung des Autors ist ethnische S\u00e4uberung eine klar umrissene Politik einer bestimmten Personengruppe, eine andere Gruppe aufgrund religi\u00f6ser, ethnischer oder nationaler Herkunft systematisch aus einem bestimmten Territorium zu eliminieren. Eine solche Politik umfasst Gewalt und geht sehr oft mit Milit\u00e4roperationen einher. Sie ist mit allen m\u00f6glichen Mitteln von Diskriminierung bis zur Vernichtung zu erreichen und bringt Verletzungen der Menschenrechte und des humanit\u00e4ren V\u00f6lkerrechts mit sich ... Die meisten Methoden ethnischer S\u00e4uberung stellen schwere Verst\u00f6\u00dfe gegen die Genfer Konventionen von 1949 und die Zusatzprotokolle von 1977 dar._\n\nDrazen Petrovic, \u00bbEthnic Cleansing \u2013 An Attempt at Methodology\u00ab, _European Journal of International Law_ , \n5\/3, 1994, S. 342\u2013360.\n\nDefinitionen ethnischer S\u00e4uberung\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung ist heute ein klar definierter Begriff. Assoziierte man den Ausdruck \u00bbethnische S\u00e4uberung\u00ab anfangs fast ausschlie\u00dflich mit den Ereignissen im ehemaligen Jugoslawien, so ist er inzwischen als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit definiert, das nach internationalem Recht strafbar ist. Die besondere Weise, in der manche serbischen Generale und Politiker von \u00bbethnischer S\u00e4uberung\u00ab sprachen, erinnerte Wissenschaftler daran, dass sie diesen Ausdruck schon vorher geh\u00f6rt hatten. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg benutzten ihn die Nazis und ihre Verb\u00fcndeten wie sp\u00e4ter die kroatischen Milizen in Jugoslawien. Die Wurzeln kollektiver Vertreibung reichen nat\u00fcrlich wesentlich weiter zur\u00fcck: Von biblischer Zeit bis zur Bl\u00fctezeit des Kolonialismus benutzten ausl\u00e4ndische Invasoren regelm\u00e4\u00dfig diesen (oder einen entsprechenden) Begriff und praktizierten dieses Konzept gegen die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung.\n\nDie _Hutchinson Encyclopedia_ definiert ethnische S\u00e4uberung als gewaltsame Vertreibung, um die ethnisch gemischte Bev\u00f6lkerung einer bestimmten Region oder eines Territoriums zu homogenisieren. Zweck der Vertreibung ist es, mit allen, auch gewaltlosen Mitteln, die dem Vertreibenden zu Gebote stehen, so viele Einwohner wie m\u00f6glich zu evakuieren, wie es mit den Muslimen in Kroatien geschah, die nach der Dayton-Vereinbarung vom November 1995 vertrieben wurden.\n\nDiese Definition wird auch vom US-Au\u00dfenministerium akzeptiert. Seine Experten f\u00fcgen hinzu, dass es elementarer Bestandteil der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung ist, die Geschichte einer Region mit allen verf\u00fcgbaren Mitteln auszul\u00f6schen. Die g\u00e4ngigste Methode ist die Entv\u00f6lkerung in \u00bbeiner Atmosph\u00e4re, die Vergeltungs- und Racheakte legitimiert\u00ab. Das Endergebnis solcher Akte ist die Schaffung eines Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblems. Das US-Au\u00dfenministerium befasste sich vor allem mit Vorg\u00e4ngen, die sich im Mai 1999 in der Stadt Pe\u0107 im Westkosovo ereigneten. Pe\u0107 wurde innerhalb von 24 Stunden entv\u00f6lkert, ein Resultat, das nur mit vorheriger Planung und systematischer Durchf\u00fchrung zu erreichen war. Sporadisch kam es auch zu Massakern, die die Operation beschleunigen sollten. Was 1999 in Pe\u0107 geschah, spielte sich fast auf die gleiche Weise 1948 in Hunderten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern ab.\n\n\u00c4hnliche Definitionen verwenden auch die Vereinten Nationen. Die UN diskutierte den Begriff eingehend 1993. Die UN-Menschenrechtskommission (seit 2006 UN-Menschenrechtsrat, UNHRC) verkn\u00fcpft das Bestreben eines Staates oder eines Regimes, einem gemischten Gebiet eine ethnische Herrschaft aufzuzwingen (wie die Schaffung Gro\u00dfserbiens), mit dem Einsatz von Vertreibung und anderen Zwangsma\u00dfnahmen. Der von der Menschenrechtskommission vorgelegte Bericht z\u00e4hlt zu den Akten ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen auch die \u00bbTrennung von M\u00e4nnern und Frauen, Inhaftierung von M\u00e4nnern, Sprengung von H\u00e4usern\u00ab und anschlie\u00dfende Besiedlung der verbliebenen H\u00e4user mit Angeh\u00f6rigen einer anderen ethnischen Gruppe. Wie der Bericht feststellte, hatten muslimische Milizen in bestimmten Orten im Kosovo Widerstand geleistet: Wo der Widerstand sich als hartn\u00e4ckig erwies, kam es bei der Vertreibung zu Massakern.\n\nDer im Vorwort angef\u00fchrte israelische Plan D von 1948 enth\u00e4lt ein Repertoire von S\u00e4uberungsma\u00dfnahmen, die genau den Mitteln entsprechen, wie sie die UNO in ihrer Definition einer ethnischen S\u00e4uberung schildert, und die den Hintergrund f\u00fcr die Massaker bildeten, mit denen die massive Vertreibung einherging.\n\nIn dieser Weise ist der Begriff der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung auch unter Fachleuten und in der akademischen Welt gebr\u00e4uchlich. Drazen Petrovic ver\u00f6ffentlichte eine der umfassendsten Studien \u00fcber den Begriff der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung. Er stellt die ethnische S\u00e4uberung in einen Zusammenhang mit Nationalismus, der Schaffung neuer Nationalstaaten und nationalen Auseinandersetzungen. Unter diesem Aspekt zeigt er die enge Verbindung auf, die bei der Ver\u00fcbung dieses Verbrechens zwischen Politikern und Armee besteht, und ordnet den Stellenwert ein, den Massaker darin einnehmen. Demnach delegiert die politische F\u00fchrung die Durchf\u00fchrung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung an die milit\u00e4rische Ebene, ohne ihr unbedingt systematische Pl\u00e4ne oder explizite Anweisungen zu geben, l\u00e4sst aber keinerlei Zweifel am Gesamtziel.\n\nAb einem gewissen Punkt h\u00f6rt die politische F\u00fchrung also auf, eine aktive Rolle zu spielen \u2013 auch das spiegelt exakt wider, was in Pal\u00e4stina geschah \u2013, sobald die Vertreibungsmaschinerie in Gang gekommen ist, wie ein gewaltiger Bulldozer durch ihr Tr\u00e4gheitsmoment weiterrollt und erst zum Stillstand kommt, nachdem sie ihre Aufgabe erf\u00fcllt hat. Die Menschen, die sie unter sich zerquetscht und t\u00f6tet, interessieren die Politiker, die diese Maschinerie in Gang gesetzt haben, nicht. Petrovic und andere lenken die Aufmerksamkeit auf den Unterschied zwischen Massakern im Rahmen eines V\u00f6lkermords, wo sie von vorneherein geplant sind, und \u00bbungeplanten\u00ab Massakern als direkter Folge von Hass und Rachegef\u00fchlen, wie sie vor dem Hintergrund einer allgemeinen Direktive von oben, eine ethnische S\u00e4uberung durchzuf\u00fchren, gesch\u00fcrt werden.\n\nDie oben angef\u00fchrte Lexikondefinition deckt sich also offenbar mit dem wissenschaftlicheren Versuch, das Verbrechen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung begrifflich zu fassen. Nach beiden Auffassungen ist ethnische S\u00e4uberung ein Bestreben, ein ethnisch gemischtes Land zu homogenisieren, indem man eine bestimmte Menschengruppe vertreibt, zu Fl\u00fcchtlingen macht und die H\u00e4user zerst\u00f6rt, aus denen sie vertrieben wurden. Es mag einen Masterplan geben, aber die meisten Truppen, die an einer ethnischen S\u00e4uberung beteiligt sind, brauchen keine ausdr\u00fccklichen Befehle: Sie wissen von Anfang an, was von ihnen erwartet wird. Die Operationen gehen mit Massakern einher, aber die Massaker, zu denen es kommt, sind nicht Teil eines geplanten V\u00f6lkermordes: Sie sind eine entscheidende Taktik, um die Flucht der zur Vertreibung vorgesehenen Bev\u00f6lkerung zu beschleunigen. Sp\u00e4ter werden die Vertriebenen aus der offiziellen Geschichtsschreibung verbannt und aus dem kollektiven Ged\u00e4chtnis getilgt. Vom Planungsstadium bis zur endg\u00fcltigen Ausf\u00fchrung stellt das, was 1948 in Pal\u00e4stina geschah, nach diesen Definitionen einen eindeutigen Fall ethnischer S\u00e4uberung dar.\n\nPopul\u00e4rdefinitionen\n\nDie Internet-Enzyklop\u00e4die Wikipedia ist ein leicht zug\u00e4ngliches Reservoir an Wissen und Informationen. Da jeder sich einloggen und Definitionen hinzuf\u00fcgen oder bestehende \u00e4ndern kann, spiegelt sie \u2013 zwar keinesfalls empirisch, aber doch intuitiv \u2013 eine weit verbreitete \u00f6ffentliche Sicht einer bestimmten Vorstellung oder eines Begriffs wider. Wie die oben angef\u00fchrten Fach- und Lexikondefinitionen charakterisiert auch Wikipedia ethnische S\u00e4uberung als massive Vertreibung und Verbrechen:\n\nAuf der allgemeinsten Ebene kann ethnische S\u00e4uberung verstanden werden als zwangsweise Entfernung einer \u00bbunerw\u00fcnschten\u00ab Bev\u00f6lkerung aus einem bestimmten Territorium aufgrund religi\u00f6ser oder ethnischer Diskriminierung, politischer, strategischer oder ideologischer Erw\u00e4gungen oder einer Kombination aus beidem.\n\nDer Beitrag f\u00fchrt verschiedene F\u00e4lle ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen im 20. Jahrhundert an, von der Vertreibung der Bulgaren aus der T\u00fcrkei 1913 bis zum israelischen Abzug j\u00fcdischer Siedler aus dem Gazastreifen 2005. Die Liste mag insofern merkw\u00fcrdig erscheinen, als sie ethnische S\u00e4uberungen durch die Nazis in dieselbe Kategorie einordnet wie die R\u00e4umung eines Gebiets von eigenen Staatsangeh\u00f6rigen durch einen souver\u00e4nen Staat, nachdem er sie zu illegalen Siedlern erkl\u00e4rt hatte. M\u00f6glich wird diese Klassifizierung durch die gew\u00e4hlte Vorgehensweise der Autoren \u2013 in diesem Fall jeder, der Zugang zu dieser Seite hat: Sie schicken ihrer Liste historischer Beispiele die Einschr\u00e4nkung voraus, dass manche Experten sie als \u00bbethnische S\u00e4uberung\u00ab einstufen, was andere in einzelnen F\u00e4llen bestreiten, und machen sie somit zu \u00bbangeblichen\u00ab F\u00e4llen.\n\nIn dieser [nicht in der deutschen] Wikipedia-Liste steht auch die pal\u00e4stinensische Nakba von 1948. Es l\u00e4sst sich allerdings nicht feststellen, ob die Autoren die Nakba f\u00fcr einen unzweideutigen Fall von ethnischer S\u00e4uberung halten wie die Beispiele im Nazideutschland oder im ehemaligen Jugoslawien oder f\u00fcr einen zweifelhafteren Fall etwa wie den der j\u00fcdischen Siedler, die Israel aus dem Gazastreifen entfernte. Als Ma\u00dfstab f\u00fcr die Seriosit\u00e4t einer behaupteten ethnischen S\u00e4uberung akzeptieren diese und andere Quellen im Allgemeinen aber das Kriterium, ob es zu einer Anklage vor einem internationalen Gericht gekommen ist. Mit anderen Worten, wenn T\u00e4ter zur Rechenschaft gezogen, das hei\u00dft von einer internationalen Gerichtsbarkeit verurteilt wurden, ist jede Zweideutigkeit beseitigt und das Verbrechen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung gilt nicht mehr als \u00bbangeblich\u00ab. Denkt man jedoch genauer dar\u00fcber nach, so m\u00fcsste dieses Kriterium auch auf F\u00e4lle angewandt werden, die vor ein solches Tribunal geh\u00f6rt h\u00e4tten, aber nie vor ein Gericht kamen. Das Ende ist damit zugegebenerma\u00dfen offener, aber bei manchen eindeutigen Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit erfordert es einen langen Kampf, bevor die Welt sie als historische Tatsachen anerkennt. Das mussten die Armenier beim V\u00f6lkermord an ihnen erfahren: Das Osmanische Reich begann 1915, die armenische Bev\u00f6lkerung systematisch zu dezimieren. Bis 1918 starben sch\u00e4tzungsweise eine Million Armenier, aber weder Einzelpersonen noch Personengruppen wurden je vor Gericht gestellt.\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung als Verbrechen\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung gilt nach internationalen Vertr\u00e4gen wie den Abkommen zur Schaffung des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs (International Criminal Court, ICC) als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und unterliegt der v\u00f6lkerrechtlichen Adjudikation, ganz gleich, ob es sich um \u00bbangebliche\u00ab oder faktisch anerkannte F\u00e4lle handelt. Um die T\u00e4ter und Verantwortlichen strafrechtlich zu belangen, wurde im Fall des ehemaligen Jugoslawien ein eigener Internationaler Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag und im Fall Ruandas ein Tribunal in Arusha, Tansania, eingerichtet. In anderen F\u00e4llen stufte man ethnische S\u00e4uberungen als Kriegsverbrechen ein, auch wenn kein rechtliches Verfahren eingeleitet wurde (das gilt z.B. f\u00fcr das Vorgehen der sudanesischen Regierung in Darfur).\n\nDieses Buch ist aus der tiefen \u00dcberzeugung entstanden, dass die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas in unserem Ged\u00e4chtnis und Bewusstsein als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit verankert und aus der Liste angeblicher Verbrechen gestrichen werden muss. Die T\u00e4ter sind hier nicht unbekannt \u2013 sie geh\u00f6ren einer sehr spezifischen Gruppe an: den Helden des j\u00fcdischen Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitskrieges, deren Namen den meisten Lesern vertraut sein d\u00fcrften. Die Liste beginnt mit dem unbestrittenen F\u00fchrer der zionistischen Bewegung, David Ben Gurion, in dessen Privathaus die ersten und letzten Kapitel der Geschichte ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen diskutiert und festgelegt wurden. Ihm half eine kleine Gruppe von Leuten, die ich als \u00bbBerater\u00ab bezeichne, ein ad hoc gebildeter Zirkel, dessen einziger Zweck darin bestand, die Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser zu planen und auszuf\u00fchren. In einem der seltenen Dokumente \u00fcber die Zusammenk\u00fcnfte der Beratergruppe wird sie als Beratendes Komitee \u2013 Haveadah Hamyeazet \u2013 bezeichnet. In einem anderen Dokument tauchen die elf Namen der Komiteemitglieder auf, sind aber alle vom Zensor geschw\u00e4rzt (wie sich noch zeigen wird, ist es mir jedoch gelungen, alle Namen zu rekonstruieren).\n\nDiese F\u00fchrungsriege entwickelte die Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung und beaufsichtigte ihre Durchf\u00fchrung, bis die Aufgabe erf\u00fcllt und die H\u00e4lfte der angestammten Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas entwurzelt war. Ihr geh\u00f6rten in erster Linie die h\u00f6chsten Offiziere in der Armee des zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staates an wie die legend\u00e4ren Yigael Yadin und Moshe Dayan. Hinzu kamen Personen, die au\u00dferhalb Israels wenig bekannt, aber im lokalen Ethos fest verwurzelt sind wie Yigal Allon und Yitzhak Sadeh. Zu diesen Milit\u00e4rs gesellten sich die \u00bbOrientalisten\u00ab, wie wir sie heute nennen w\u00fcrden: Experten der arabischen Welt im Allgemeinen und der Pal\u00e4stinenser im Besonderen, weil sie entweder selbst aus arabischen L\u00e4ndern stammten oder sich eingehend mit Studien des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens befasst hatten. Auf ihre Namen werden wir sp\u00e4ter noch sto\u00dfen.\n\nDie Offiziere und Experten wurden unterst\u00fctzt von regionalen Kommandeuren wie Moshe Kalman, der die Safad-Region \u00bbs\u00e4uberte\u00ab, und Moshe Carmel, der den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil der Bev\u00f6lkerung Galil\u00e4as entwurzelte. Yitzhak Rabin operierte sowohl in Lydda (Lyyd oder Lod) und Ramla als auch im Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem. Ihre Namen werden uns oft begegnen, allerdings sollte man sich darauf einstellen, sie nicht nur als israelische Kriegshelden zu sehen. Sie hatten zwar gro\u00dfen Anteil an der Gr\u00fcndung eines Staates f\u00fcr Juden und werden f\u00fcr viele ihrer Taten von ihrem eigenen Volk verehrt, weil sie es vor Angriffen von au\u00dfen bewahren halfen, durch Krisenzeiten f\u00fchrten und ihm vor allem eine sichere Zuflucht vor religi\u00f6ser Verfolgung in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt boten. Aber die Geschichte wird beurteilen, wie diese Leistungen letztlich zu Buche schlagen, wenn man sie gegen die Verbrechen aufwiegt, die sie gegen die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas begangen haben. Zu diesen Regionalkommandeuren geh\u00f6rte auch Shimon Avidan, der den S\u00fcden \u00bbs\u00e4uberte\u00ab und von dem sein Kollege und Mitk\u00e4mpfer Rehavam Zeevi viele Jahre sp\u00e4ter sagte: \u00bbKommandeure wie Shimon Avidan, der Kommandeur der Givati-Brigade s\u00e4uberte seine Front von zig D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten ...\u00ab Er wurde unterst\u00fctzt von Yitzhak Pundak, der der Zeitung _Ha'aretz_ 2004 erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbEs gab zweihundert D\u00f6rfer [an der Front] und sie sind verschwunden. Wir mussten sie zerst\u00f6ren, sonst h\u00e4tten wir hier [im S\u00fcden Pal\u00e4stinas] Araber gehabt wie in Galil\u00e4a. Wir h\u00e4tten eine weitere Million Pal\u00e4stinenser gehabt.\u00ab\n\nAu\u00dferdem gab es noch die Geheimdienstoffiziere vor Ort, die keineswegs nur Informationen \u00fcber den \u00bbFeind\u00ab sammelten: Sie spielten nicht nur eine wesentliche Rolle bei den S\u00e4uberungen, sondern waren auch an einigen der schlimmsten Gr\u00e4ueltaten beteiligt, die mit der systematischen Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser einhergingen. Bei ihnen lag die endg\u00fcltige Entscheidung, welche D\u00f6rfer zerst\u00f6rt und welche Einwohner exekutiert werden sollten. Nach den Erinnerungen \u00fcberlebender Pal\u00e4stinenser waren sie diejenigen, die nach der Einnahme eines Dorfes oder Stadtviertels \u00fcber das Schicksal der Bewohner entschieden, also \u00fcber Inhaftierung oder Freiheit, Leben oder Tod. Die Aufsicht \u00fcber ihre Operationen lag 1948 bei Issar Harel, der sp\u00e4ter erster Leiter der israelischen Geheimdienste Mossad und Shabak wurde. Das Bild dieses kleinen, gedrungenen Mannes ist vielen Israelis vertraut. Harel hatte 1948 den bescheidenen Rang eines Oberst inne, war aber dennoch der h\u00f6chste Offizier, dem s\u00e4mtliche Operationen unterstanden, die mit Verh\u00f6ren, schwarzen Listen und den \u00fcbrigen Schikanen des pal\u00e4stinensischen Lebens unter israelischer Besatzung zu tun hatten.\n\nUm es noch einmal zu sagen: Aus welchem Blickwinkel man es auch betrachtet \u2013 aus rechtlicher, wissenschaftlicher oder popul\u00e4rer Sicht \u2013, ethnische S\u00e4uberung gilt heutzutage unumstritten als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und als ein Vorgehen, das mit Kriegsverbrechen einhergeht, und jene, denen zur Last gelegt wird, ethnische S\u00e4uberungen geplant und begangen zu haben, werden vor speziellen internationalen Tribunalen angeklagt. Allerdings sollte ich an dieser Stelle hinzuf\u00fcgen, dass wir r\u00fcckblickend in Erw\u00e4gung ziehen sollten, in diesem Fall eine Verj\u00e4hrungsregel anzuwenden \u2013 offen gesagt, um dem Frieden in Pal\u00e4stina eine Chance zu geben, m\u00fcssten wir dies tun \u2013, allerdings unter einer Bedingung: dass auch hier die einzige politische L\u00f6sung durchgesetzt wird, die sowohl von den Vereinigten Staaten als auch von den Vereinten Nationen normalerweise als entscheidend f\u00fcr eine Auss\u00f6hnung angesehen wird, n\u00e4mlich die bedingungslose R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge in ihre Heimat. Die USA unterst\u00fctzten einmal einen solchen UN-Beschluss f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina vom 11. Dezember 1948 (Resolution 194) f\u00fcr kurze \u2013 sehr kurze \u2013 Zeit. Bis zum Fr\u00fchjahr 1949 hatte in der amerikanischen Politik jedoch eine Umorientierung hin zu einer auffallend pro-israelischen Haltung stattgefunden, die Washingtons Vermittler zum Gegenteil ehrlicher Mittler machte, da sie die pal\u00e4stinensische Sicht im Allgemeinen weitgehend ignorierten und im Besonderen das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge missachteten.\n\nRekonstruktion einer ethnischen S\u00e4uberung\n\nEin Festhalten an der oben angef\u00fchrten Definition ethnischer S\u00e4uberung enthebt uns der Notwendigkeit, tief sch\u00fcrfend auf die Urspr\u00fcnge des Zionismus als ideologischer Ursache der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung einzugehen. Nicht, dass dieses Thema nicht wichtig w\u00e4re, aber es wurde bereits von einigen pal\u00e4stinensischen und israelischen Fachleuten wie Walid Khalidi, Nur Masalha, Gershon Shafir und Baruch Kimmerling eingehend behandelt. Obwohl ich mich auf die Hintergr\u00fcnde im unmittelbaren Vorfeld der Operationen beschr\u00e4nken m\u00f6chte, d\u00fcrfte es interessant sein, die wichtigsten Argumente dieser Wissenschaftler zu rekapitulieren.\n\nEine gute Einf\u00fchrung bietet Nur Masalhas _Expulsion of the Palestinians_ , das deutlich zeigt, wie tief das Transferkonzept im zionistischen politischen Denken verankert war und ist. F\u00fcr die Zionisten \u2013 vom Begr\u00fcnder der zionistischen Bewegung, Theodor Herzl, bis zu den f\u00fchrenden K\u00f6pfen des zionistischen Unternehmens in Pal\u00e4stina \u2013 war die R\u00e4umung des Landes eine berechtigte Option. Einer der liberalsten Denker der Bewegung, Leo Motzkin, schrieb 1917:\n\nNach unserer Vorstellung muss die Kolonisierung Pal\u00e4stinas in zwei Richtungen erfolgen: J\u00fcdische Ansiedelung in Eretz Israel und Umsiedlung der Araber aus Eretz Israel in Gebiete au\u00dferhalb des Landes. Die Umsiedlung so vieler Araber mag zun\u00e4chst wirtschaftlich unvertretbar erscheinen, ist aber dennoch machbar. Es erfordert nicht allzu viel Geld, ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf auf anderem Land neu anzusiedeln.\n\nDie Tatsache, dass die Vertreiber im Zuge eines Kolonisierungsprojekts neu ins Land kamen, stellt den Fall Pal\u00e4stina in einen Zusammenhang mit der Kolonialgeschichte ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen in Nord- und S\u00fcdamerika, Afrika und Australien, wo wei\u00dfe Siedler regelm\u00e4\u00dfig solche Verbrechen begingen. Dieser hochinteressante Aspekt des historischen Falles, den Israel darstellt, war in j\u00fcngster Zeit Thema mehrerer exzellenter Studien. Gershon Shafir und Baruch Kimmerling beleuchteten den Zusammenhang zwischen Zionismus und Kolonialismus, ein Nexus, der zun\u00e4chst nicht zur Vertreibung, sondern zur Ausbeutung f\u00fchrte, aber sobald die Idee einer ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdischen Wirtschaft zu einem zentralen Bestandteil der Vision wurde, blieb kein Raum mehr f\u00fcr arabische Arbeiter und Bauern. Walid Khalidi und Samih Farsoun stellten die zentrale Bedeutung der Transferideologie in einen engeren Zusammenhang mit dem Ende der Mandatszeit und fragten, warum die Vereinten Nationen das Schicksal so vieler Pal\u00e4stinenser einer Bewegung anvertrauten, die deren Umsiedlung eindeutig in ihrer Ideologie vorsah.\n\nMir geht es weniger darum, die ideologische Haltung der Beteiligten aufzudecken, als vielmehr darum, die systematische Planung zu beleuchten, mit der sie ein ethnisch gemischtes Gebiet in einen ethnisch reinen Raum verwandelten. Damit befassen sich die ersten Kapitel dieses Buches. Auf den ideologischen Zusammenhang komme ich gegen Ende des Buches zur\u00fcck, wenn ich ihn als einzige ad\u00e4quate Erkl\u00e4rung f\u00fcr Israels ethnische S\u00e4uberung von Pal\u00e4stinensern analysiere, die 1948 begann, sich aber mit einer Vielzahl von Mitteln bis heute fortsetzt.\n\nEine zweite, unangenehmere Aufgabe ist die Rekonstruktion der Methoden, die Israel zur Umsetzung seines Masterplans der Vertreibung und Zerst\u00f6rung einsetzte, und die Pr\u00fcfung, wie und in welchem Ma\u00dfe sie regelm\u00e4\u00dfig mit Akten ethnischer S\u00e4uberung einhergingen. Wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, habe ich den Eindruck, wenn wir nie von den Ereignissen im ehemaligen Jugoslawien geh\u00f6rt h\u00e4tten und lediglich den Fall Pal\u00e4stina kennen w\u00fcrden, w\u00e4re der Gedanke verzeihlich, dass die US- und UN-Definitionen fast bis ins letzte Detail von der Nakba inspiriert w\u00e4ren.\n\nBevor wir uns der Geschichte der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung in Pal\u00e4stina zuwenden und die Folgen abzusch\u00e4tzen versuchen, die sie bis heute hatte, sollten wir uns einen Moment Zeit nehmen, \u00fcber Zahlenverh\u00e4ltnisse nachzudenken. Eine Dreiviertelmillion vertriebener Pal\u00e4stinenser mag als Zahl vergleichsweise \u00bbbescheiden\u00ab erscheinen, wenn man sie in den Kontext der Vertreibungen von Millionen Menschen stellt, die infolge des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Europa oder Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts in Afrika stattgefunden haben. Aber manchmal l\u00e4sst sich das Ausma\u00df einer Trag\u00f6die, die die Bev\u00f6lkerung eines ganzen Landes betrifft, erst ansatzweise begreifen, wenn man die Zahlen relativiert und in Prozentanteilen denkt. Die H\u00e4lfte der urspr\u00fcnglichen Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas wurde vertrieben, die H\u00e4lfte ihrer D\u00f6rfer und St\u00e4dte zerst\u00f6rt, und nur sehr wenigen von ihnen gelang es jemals zur\u00fcckzukehren.\n\nAber jenseits der Zahlen ist die tiefe Kluft zwischen Realit\u00e4t und Darstellung das wirklich Best\u00fcrzende am Fall Pal\u00e4stina. Es ist tats\u00e4chlich schwer zu verstehen und somit auch kaum zu erkl\u00e4ren, wieso ein Verbrechen, das in unserer Zeit und an einem kritischen Punkt der Geschichte begangen wurde, der die Anwesenheit ausl\u00e4ndischer Reporter und UN-Beobachter verlangt h\u00e4tte, so vollst\u00e4ndig ignoriert wurde. Und doch l\u00e4sst sich nicht leugnen, dass die ethnische S\u00e4uberung von 1948 nahezu vollst\u00e4ndig aus dem kollektiven globalen Ged\u00e4chtnis gel\u00f6scht und aus dem Bewusstsein der Welt getilgt wurde. Man stelle sich einmal vor, dass in irgendeinem Land, das man kennt, die H\u00e4lfte der gesamten Bev\u00f6lkerung innerhalb eines Jahres zwangsweise vertrieben, die H\u00e4lfte der D\u00f6rfer und St\u00e4dte ausradiert und dem Erdboden gleichgemacht w\u00fcrden. Man stelle sich einmal vor, diese Taten w\u00fcrden niemals Eingang in die Geschichtsb\u00fccher finden und s\u00e4mtliche diplomatischen Bem\u00fchungen um eine L\u00f6sung der Konflikte, die in diesem Land ausbr\u00e4chen, w\u00fcrden diese katastrophalen Ereignisse v\u00f6llig au\u00dfer Acht lassen, wenn nicht gar ignorieren. Ich habe vergebens in der uns bekannten Weltgeschichte seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nach einem solchen Fall und einem solchen Schicksal gesucht. Es gibt andere, fr\u00fchere F\u00e4lle, die \u00e4hnlich verliefen: man denke an die ethnische S\u00e4uberung gegen Nichtungarn Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts, den V\u00f6lkermord an den Armeniern und den Holocaust der Nazis an den Sinti und Roma in den 1940er Jahren. Ich hoffe, dass Pal\u00e4stina in Zukunft nicht mehr zu diesen F\u00e4llen geh\u00f6rt.\nKAPITEL 2\n\nDas Streben nach einem ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdischen Staat\n\n_Die Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen lehnt nachdr\u00fccklich jede Politik und Ideologie ab, die darauf abzielt, ethnische S\u00e4uberung in irgendeiner Form zu f\u00f6rdern._\n\nResolution 47\/80 vom 16. Dezember 1992\n\nDie ideologische Motivation des Zionismus\n\nDer Zionismus entstand Ende der 1880er Jahre in Mittel- und Osteuropa als nationale Erneuerungsbewegung, ausgel\u00f6st durch den wachsenden Druck auf Juden in diesen Regionen, sich vollst\u00e4ndig zu assimilieren oder anhaltende Verfolgung zu riskieren (wie wir wissen, bot allerdings im Fall Nazi-Deutschlands auch die vollst\u00e4ndige Assimilation keinen Schutz vor der Vernichtung). Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts assoziierten die meisten F\u00fchrer der zionistischen Bewegung diese nationale Erneuerung mit der Kolonisierung Pal\u00e4stinas. Andere, vor allem der Gr\u00fcnder der Bewegung, Theodor Herzl, waren weniger klar festgelegt, doch nach seinem Tod 1904 setzte sich die Orientierung auf Pal\u00e4stina als allgemeiner Konsens durch.\n\nGenerationen von Juden hatten Eretz Israel, wie Pal\u00e4stina in der j\u00fcdischen Religion hei\u00dft, im Laufe der Jahrhunderte als Ziel heiliger Pilgerfahrten verehrt, nie als zuk\u00fcnftigen s\u00e4kularen Staat. Die j\u00fcdische Tradition und Religion gibt Juden die klare Anweisung, das Kommen des verhei\u00dfenen Messias am \u00bbEnde der Zeit\u00ab abzuwarten, bevor sie als souver\u00e4nes Volk in einer j\u00fcdischen Theokratie, also als gehorsame Diener Gottes, nach Eretz Israel zur\u00fcckkehren k\u00f6nnen (aus diesem Grund sind heute diverse Richtungen ultraorthodoxer Juden entweder nicht- oder sogar antizionistisch eingestellt). Der Zionismus s\u00e4kularisierte und nationalisierte also das Judentum. Um ihr Projekt zu verwirklichen, erhoben zionistische Denker Anspruch auf das biblische Territorium und erschufen, ja, erfanden es neu als Wiege ihrer jungen Nationalbewegung. Nach ihrer Ansicht war Pal\u00e4stina von \u00bbFremden\u00ab bewohnt und musste wieder in Besitz genommen werden. \u00bbFremde\u00ab waren demnach alle Nichtjuden, die seit der R\u00f6merzeit in Pal\u00e4stina lebten. Tats\u00e4chlich war Pal\u00e4stina f\u00fcr viele Zionisten nicht einmal ein \u00bbbewohntes\u00ab, sondern ein \u00bbleeres\u00ab Land, als sie 1882 hier eintrafen: Die einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinenser, die dort lebten, waren f\u00fcr sie weitgehend unsichtbar oder, wenn nicht, Teil der harten Natur, die es zu besiegen und zu beseitigen galt. Nichts, weder Steine noch Pal\u00e4stinenser, sollten der nationalen \u00bbWiedererlangung\u00ab des Landes im Weg stehen, die die zionistische Bewegung anstrebte.\n\nBis zur britischen Besetzung Pal\u00e4stinas 1918 war der Zionismus eine Mischung aus nationalistischer Ideologie und kolonialistischer Praxis. Aber seine Reichweite war begrenzt: Zionisten machten damals nur f\u00fcnf Prozent der Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung des Landes aus. Sie lebten in eigenen Siedlungen und beeintr\u00e4chtigten die einheimische Bev\u00f6lkerung nicht, die von ihnen keine sonderliche Notiz nahm. Die M\u00f6glichkeit, dass Juden in Zukunft das Land \u00fcbernehmen und die heimische pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung vertreiben k\u00f6nnten, die Historiker r\u00fcckblickend in den Schriften der Gr\u00fcndungsv\u00e4ter des Zionismus so eindeutig ausgemacht haben, wurde manchen pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrern bereits vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg klar, andere hatten weniger Interesse an der Bewegung.\n\nHistorische Belege zeigen, dass einige pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrer irgendwann zwischen 1905 und 1910 \u00fcber den Zionismus als politische Bewegung diskutierten, die darauf abzielte, in Pal\u00e4stina Land, Verm\u00f6genswerte und Macht zu kaufen, auch wenn sie damals das destruktive Potenzial noch nicht vollst\u00e4ndig erfassten. Viele Angeh\u00f6rige der lokalen Elite sahen den Zionismus als Teil der missionarischen und kolonialistischen Bestrebungen Europas \u2013 was er teils ja auch war, aber er besa\u00df noch eine zus\u00e4tzliche Triebkraft, die ihn f\u00fcr die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung gef\u00e4hrlich machte.\n\nDie zionistischen F\u00fchrer diskutierten oder artikulierten dieses Potenzial zwar nicht oft, aber manche pal\u00e4stinensischen Notabeln und Intellektuellen m\u00fcssen die drohende Gefahr wohl gesp\u00fcrt haben, denn sie versuchten, die osmanische Regierung in Istanbul zu bewegen, in Pal\u00e4stina, das bis 1918 unter t\u00fcrkischer Herrschaft stand, die j\u00fcdische Einwanderung und Ansiedlung einzuschr\u00e4nken, wenn nicht gar v\u00f6llig zu verbieten.\n\nDer pal\u00e4stinensische Abgeordnete im osmanischen Parlament, Said al-Husayni, erkl\u00e4rte am 6. Mai 1911: \u00bbDie Juden beabsichtigen, in der Region einen Staat zu schaffen, der Pal\u00e4stina, Syrien und Irak umfassen soll.\u00ab Al-Husayni geh\u00f6rte jedoch zu einer Familie und einer Gruppe \u00f6rtlicher Notabeln, die bis in die 1930er Jahre gegen die zionistische Kolonisierung predigten, gleichzeitig aber Land an die neuen Zuwanderer verkauften. Im Laufe der Mandatszeit verdichtete sich in intellektuelleren Kreisen der Elite das Gef\u00fchl einer drohenden Gefahr, ja Katastrophe, setzte sich aber nie in regelrechten Vorbereitungen auf die existenzielle Gefahr um, die ihre Gesellschaft erwartete.\n\nAndere im Umfeld Pal\u00e4stinas \u2013 wie die f\u00fchrende \u00e4gyptische Intelligenz \u2013 sahen im Zuzug von Juden nach Pal\u00e4stina einen unverantwortlichen Versuch Europas, seine \u00e4rmsten und oft staatenlosen Bev\u00f6lkerungsteile abzuschieben, vermuteten aber keinen Masterplan, der auf die Vertreibung der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung zielte. Ihnen erschien der Zustrom von Armen als kleinere Bedrohung im Vergleich zu den wesentlich auff\u00e4lligeren Versuchen europ\u00e4ischer Kolonialm\u00e4chte und Kirchen, das \u00bbHeilige Land\u00ab durch ihre Missionare, Diplomaten und Kolonien zu vereinnahmen. Vor der britischen Besetzung Pal\u00e4stinas Ende 1917 \u00e4u\u00dferten sich die Zionisten nur vage \u00fcber ihre tats\u00e4chlichen Pl\u00e4ne, weniger aus Mangel an Orientierung als aus der Notwendigkeit, Priorit\u00e4ten zu setzen, was die Belange der noch kleinen j\u00fcdischen Einwanderergemeinde anging: Es bestand st\u00e4ndig die Gefahr, dass die Regierung in Istanbul sie wieder hinauswerfen w\u00fcrde.\n\nWenn es innerhalb der Bewegung jedoch notwendig wurde, intern eine klarere Zukunftsvision zu formulieren, herrschte nicht die geringste Zweideutigkeit. Was den Zionisten vorschwebte, war die Schaffung eines j\u00fcdischen Staates in Pal\u00e4stina, um einer Geschichte der Verfolgungen und Pogrome im Westen zu entgehen, und als Mittel zum Zweck beriefen sie sich auf die religi\u00f6se \u00bbWiedererlangung\u00ab einer \u00bbalten Heimat\u00ab. Das war die offizielle Darstellung, die ohne Zweifel die Motivation der meisten zionistischen F\u00fchrer wahrheitsgem\u00e4\u00df zum Ausdruck brachte. Aber die kritischere Sicht von heute sieht das zionistische Bestreben, sich in Pal\u00e4stina statt an anderen m\u00f6glichen Orten niederzulassen, eng verwoben mit dem christlichen Chiliasmus und europ\u00e4ischen Kolonialismus des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die verschiedenen protestantischen Missionarswerke und die Regierungen des Europ\u00e4ischen Konzerts wetteiferten untereinander um die Zukunft eines \u00bbchristlichen\u00ab Pal\u00e4stina, das sie dem Osmanischen Reich abluchsen wollten. Die religi\u00f6seren unter den Aspiranten im Westen betrachteten die R\u00fcckkehr der Juden nach Pal\u00e4stina als ein Kapitel im g\u00f6ttlichen Plan, das der zweiten Wiederkunft Christi und der Schaffung eines pietistischen Staats dort vorausgehen w\u00fcrde. Dieser religi\u00f6se Eifer trieb fromme Politiker wie Lloyd George, den britischen Premierminister im Ersten Weltkrieg, sich mit noch gr\u00f6\u00dferem Engagement f\u00fcr den Erfolg des zionistischen Projekts einzusetzen. Das hinderte ihn allerdings nicht daran, seiner Regierung gleichzeitig eine F\u00fclle von \u00bbstrategischen\u00ab, statt messianischen Erw\u00e4gungen darzulegen, weshalb man Pal\u00e4stina von der zionistischen Bewegung kolonisieren lassen solle; Erw\u00e4gungen, die zumeist durchdrungen waren von seinem \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigenden Misstrauen gegen und seiner Verachtung f\u00fcr \u00bbAraber\u00ab und \u00bbMohammedaner\u00ab, wie er die Pal\u00e4stinenser nannte.\n\nIn letzter Zeit stellen Fachkreise tendenziell auch die st\u00e4rker marxistisch angehauchte Ausrichtung in Frage, die die offizielle israelische Geschichtsschreibung der fr\u00fchen Kolonisierung Pal\u00e4stinas nachsagte, indem sie den Zionismus als positive Bestrebung darstellte, die sozialistischen und marxistischen Revolutionen \u00fcber ihre weniger erfolgreichen Versuche in Russland hinauszuf\u00fchren. Die kritischere Sicht h\u00e4lt diese Bestrebungen bestenfalls f\u00fcr zweifelhaft und schlimmstenfalls f\u00fcr manipulativ. Ebenso wie liberal gesinnte israelische Juden von heute bereit sind, demokratische Prinzipien aufzugeben, sobald sie sich mit der Aussicht auf eine demografische Mehrheit von Nichtjuden im Land konfrontiert sehen, gaben auch die sozialistischen Zionisten offenbar ihre universelleren Tr\u00e4ume zugunsten der starken Reize des Nationalismus auf. Und als es zum Hauptziel avancierte, Pal\u00e4stina zu einem ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdischen, statt zu einem sozialistischen Staat zu machen, war es bezeichnenderweise die Arbeiterbewegung innerhalb des Zionismus, die die ethnische S\u00e4uberung gegen die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung initiierte und umsetzte.\n\nDie fr\u00fchen zionistischen Siedler setzten ihre Energie und ihre Ressourcen \u00fcberwiegend f\u00fcr den Ankauf von Land ein, um sich Zugang zum \u00f6rtlichen Arbeitsmarkt zu verschaffen und soziale und kommunale Netzwerke aufzubauen, die ihre kleine und wirtschaftlich anf\u00e4llige Gruppe von Zuwanderern ern\u00e4hren konnten. Klarere Strategien, wie sie Pal\u00e4stina ganz oder teilweise \u00fcbernehmen und dort einen Nationalstaat schaffen k\u00f6nnten, entwickelten sich erst sp\u00e4ter in engem Zusammenhang mit britischen Ideen, wie sich der Konflikt am besten l\u00f6sen lie\u00dfe, zu dessen Versch\u00e4rfung die Briten erheblich beigetragen hatten.\n\nIn dem Moment, als der britische Au\u00dfenminister Lord Balfour der zionistischen Bewegung 1917 das Versprechen gab, eine nationale Heimst\u00e4tte f\u00fcr die Juden in Pal\u00e4stina zu schaffen, \u00f6ffnete er T\u00fcr und Tor f\u00fcr den endlosen Konflikt, der schon bald das ganze Land und sein Volk verschlingen sollte. In der Erkl\u00e4rung, die Balfour im Namen seiner Regierung abgab, verpflichtete er sich, die Rechte der nichtj\u00fcdischen Gemeinschaften \u2013 eine seltsame Bezeichnung f\u00fcr die gro\u00dfe einheimische Mehrheit \u2013 zu sch\u00fctzen, aber diese Deklaration kollidierte von vorneherein sowohl mit den Bestrebungen als auch mit den nat\u00fcrlichen Rechten der Pal\u00e4stinenser auf nationale Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t und Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit.\n\nEnde der 1920er Jahre zeigte sich deutlich, dass dieser Vorschlag einen potenziell gewaltsamen Kern besa\u00df, da er bis dahin bereits das Leben Hunderter Pal\u00e4stinenser und Juden gefordert hatte. Das veranlasste die Briten zu einem ernsthaften, wenn auch z\u00f6gerlichen Versuch, den schwelenden Konflikt zu l\u00f6sen.\n\nBis 1928 hatte die britische Regierung Pal\u00e4stina nicht als Kolonie, sondern als Staat innerhalb der britischen Machtsph\u00e4re behandelt, in dem sich sowohl das Versprechen an die Juden als auch die Bestrebungen der Pal\u00e4stinenser unter britischer Aufsicht umsetzen lie\u00dfen. Sie versuchten eine politische Struktur einzuf\u00fchren, die beide Gemeinschaften im Parlament wie auch in der Regierung des Staates gleichberechtigt repr\u00e4sentieren w\u00fcrde. In der Praxis war das Angebot, das sie ihnen machten, weniger ausgewogen; es beg\u00fcnstigte die zionistischen Siedlungen und diskriminierte die pal\u00e4stinensische Mehrheit. In dem vorgeschlagenen neuen Legislativrat fiel die Balance zugunsten der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde aus, und die pal\u00e4stinensischen Mitglieder sollten von der britischen Verwaltung ernannt werden.\n\nDa die Pal\u00e4stinenser in den 1920er Jahren eine Mehrheit von achtzig bis neunzig Prozent der Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung ausmachten, lehnten sie es verst\u00e4ndlicherweise ab, die von den Briten vorgeschlagene parit\u00e4tische Vertretung zu akzeptieren, geschweige denn eine, die sie in der Praxis benachteiligte \u2013 eine Position, die die zionistischen F\u00fchrer ermunterte, den Vorschlag zu bef\u00fcrworten. Von nun an zeichnete sich ein Muster ab: Als die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung 1928 aus Sorge \u00fcber die zunehmende j\u00fcdische Einwanderung ins Land und die Expansion ihrer Siedlungen einwilligte, die Formel als Verhandlungsbasis zu akzeptieren, lehnte die zionistische F\u00fchrung sie rasch ab. Der pal\u00e4stinensische Aufstand 1929 war eine unmittelbare Folge der britischen Weigerung, zumindest ihr Versprechen einer parit\u00e4tischen Vertretung einzul\u00f6sen, nachdem die Pal\u00e4stinenser schon bereit waren, auf das demokratische Mehrheitsprinzip in der Politik zu verzichten, das Gro\u00dfbritannien in allen anderen arabischen Staaten seiner Machtsph\u00e4re als Verhandlungsbasis verfochten hatte.\n\nNach dem Aufstand von 1929 schien die Labour-Regierung in London geneigt, auf die pal\u00e4stinensischen Forderungen einzugehen, aber der zionistischen Lobby gelang es, die britische Regierung wieder auf den Balfour-Kurs zur\u00fcckzubringen. Das machte weitere Unruhen unausweichlich. Sie brachen schlie\u00dflich 1936 in Form eines so entschlossenen Volksaufstandes aus, dass die britische Regierung sich gezwungen sah, in Pal\u00e4stina mehr Truppen zu stationieren als auf dem Indischen Subkontinent. Nach drei Jahren mit brutalen und r\u00fccksichtslosen Angriffen auf l\u00e4ndliche Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas schlug das britische Milit\u00e4r die Revolte nieder. Die pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrer wurden ins Exil geschickt und die paramilit\u00e4rischen Verb\u00e4nde aufgel\u00f6st, die den Guerillakrieg gegen die Mandatstruppen unterst\u00fctzt hatten. Im Laufe dieses Prozesses wurden viele der beteiligten Dorfbewohner inhaftiert, verwundet oder get\u00f6tet. Da ein Gro\u00dfteil der pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrung nicht mehr im Land war und einsatzf\u00e4hige pal\u00e4stinensische Kampfeinheiten fehlten, war es 1947 f\u00fcr die j\u00fcdischen Truppen ein Leichtes, die l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas einzunehmen.\n\nZwischen den beiden Aufst\u00e4nden nutzte die zionistische F\u00fchrung die Zeit, um ihre Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr eine ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdische Pr\u00e4senz in Pal\u00e4stina auszuarbeiten: Zun\u00e4chst akzeptierte sie 1937 einen bescheidenen Anteil des Landes, als sie positiv auf eine Empfehlung der British Royal Peel Commission reagierte, Pal\u00e4stina in zwei Staaten zu teilen; dann versuchte sie 1942 eine Maximalstrategie und forderte ganz Pal\u00e4stina f\u00fcr sich. Das angestrebte geografische Territorium mag sich im Laufe der Zeit und je nach Umst\u00e4nden und Chancen ver\u00e4ndert haben, aber das prinzipielle Ziel blieb gleich. Das zionistische Projekt lie\u00df sich nur durch die Schaffung eines rein j\u00fcdischen Staates in Pal\u00e4stina realisieren, der Juden eine sichere Zuflucht vor Verfolgung bieten und als Wiege eines neuen j\u00fcdischen Nationalismus dienen sollte. Und ein solcher Staat musste nicht nur in seiner soziopolitischen Struktur, sondern auch in seiner ethnischen Zusammensetzung ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdisch sein.\n\nMilit\u00e4rische Vorbereitungen\n\nVon Anfang an hatten die britischen Mandatsbeh\u00f6rden der zionistischen Bewegung erlaubt, sich in Pal\u00e4stina eine unabh\u00e4ngige Enklave als Infrastruktur eines zuk\u00fcnftigen Staates zu schaffen. Ende der 1930er Jahre waren die F\u00fchrer der Bewegung imstande, die abstrakte Vision j\u00fcdischer Exklusivit\u00e4t in konkretere Pl\u00e4ne zu \u00fcbersetzen. Die zionistischen Vorbereitungen auf die M\u00f6glichkeit, das Land mit Gewalt einzunehmen, falls man es ihnen nicht auf diplomatischem Wege zusprechen sollte, umfassten unter anderem den Aufbau einer effizienten milit\u00e4rischen Organisation \u2013 mit Hilfe wohlwollender britischer Offiziere \u2013 und die Suche nach ausreichenden finanziellen Mitteln (um die sie die j\u00fcdische Diaspora angehen konnten). In mancherlei Hinsicht war auch der Aufbau eines rudiment\u00e4ren diplomatischen Corps wesentlicher Bestandteil dieser allgemeinen Vorbereitungen, die darauf abzielten, sich mit Gewalt einen Staat in Pal\u00e4stina zu verschaffen.\n\nVor allem ein britischer Offizier, Orde Charles Wingate, machte den zionistischen F\u00fchrern klar, dass die Idee eines j\u00fcdischen Staates eng mit Militarismus und einer Armee verbunden werden musste, um zum einen die wachsende Zahl j\u00fcdischer Enklaven und Siedlungen in Pal\u00e4stina zu sch\u00fctzen, zum anderen aber auch \u2013 was noch wichtiger war \u2013, weil Akte bewaffneter Aggression eine effektive Abschreckung gegen m\u00f6glichen Widerstand der einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinenser boten. Von hier aus erwies es sich nur noch als kleiner Schritt, die Zwangsumsiedelung der gesamten einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung in Erw\u00e4gung zu ziehen.\n\nOrde Wingate wurde Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts als Sohn einer Soldatenfamilie geboren und streng religi\u00f6s erzogen. Er begann eine arabophile Karriere im Sudan, wo er sich einen Namen machte, indem er besonders effektiv aus dem Hinterhalt gegen Sklavenh\u00e4ndler vorging. Als er 1936 nach Pal\u00e4stina versetzt wurde, war er schon bald fasziniert vom zionistischen Traum. Er beschloss, die j\u00fcdischen Siedler aktiv zu unterst\u00fctzen, und begann ihre Truppen in effektiveren Kampftaktiken und Vergeltungsma\u00dfnahmen gegen die \u00f6rtliche Bev\u00f6lkerung zu schulen. Kein Wunder, dass seine zionistischen Verb\u00fcndeten ihn bewunderten.\n\nWingate gestaltete die wichtigste paramilit\u00e4rische Organisation der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina um, die 1920 gegr\u00fcndete Hagana. Ihr hebr\u00e4ischer Name bedeutet w\u00f6rtlich \u00bbVerteidigung\u00ab, offenbar um zu zeigen, dass ihr Hauptzweck im Schutz der j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen bestand. Durch Wingates Einfluss und die militante Stimmung, die er bei ihren Kommandeuren verbreitete, entwickelte sich die Hagana schnell zum milit\u00e4rischen Arm der Jewish Agency, der zionistischen K\u00f6rperschaft in Pal\u00e4stina, die letzten Endes die Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr die zionistische milit\u00e4rische Einnahme ganz Pal\u00e4stinas und die ethnische S\u00e4uberung von seiner heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung entwickelte und umsetzte.\n\nDie arabische Revolte gab den Hagana-Mitgliedern Gelegenheit, die Milit\u00e4rtaktiken anzuwenden, die Wingate ihnen in den l\u00e4ndlichen Gegenden Pal\u00e4stinas beigebracht hatte, \u00fcberwiegend in Form von Vergeltungsschl\u00e4gen gegen Ziele wie Heckensch\u00fctzen oder Diebe, die einen Kibbuz bestohlen hatten. Hauptziel war aber anscheinend, pal\u00e4stinensische Gemeinden einzusch\u00fcchtern, die zuf\u00e4llig in der N\u00e4he j\u00fcdischer Siedlungen existierten.\n\nWingate gelang es, w\u00e4hrend der arabischen Revolte Hagana-Truppen in die britischen Streitkr\u00e4fte einzugliedern, so dass sie noch besser lernen konnten, wie eine \u00bbStrafaktion\u00ab gegen ein arabisches Dorf auszusehen hat. So bekamen j\u00fcdische Truppen im Juni 1938 einen ersten Vorgeschmack, was es bedeutete, ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf zu besetzen: Eine Hagana-Einheit und eine britische Kompanie griffen gemeinsam ein Dorf an der libanesischen Grenze an und hielten es einige Stunden besetzt.\n\nAmatziya Cohen, der an der Operation teilnahm, erinnerte sich, dass der britische Feldwebel ihnen zeigte, wie sie beim Angriff auf wehrlose Dorfbewohner die Bajonette einsetzen sollten: \u00bbIch glaube, ihr in eurem Ramat Yochanan [Ausbildungslager der Hagana] habt alle keine Ahnung, weil ihr nicht mal ansatzweise wisst, wie man Bajonette benutzt, wenn man dreckige Araber angreift!\u00ab, schrie er Amatziya und seine Freunde an, nachdem sie wieder im Lager waren. W\u00e4re dieser Feldwebel 1948 dabei gewesen, er h\u00e4tte mit Stolz gesehen, wie schnell j\u00fcdische Truppen sich die Kunst, D\u00f6rfer anzugreifen, angeeignet hatten.\n\nDie Hagana sammelte auch im Zweiten Weltkrieg milit\u00e4rische Erfahrungen, als viele ihrer Mitglieder sich freiwillig zur britischen Armee meldeten. Andere, die in Pal\u00e4stina blieben, \u00fcberwachten und infiltrierten weiter die gut 1200 pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer, die seit Jahrhunderten verstreut im Land lagen.\n\nDie Dorfdossiers\n\nEs war jedoch mehr erforderlich, als blo\u00df die Erregung beim Angriff auf ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf auszukosten: Es bedurfte systematischer Planung. Der Vorschlag kam von einem jungen, bebrillten Historiker an der Hebr\u00e4ischen Universit\u00e4t in Jerusalem, Ben-Zion Luria, der damals Angestellter der Bildungsabteilung der Jewish Agency war. Luria wies darauf hin, wie n\u00fctzlich ein detailliertes Register aller arabischen D\u00f6rfer w\u00e4re, und schlug dem J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds (Jewish National Fund, JNF) in einem Schreiben vor, man solle eine solche Erhebung durchf\u00fchren: \u00bbDas w\u00fcrde erheblich bei der R\u00fcckgewinnung des Landes helfen.\u00ab Einen besseren Ansprechpartner h\u00e4tte er sich gar nicht suchen k\u00f6nnen: Seine Initiative, den JNF in die zuk\u00fcnftige ethnische S\u00e4uberung einzubeziehen, sollte den Vertreibungspl\u00e4nen, die folgten, zus\u00e4tzlichen Antrieb und Eifer verleihen.\n\nDer 1901 vom 5. Zionistenkongress gegr\u00fcndete J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds war das Hauptinstrument der Zionisten f\u00fcr die Kolonisierung Pal\u00e4stinas. Er diente der zionistischen Bewegung als Agentur, um in Pal\u00e4stina Land zu kaufen und dort j\u00fcdische Einwanderer anzusiedeln, und bildete w\u00e4hrend der Mandatszeit durchg\u00e4ngig die Speerspitze der Zionisierung Pal\u00e4stinas. Von Anfang an war geplant, dass er das Land, das die Zionisten in Pal\u00e4stina in ihren Besitz br\u00e4chten, im Namen des j\u00fcdischen Volkes als \u00bbTreuh\u00e4nder\u00ab verwalten sollte. Diese Aufgabe behielt der J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds auch nach Gr\u00fcndung des Staates Israel, auch wenn zu diesem Hauptzweck im Laufe der Zeit noch weitere Aufgaben hinzukamen.\n\nDie meisten Aktivit\u00e4ten des JNF in der Mandatszeit und den Jahren der Nakba waren eng mit dem Namen Yossef Weitz verbunden, dem Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung. Weitz war der Inbegriff des zionistischen Kolonialisten. Seine oberste Priorit\u00e4t war damals, P\u00e4chter zur R\u00e4umung des Landes zu zwingen, nachdem der Nationalfonds es von Grundbesitzern erworben hatte, die meist in einiger Entfernung von ihrem Grund und Boden oder sogar im Ausland lebten, da das Mandatssystem Grenzen geschaffen hatte, die vorher nicht existiert hatten. Wenn ein St\u00fcck Land oder sogar ein ganzes Dorf den Eigent\u00fcmer wechselte, bedeutete das traditionell nicht, dass die P\u00e4chter oder Dorfbewohner gehen mussten; in der b\u00e4uerlichen Gesellschaft Pal\u00e4stinas brauchte der neue Grundbesitzer die P\u00e4chter, damit sie sein Land weiter bestellten. Das \u00e4nderte sich mit der Ankunft des Zionismus. Weitz besuchte pers\u00f6nlich die neu erworbenen L\u00e4ndereien, oft begleitet von seinen engsten Mitarbeitern, und ermutigte die neuen j\u00fcdischen Besitzer, die einheimischen P\u00e4chter hinauszuwerfen, selbst wenn sie keine Verwendung f\u00fcr die gesamten Ackerfl\u00e4chen hatten. Einer der engsten Mitarbeiter von Weitz, Yossef Nachmani, berichtete ihm einmal, dass P\u00e4chter sich \u00bbleider\u00ab weigerten zu gehen und manche der neuen j\u00fcdischen Landbesitzer \u00bbFeigheit\u00ab bewiesen, wie er sagte, \u00bbindem sie mit dem Gedanken spielten, sie bleiben zu lassen\u00ab. Es war Aufgabe Nachmanis und anderer Mitarbeiter, daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, dass solche \u00bbSchw\u00e4chen\u00ab nicht einrissen: Unter ihrer Leitung kam es bald zu umfangreicheren und effektiveren Zwangsr\u00e4umungen.\n\nDie Auswirkungen dieser Aktivit\u00e4ten blieben damals begrenzt, weil die zionistischen Ressourcen knapp, der pal\u00e4stinensische Widerstand heftig und die britische Politik restriktiv waren. Am Ende der Mandatszeit 1948 besa\u00df die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde etwa 5,8 Prozent des Landes in Pal\u00e4stina. Aber es herrschte Hunger nach mehr, wenn sich nur die verf\u00fcgbaren Ressourcen vergr\u00f6\u00dfern und neue M\u00f6glichkeiten er\u00f6ffnen lie\u00dfen. Daher geriet Weitz ins Schw\u00e4rmen, als er von den Dorfregistern erfuhr, und schlug sofort vor, sie zu einem \u00bbnationalen Projekt\u00ab zu machen.\n\nAlle Beteiligten unterst\u00fctzten die Idee begeistert. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Historiker, prominentes Mitglied der zionistischen F\u00fchrung und sp\u00e4ter der zweite Staatspr\u00e4sident Israels, erkl\u00e4rte in einem Brief an Moshe Shertock (Sharett), den Leiter der politischen Abteilung der Jewish Agency (und sp\u00e4teren Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten von Israel), das Projekt solle nicht nur die topografische Lage der D\u00f6rfer erfassen, sondern auch die \u00bbhebr\u00e4ischen Urspr\u00fcnge\u00ab eines jeden Dorfes aufzeigen. Au\u00dferdem sei es f\u00fcr die Hagana wichtig zu wissen, welche D\u00f6rfer noch relativ jung seien, da manche \u00bberst\u00ab w\u00e4hrend der \u00e4gyptischen Besatzung Pal\u00e4stinas in den 1830er Jahren entstanden seien.\n\nDas Hauptbestreben war jedoch, die D\u00f6rfer kartografisch zu erfassen, und dazu rekrutierte man einen Topografen von der Hebr\u00e4ischen Universit\u00e4t, der im Kartografenamt der Mandatsverwaltung arbeitete. Er schlug vor, Luftaufnahmen zu machen, und zeigte Ben Gurion stolz zwei solcher Luftbildkarten von den D\u00f6rfern Sindiyana und Sabbarin (diese Karten befinden sich heute in den Staatsarchiven Israels und sind das einzige, was nach 1948 von diesen D\u00f6rfern \u00fcbrig geblieben ist).\n\nDaraufhin lud man die besten Fotografen des Landes ein, sich an der Initiative zu beteiligen. Yitzhak Shefer aus Tel Aviv und Margot Sadeh, die Ehefrau von Yitzhak Sadeh, dem Palmach-Chef (Kommandoeinheiten der Hagana), wurden ebenfalls rekrutiert. Das Fotolabor arbeitete in Margots Haus, getarnt durch eine Bew\u00e4sserungsfirma: Es musste vor den britischen Beh\u00f6rden verborgen bleiben, die darin ein illegales, gegen sie gerichtetes Spionageunternehmen h\u00e4tten sehen k\u00f6nnen. Die Briten wussten zwar davon, aber es gelang ihnen nie, das geheime Versteck ausfindig zu machen. Die gesamte kartografische Abteilung zog 1947 um ins Rote Haus.\n\nDie Arbeit der Topografen und Orientalisten lieferte detaillierte Unterlagen, die die zionistischen Experten nach und nach f\u00fcr jedes pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf zusammenstellten. Bis Ende der 1930er Jahre war dieses \u00bbArchiv\u00ab so gut wie komplett. Es enthielt pr\u00e4zise Angaben \u00fcber die topografische Lage eines jeden Dorfes, \u00fcber Zufahrtsstra\u00dfen, Bodenqualit\u00e4t, Wasservorkommen, Haupteinkommensquellen, soziopolitische Zusammensetzung, Religionszugeh\u00f6rigkeit, Namen der Muchtars (Ortsvorsteher), die Beziehungen zu anderen D\u00f6rfern, das Alter der m\u00e4nnlichen Einwohner (zwischen 16 und 50) und vieles mehr. Eine wichtige Kategorie war ein Index der \u00bbFeindseligkeit\u00ab (gegen das zionistische Projekt), gemessen am Beteiligungsgrad des Dorfes an der Revolte von 1936. Es gab eine Liste mit den Namen aller, die sich an der Revolte beteiligt hatten, und s\u00e4mtlicher Familien, die im Kampf gegen die Briten einen Angeh\u00f6rigen verloren hatten. Besonderes Augenmerk richtete sich auf Personen, die angeblich Juden get\u00f6tet hatten. Wie wir noch sehen werden, sch\u00fcrten diese letzten Angaben 1948 die schlimmsten Gr\u00e4ueltaten in den D\u00f6rfern und f\u00fchrten zu Massenhinrichtungen und Folterungen.\n\nRegul\u00e4re Hagana-Mitglieder, die den Auftrag hatten, bei \u00bbErkundungsfahrten\u00ab in die D\u00f6rfer Daten zu sammeln, erkannten von Anfang an, dass es sich dabei nicht blo\u00df um eine akademische \u00dcbung in Geografie handelte. Einer von ihnen war Moshe Pasternak, der 1940 an einer fr\u00fchen Exkursion zur Datenerhebung beteiligt war. Viele Jahre sp\u00e4ter erinnerte er sich:\n\nWir mussten die Grundstruktur des arabischen Dorfes studieren. Das hei\u00dft die Bauweise und wie es am besten anzugreifen war. In den Milit\u00e4rschulen hatte man mir beigebracht, wie man eine moderne europ\u00e4ische Stadt angreift, nicht ein primitives Dorf im Nahen Osten. Wir konnten es [ein arabisches Dorf] nicht mit einem polnischen oder \u00f6sterreichischen vergleichen. Das arabische Dorf ist im Gegensatz zu den europ\u00e4ischen topografisch an H\u00e4ngen gebaut. Das hie\u00df, wir mussten herausfinden, wie man sich ihm am besten von oben oder unten n\u00e4hern konnte. Wir mussten unsere \u00bbArabisten\u00ab [die Orientalisten, die ein Netz von Kollaborateuren pflegten] schulen, wie sie am besten mit Informanten zusammenarbeiten konnten.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich war in vielen Dorfdossiers das Problem angemerkt, wie sich ein System von Kollaborateuren mit Leuten aufbauen lie\u00dfe, die Pasternak und seine Freunde f\u00fcr primitiv und barbarisch hielten: \u00bbLeute, die Kaffee trinken und Reis mit den H\u00e4nden essen, waren sehr schwer als Informanten zu nutzen.\u00ab Wie er sich erinnerte, herrschte 1943 allm\u00e4hlich der Eindruck, dass sie endlich ein ordentliches Informantennetz aufgebaut h\u00e4tten. Im selben Jahr wurden die Dorfdossiers \u00fcberarbeitet, um sie weiter zu systematisieren. Das war vor allem das Werk eines Mannes, Ezra Danin, der eine wesentliche Rolle bei der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas spielen sollte.\n\nIn mancherlei Hinsicht brachte die Rekrutierung Ezra Danins, den man aus seiner erfolgreichen Zitrusplantage geholt hatte, ein neues Ma\u00df an Effektivit\u00e4t in die Geheimdienstarbeit und die Organisation der Dorfdossiers. Ab 1943 enthielten sie detaillierte Angaben zu: Landwirtschaft, Anbaufl\u00e4chen, Zahl der B\u00e4ume in Plantagen, Qualit\u00e4t der Obstbaumbest\u00e4nde (sogar einzelner B\u00e4ume), durchschnittliche Ackerfl\u00e4che pro Familie, Anzahl der Wagen, Ladenbesitzer, Werkstattmitarbeiter und Namen der Handwerker sowie ihrer Fertigkeiten in jedem Dorf. Sp\u00e4ter kamen noch genaue Einzelheiten \u00fcber jeden Clan und seine politischen Verbindungen hinzu, \u00fcber die soziale Schichtung zwischen Notabeln und einfachen Bauern und die Namen der \u00f6ffentlichen Bediensteten bei der Mandatsverwaltung.\n\nIn dem Ma\u00dfe, wie die Datenerfassung eine Eigendynamik entwickelte, tauchten um 1945 zus\u00e4tzliche Angaben auf wie Beschreibungen der Dorfmoscheen, die Namen der Imams mit Charakterisierungen wie \u00bber ist ein gew\u00f6hnlicher Mann\u00ab, und sogar genaue Schilderungen der Wohnzimmer in den H\u00e4usern dieser Honoratioren. Gegen Ende der Mandatszeit trat die milit\u00e4rische Ausrichtung der Angaben deutlicher hervor: die Zahl der Wachen (die meisten D\u00f6rfer hatten keine) sowie die Menge und Qualit\u00e4t der im Dorf verf\u00fcgbaren Waffen (meist gar keine oder nur antiquierte).\n\nDanin rekrutierte einen deutschen Juden namens Yaacov Shimoni, der sp\u00e4ter zu einem der f\u00fchrenden Orientalisten Israels wurde, und \u00fcbertrug ihm Sonderaufgaben in den D\u00f6rfern, vor allem die Leitung der T\u00e4tigkeit der Informanten. Einem von diesen gaben Danin und Shimoni den Decknamen \u00bbder Schatzmeister\u00ab (ha-gizbar). Dieser Mann erwies sich als sprudelnde Informationsquelle f\u00fcr die Datensammler und leitete von 1941 bis 1945 f\u00fcr sie das Netzwerk der Kollaborateure. Er wurde 1945 enttarnt und von militanten Pal\u00e4stinensern get\u00f6tet.\n\nSchon bald erhielten Danin und Shimoni Unterst\u00fctzung von zwei weiteren M\u00e4nnern, Yehoshua Palmon und Tuvia Lishanski. Auch ihre Namen sollte man sich merken, da sie eine aktive Rolle bei der Vorbereitung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas spielten. Lishanski war bereits in den 1940er Jahren damit befasst, Kampagnen gegen P\u00e4chter von Landparzellen zu inszenieren, die der JNF von ortsans\u00e4ssigen oder weiter entfernt lebenden Gutsbesitzern gekauft hatte. Er richtete seine ganze Energie darauf, diese Leute einzusch\u00fcchtern und gewaltsam von den L\u00e4ndereien zu vertreiben, die ihre Familien seit Jahrhunderten bestellt hatten.\n\nUnweit des Dorfes Furaydis und der \u00bbalten\u00ab j\u00fcdischen Siedlung Zikhron Yaacov, wo heute eine Stra\u00dfe von der K\u00fcstenstra\u00dfe durch das Wadi Milk nach Marj Ibn Amir (Emeq Israel) f\u00fchrt, liegt ein Jugenddorf (eine Art Internat f\u00fcr zionistische Jugendliche) namens Shefeya. Hier erhielten 1944 Spezialeinheiten im Dienst des Dorfdossierprojekts ihre Ausbildung und brachen von hier aus zu ihren Aufkl\u00e4rungseins\u00e4tzen auf. Shefeya sah weitgehend aus wie ein Spionagedorf im Kalten Krieg: Juden liefen herum, sprachen Arabisch und versuchten nachzuahmen, was sie f\u00fcr die typische Lebensweise und das \u00fcbliche Verhalten der pal\u00e4stinensischen Landbev\u00f6lkerung hielten.\n\nEiner der ersten Rekruten dieses speziellen Trainingslagers erinnerte sich 2002 an seinen ersten Aufkl\u00e4rungseinsatz, der ihn 1944 in das Nachbardorf Umm al-Zinat f\u00fchrte. Die Aufgabe lautete, das Dorf zu erkunden und gewisse Informationen herauszufinden, etwa wo der Muchtar wohnte, wo sich die Moschee befand, wo die Reichen des Dorfes wohnten und wer sich aktiv an der Revolte 1936 beteiligt hatte. Es war kein sonderlich gef\u00e4hrlicher Einsatz, da die Infiltranten wussten, dass sie die traditionelle arabische Gastfreundschaft nutzen konnten, und sogar im Haus des Muchtars zu Gast waren. Als es ihnen nicht gelang, an einem Tag alle Informationen zu bekommen, die sie brauchten, lie\u00dfen sie sich ein weiteres Mal einladen. Bei ihrem zweiten Besuch hatten sie den Auftrag, Informationen \u00fcber die Fruchtbarkeit des Bodens zu sammeln, dessen Qualit\u00e4t sie offenbar stark beeindruckte. Umm al-Zinat wurde 1948 zerst\u00f6rt und s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner wurden vertrieben, ohne dass von ihnen irgendwelche Provokationen ausgegangen w\u00e4ren.\n\nDie letzte Aktualisierung der Dorfdossiers geschah 1947. Sie konzentrierte sich auf Listen \u00bbgesuchter\u00ab Personen in jedem Dorf. Diese Listen nutzten j\u00fcdische Truppen 1948 f\u00fcr Durchsuchungen und Verhaftungen, die durchgef\u00fchrt wurden, sobald sie ein Dorf besetzt hatten. Dabei lie\u00dfen sie die M\u00e4nner des Dorfes in einer Reihe antreten und alle identifizieren, die auf den Listen standen, oft von derselben Person, die ihnen diese Informationen urspr\u00fcnglich zugespielt hatte und die nun einen Sack mit zwei Augenl\u00f6chern \u00fcber dem Kopf trug, um nicht erkannt zu werden. Die ausgesuchten M\u00e4nner wurden oft auf der Stelle erschossen. Zu den Kriterien, die zur Aufnahme in diese Listen f\u00fchrten, geh\u00f6rten das Engagement in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nationalbewegung, enge Verbindungen zum F\u00fchrer dieser Bewegung, Mufti al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, und, wie bereits gesagt, die Beteiligung an Aktionen gegen die Briten und die Zionisten. Au\u00dferdem erfolgte die Aufnahme in diese Listen aufgrund diverser Behauptungen wie \u00bbwar bekannterma\u00dfen im Libanon\u00ab oder \u00bbwurde von den britischen Beh\u00f6rden als Mitglied eines nationalen Komitees im Dorf verhaftet\u00ab.\n\nDie erste Kategorie, das Engagement in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nationalbewegung, war \u00e4u\u00dferst gro\u00dfz\u00fcgig definiert und konnte ganze D\u00f6rfer umfassen. Verbindungen zum Mufti oder der von ihm gef\u00fchrten politischen Partei waren weit verbreitet. Schlie\u00dflich hatte seine Partei die pal\u00e4stinensische Politik dominiert, seit den Briten das Mandat 1923 offiziell \u00fcbertragen wurde. Die Parteimitglieder gewannen National- und Kommunalwahlen und hatten hohe Positionen im Arabischen Oberkomitee (Arab Higher Committee) inne, das sich zur rudiment\u00e4ren Regierung der Pal\u00e4stinenser entwickelte. In den Augen zionistischer Experten stellte das ein Verbrechen dar. Wenn wir uns die Dossiers von 1947 ansehen, wird klar, dass es in D\u00f6rfern mit etwa 1500 Einwohnern gew\u00f6hnlich 20 bis 30 solcher Verd\u00e4chtigen gab (z.B. in Umm al-Zinat im s\u00fcdlichen Karmelgebirge, s\u00fcdlich von Haifa, waren es 30 solcher Verd\u00e4chtiger und im Nachbarort Damun 25).\n\nWie Yigael Yadin sich erinnerte, erm\u00f6glichten diese minuti\u00f6sen, eingehenden Kenntnisse \u00fcber die Vorg\u00e4nge in jedem einzelnen pal\u00e4stinensischen Dorf es der zionistischen Milit\u00e4rf\u00fchrung im November 1947 den Schluss zu ziehen, \u00bbdass die pal\u00e4stinensischen Araber niemanden haben, der sie richtig organisiert\u00ab. Das einzige ernsthafte Problem waren die Briten: \u00bbWenn die Briten nicht w\u00e4ren, h\u00e4tten wir den arabischen Aufstand [die Opposition gegen die UN-Teilungsresolution von 1947] in einem Monat niederschlagen k\u00f6nnen.\u00ab\n\nFrontstellung gegen die Briten: 1945 bis 1947\n\nDie zionistische Bewegung hatte inzwischen nicht nur die l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas sorgf\u00e4ltig erfasst, um sich auf die zuk\u00fcnftige \u00dcbernahme des Landes vorzubereiten, sondern auch wesentlich klarere Vorstellungen entwickelt, wie sich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg der neue Staat am besten verwirklichen lie\u00dfe. Ein entscheidender Faktor war, dass die Briten bereits die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung und ihre Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte zerschlagen hatten, als sie die Revolte 1936 niederschlugen, und der zionistischen F\u00fchrung damit ausreichend Zeit und Raum verschafft hatten, ihre n\u00e4chsten Schritte vorzubereiten. Sobald die Gefahr einer Nazi-Invasion in Pal\u00e4stina 1942 gebannt war, wurde den zionistischen F\u00fchrern deutlicher bewusst, dass das einzige Hindernis auf ihrem Weg zu einer erfolgreichen \u00dcbernahme des Landes nicht der pal\u00e4stinensische Widerstand, sondern die Anwesenheit der Briten war. Das erkl\u00e4rt zum Beispiel, warum Ben Gurion bei einem Treffen 1942 im Biltmore Hotel in New York Forderungen nach einem j\u00fcdischen Staat im gesamten Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stinas auf den Tisch brachte.\n\nAls der Zweite Weltkrieg zu Ende ging, startete die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung in Pal\u00e4stina eine Kampagne, um die Briten aus dem Land zu dr\u00e4ngen. Gleichzeitig arbeitete sie weiter an ihren Pl\u00e4nen f\u00fcr die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung, die mit 75 Prozent die Mehrheit im Land stellte. F\u00fchrende zionistische Pers\u00f6nlichkeiten \u00e4u\u00dferten ihre Ansichten nicht \u00f6ffentlich, sondern vertrauten ihre Gedanken nur engen Verb\u00fcndeten oder ihren Tageb\u00fcchern an. Einer von ihnen, Yossef Weitz, schrieb 1940: \u00bbEs ist unser Recht, die Araber umzusiedeln\u00ab, und \u00bbDie Araber m\u00fcssten weg!\u00ab Ben Gurion zeigte sich in einem Brief an seinen Sohn 1937 offenbar \u00fcberzeugt, dass dies der einzige Weg sei, der dem Zionismus offen st\u00fcnde: \u00bbDie Araber werden gehen m\u00fcssen\u00ab, aber man brauche einen g\u00fcnstigen Moment, um daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, etwa einen Krieg. Dieser g\u00fcnstige Augenblick kam 1948. Ben Gurion ist in mancherlei Hinsicht der Begr\u00fcnder des Staates Israel und war sein erster Ministerpr\u00e4sident. Er stand auch hinter dem Masterplan f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nBen Gurion: Der Architekt\n\nDavid Ben Gurion f\u00fchrte die zionistische Bewegung von Mitte der 1920er Jahre bis weit in die 1960er Jahre. Er wurde als David Gruen 1886 in Plon\u00b4sk, Polen (damals Teil des zaristischen Russlands) geboren und kam 1906 als gl\u00fchender Zionist nach Pal\u00e4stina. Vielen in der ganzen Welt ist sein Bild heute vertraut: Er war klein, hatte \u00fcppiges, nach hinten gek\u00e4mmtes wei\u00dfes Haar und trug immer eine Khakiuniform. Nachdem die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen begannen, trug er zu seiner milit\u00e4rischen Kleidung eine Pistole und eine Kufiyya um den Hals wie seine Eliteeinheiten. Damals war er etwa 60 Jahre alt, und obwohl er unter starken R\u00fcckenschmerzen litt, war er der kraftvolle, schwer arbeitende F\u00fchrer der zionistischen Bewegung.\n\nDie zentrale Rolle, die er bei der Entscheidung \u00fcber das Schicksal der Pal\u00e4stinenser spielte, erwuchs aus der Tatsache, dass er die absolute Kontrolle \u00fcber s\u00e4mtliche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsbelange in der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde Pal\u00e4stinas besa\u00df. An die Macht gekommen war er als Gewerkschaftsf\u00fchrer, war aber schon bald eifrig damit besch\u00e4ftigt, die Gr\u00fcndung des j\u00fcdischen Staates einzuf\u00e4deln. Als die Briten der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde 1937 einen Staat anboten, der einen erheblich kleineren Teil Pal\u00e4stinas umfassen sollte, als den Zionisten vorschwebte, akzeptierte Ben Gurion den Vorschlag als guten Anfang, strebte aber die j\u00fcdische Eigenstaatlichkeit in einem m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas an. Anschlie\u00dfend \u00fcberredete er die zionistische F\u00fchrung, ihn als oberste Autorit\u00e4t anzuerkennen und die grundlegende Idee zu akzeptieren, dass ein zuk\u00fcnftiger Staat die absolute j\u00fcdische Vorherrschaft bedeute. Unter seiner \u00c4gide wurde um 1937 auch diskutiert, wie sich ein rein j\u00fcdischer Staat erreichen lie\u00dfe. Nun tauchten zwei magische Begriffe auf: St\u00e4rke und g\u00fcnstige Gelegenheit. Der j\u00fcdische Staat lie\u00df sich nur mit Gewalt erringen, aber man musste abwarten, bis sich ein g\u00fcnstiger historischer Moment b\u00f6te, in dem man sich \u00bbmilit\u00e4risch\u00ab um die demografische Realit\u00e4t vor Ort k\u00fcmmern k\u00f6nne: die Anwesenheit einer nichtj\u00fcdischen einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerungsmehrheit.\n\nBen Gurions Fokussierung auf langfristige Prozesse und umfassende L\u00f6sungen war untypisch f\u00fcr die meisten seiner Kollegen in der zionistischen F\u00fchrung. Sie hofften immer noch, die neue Realit\u00e4t, die ihnen vorschwebte, herbeif\u00fchren zu k\u00f6nnen, indem sie hier und da ein St\u00fcck Land und ein paar H\u00e4user kauften. Ben Gurion begriff schon sehr fr\u00fch, dass dies nie ausreichen w\u00fcrde \u2013 und nat\u00fcrlich hatte er Recht: Wie wir gesehen haben, war es der zionistischen Bewegung bis zum Ende der Mandatszeit lediglich gelungen, etwa sechs Prozent des Landes k\u00e4uflich zu erwerben.\n\nAber selbst vorsichtigere zionistische F\u00fchrer wie Ben Gurions Stellvertreter Moshe Sharett, der \u00bbAu\u00dfenminister\u00ab der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde im Pal\u00e4stina der Mandatszeit, assoziierte die Ansiedlung von Juden in Pal\u00e4stina mit der Vertreibung der einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinenser. So konnte Sharett bei einem Vortrag, den er am 13. Dezember 1938 vor Angestellten zionistischer Organisationen in Jerusalem hielt, von einer besonders zufriedenstellenden Leistung berichten: dem Ankauf von 2500 Dunam (etwa 1000 m2 oder 0,1 ha) Land im Baysan-Tal in Ostpal\u00e4stina. Dabei erw\u00e4hnte er ein verr\u00e4terisches Detail:\n\nDieser Kauf ging interessanterweise mit einem Bev\u00f6lkerungstransfer einher [da er wohl unsicher war, ob seine Zuh\u00f6rer mit diesem Begriff vertraut waren, wiederholte er ihn auf Englisch]. Es gibt einen Stamm, der westlich des Jordans lebt, und der Kauf umfasst eine Zahlung an den Stamm, damit er auf die Ostseite des Flusses zieht; dadurch werden wir die Zahl der Araber [in Pal\u00e4stina] reduzieren.\n\nWie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, hatte Ben Gurion 1942 seine Ziele schon wesentlich h\u00f6her gesteckt, als er \u00f6ffentlich den zionistischen Anspruch auf ganz Pal\u00e4stina geltend machte. Nach wie vor fassten die zionistischen F\u00fchrer das Versprechen der Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung so auf, dass es sich auf das ganze Land bezog. Aber er war nicht nur ein Staatsgr\u00fcnder, sondern auch ein pragmatischer Kolonialist. Ihm war klar, dass man Maximalpl\u00e4ne wie das Biltmore-Programm, das die Forderung nach dem gesamten Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stinas erhob, f\u00fcr unrealistisch halten w\u00fcrde. Druck auf die Briten auszu\u00fcben war nat\u00fcrlich unm\u00f6glich, solange sie in Europa die Stellung gegen Nazi-Deutschland hielten. Folglich schraubte er w\u00e4hrend des Zweiten Weltkriegs seine Ambitionen zur\u00fcck. Aber in der Nachkriegszeit hatte die britische Labour-Regierung unter Clement Attlee andere Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina. Nachdem die Juden in Europa nicht mehr von Vernichtung bedroht waren und die meisten lieber \u00fcber den Atlantik zogen als in den Nahen Osten, suchten das neue britische Kabinett und sein energischer Au\u00dfenminister, Ernest Bevin, eine L\u00f6sung, die sich an den W\u00fcnschen und Interessen der tats\u00e4chlich in Pal\u00e4stina lebenden Menschen orientierte, nicht an Leuten, von denen die zionistische F\u00fchrung behauptete, dass sie dort hinziehen wollten \u2013 mit anderen Worten: Sie suchten eine demokratische L\u00f6sung.\n\nBewaffnete \u00dcberf\u00e4lle und vor allem Terroranschl\u00e4ge j\u00fcdischer Untergrundmilizen konnten an dieser Politik auch nichts \u00e4ndern. Die Briten reagierten milde auf Bombenanschl\u00e4ge auf Br\u00fccken, Milit\u00e4rbasen und das britische Hauptquartier in Jerusalem (King David Hotel) \u2013 besonders im Vergleich zur brutalen Behandlung, die pal\u00e4stinensische Rebellen in den 1930er Jahren von ihnen erfahren hatten. Ihre Vergeltung bestand in einer Entwaffnung j\u00fcdischer Truppen, die sie zum gro\u00dfen Teil selbst rekrutiert und ausger\u00fcstet hatten, zun\u00e4chst im Kampf gegen die pal\u00e4stinensische Rebellion 1937 und erneut im Krieg gegen die Achsenm\u00e4chte 1939. Die Entwaffnung erfolgte allerdings nur partiell, aber es kam zu zahlreichen Verhaftungen, die ausreichten, um den zionistischen F\u00fchrern klar zu machen, dass sie eine anpassungsf\u00e4higere Politik verfolgen mussten, solange die Briten noch f\u00fcr Recht und Ordnung im Land zust\u00e4ndig waren. Unmittelbar nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg hatten die Briten, wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, in einem Land mit nur zwei Millionen Einwohnern eine unverh\u00e4ltnism\u00e4\u00dfig starke Truppe von 100000 Mann stationiert. Das diente eindeutig der Abschreckung, selbst als die Streitkr\u00e4fte im Gefolge des j\u00fcdischen Terroranschlags auf das King David Hotel etwas reduziert wurden. Diese Erw\u00e4gungen veranlassten Ben Gurion zu dem Entschluss, dass ein etwas \u00bbreduziertes\u00ab Staatsgebiet, das etwa 80 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas umfassen sollte, der zionistischen Bewegung gen\u00fcgen w\u00fcrde, um ihre Tr\u00e4ume und Bestrebungen zu verwirklichen.\n\nEnde August 1946 versammelte Ben Gurion die F\u00fchrung der zionistischen Bewegung in einem Hotel in Paris, dem Royal Monsue, wo sie ihm helfen sollte, eine Alternative zum Biltmore-Plan zu suchen, der die \u00dcbernahme ganz Pal\u00e4stinas vorgesehen hatte. Nun tauchte eine \u00bbalte-neue\u00ab Idee der zionistischen Bewegung wieder auf: die Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas. \u00bbGebt uns die Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit, und sei es auch nur in einem kleinen Teil des Landes\u00ab, pl\u00e4dierte Nachum Goldman an die britische Regierung in London, w\u00e4hrend seine Kollegen in Paris \u00fcber ihre n\u00e4chsten Schritte berieten. Goldman war damals die ausgepr\u00e4gteste \u00bbTaube\u00ab innerhalb der zionistischen F\u00fchrung, und seine Forderung nach nur einem \u00bbkleinen\u00ab Teil Pal\u00e4stinas spiegelte keineswegs Ben Gurions Ambitionen wider: Er akzeptierte zwar das Prinzip, nicht aber die Gr\u00f6\u00dfenordnung. \u00bbWir werden ein gro\u00dfes St\u00fcck Pal\u00e4stinas fordern\u00ab, erkl\u00e4rte Ben Gurion allen, die er in die franz\u00f6sische Hauptstadt beordert hatte. Wie Generationen israelischer F\u00fchrer nach ihm bis hin zu Ariel Sharon im Jahr 2005 musste auch Ben Gurion die extremistischeren Zionisten zur\u00fcckhalten, und er erkl\u00e4rte ihnen, dass 80 bis 90 Prozent des pal\u00e4stinensischen Mandatsgebiets gen\u00fcgen w\u00fcrden, um einen lebensf\u00e4higen Staat aufzubauen, sofern sie eine j\u00fcdische Vorherrschaft gew\u00e4hrleisten k\u00f6nnten. Weder das Konzept noch die Prozentzahl sollten sich im Laufe der n\u00e4chsten 60 Jahre \u00e4ndern. Einige Monate sp\u00e4ter setzte die Jewish Agency Ben Gurions \u00bbgro\u00dfes St\u00fcck Pal\u00e4stinas\u00ab in eine Landkarte um, die sie an alle verteilte, die f\u00fcr die Zukunft Pal\u00e4stinas relevant waren. Diese Karte von 1947 sah einen j\u00fcdischen Staat vor, der fast bis ins letzte Detail Israel in den Grenzen vor 1967 entsprach, also Pal\u00e4stina ohne Westjordanland (West Bank) und Gazastreifen umfasste.\n\nW\u00e4hrend dieser ganzen Beratungen sprachen die zionistischen F\u00fchrer kein einziges Mal \u00fcber die M\u00f6glichkeit, dass es Widerstand von der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung geben k\u00f6nnte: Ihre Hauptsorge galt den Briten und vielleicht noch der internationalen Reaktion. Das ist durchaus kein Zufall. Die zionistische F\u00fchrung wusste um den v\u00f6lligen Zusammenbruch der pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und um die z\u00f6gerliche Haltung, die die arabischen Staaten insgesamt zur Pal\u00e4stinafrage einnahmen. Die verzweifelte Lage der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas wird eindringlich deutlich, sobald man sich klar macht, dass ausgerechnet die britische Mandatsverwaltung, die die pal\u00e4stinensische Befreiungsbewegung zerschlagen hatte, nun als Einzige noch zwischen den Pal\u00e4stinensern und einer kalt entschlossenen, hoch motivierten zionistischen Bewegung stand, die den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil ihres Heimatlandes f\u00fcr sich haben wollte. Aber es sollte noch schlimmer kommen, da Europa sich anschickte, das j\u00fcdische Volk f\u00fcr den Holocaust, der auf europ\u00e4ischem Boden gew\u00fctet hatte, mit einem Staat in Pal\u00e4stina zu entsch\u00e4digen, und dabei v\u00f6llig ignorierte, dass dies nur auf Kosten der einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinenser gehen konnte.\n\nAngesichts des Machtvakuums auf pal\u00e4stinensischer Seite ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass die zionistischen Entscheidungstr\u00e4ger sich verhielten, als ob die Pal\u00e4stinenser kein Faktor w\u00e4ren, mit dem sie h\u00e4tten rechnen m\u00fcssen. Aber da sie immer noch die \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigende Mehrheit im Land stellten, waren sie nat\u00fcrlich ein \u00bbProblem\u00ab. Au\u00dferdem bestand zumindest theoretisch die M\u00f6glichkeit, dass die arabische Welt ihnen zu Hilfe kommen, Truppen entsenden und Waffen liefern k\u00f6nnte. Dieses potenzielle Szenario war David Ben Gurion durchaus bewusst, daher besch\u00e4ftigten er und seine engsten Verb\u00fcndeten sich st\u00e4ndig mit der Sicherheitsfrage \u2013 _bitachon_ auf Hebr\u00e4isch. Sie entwickelte sich zu einer wahren Obsession, die Ben Gurion so sorgf\u00e4ltig und erfolgreich sch\u00fcrte, dass sie schlie\u00dflich alle anderen sozialen und politischen Themen auf der Agenda der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina und sp\u00e4ter in Israel \u00fcberschattete.\n\n_Bitachon_ war damals und ist bis heute ein Oberbegriff, den zionistische und sp\u00e4ter israelische Politiker benutzten, um eine gro\u00dfe Bandbreite von Themen abzudecken und zahlreiche politische Grundsatzentscheidungen zu rechtfertigen von R\u00fcstungsk\u00e4ufen im Ausland \u00fcber innere Auseinandersetzungen mit anderen politischen Parteien und Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr den zuk\u00fcnftigen Staat bis hin zur Politik gegen die heimische pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung. Diese Politik basierte in ihrer Ausrichtung und ihrem Denken auf Vergeltung, war aber in der Praxis sehr oft provokativ. Ab 1946 tauchten umfassendere strategische Zielsetzungen auf, die auf Konsolidierung der Zukunftsszenarien und -pl\u00e4ne zielten. David Ben Gurion pr\u00e4gte Israels _bitachon_ -Sicht entscheidend mit, indem er in den zionistischen Entscheidungsprozessen Strukturver\u00e4nderungen vornahm, die ihn an die Spitze einer bis dahin recht schwerf\u00e4lligen und ineffektiven Pyramide stellten. Nachdem der 22. Zionistenkongress Ben Gurion 1946 das Verteidigungsbudget \u00fcbertragen hatte, besa\u00df er die vollst\u00e4ndige Kontrolle \u00fcber s\u00e4mtliche Sicherheitsfragen der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina.\n\nObwohl Ben Gurion noch keinen Staat hatte, fungierte er schon als Verteidigungsminister und als eine Art Ministerpr\u00e4sident (angesichts seiner Autorit\u00e4t, Beschl\u00fcsse in F\u00fchrungsgremien verabschieden zu lassen). In mancherlei Hinsicht teilte er die Verantwortung, da die meisten Fragen auf der Agenda der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde demokratisch in Institutionen diskutiert wurden, deren Zusammensetzung die wichtigsten politischen Gruppierungen unter den Juden in Pal\u00e4stina widerspiegelte. Als jedoch der Zeitpunkt n\u00e4her r\u00fcckte, an dem wichtige Entscheidungen \u00fcber das Schicksal der Pal\u00e4stinenser getroffen werden mussten, begann Ben Gurion die offizielle Institution zu ignorieren und st\u00e4rker auf geheime Gremien zu vertrauen.\n\nDas Hauptproblem, das 1946 und 1947 auf der zionistischen Agenda stand \u2013 der Kampf gegen die Briten \u2013, l\u00f6ste sich von selbst, als die Briten im Februar 1947 beschlossen, Pal\u00e4stina zu verlassen und die Pal\u00e4stinafrage den Vereinten Nationen zu \u00fcberlassen. Eigentlich hatten die Briten kaum eine andere Wahl: Nach dem Holocaust w\u00e4re es ihnen unm\u00f6glich gewesen, mit der drohenden j\u00fcdischen Rebellion so zu verfahren, wie sie es in den 1930er Jahren mit der arabischen getan hatten, und nachdem die Labour-Regierung den Abzug aus Indien beschlossen hatte, verlor Pal\u00e4stina ohnehin viel von seinem Reiz. Ein besonders kalter Winter machte London 1947 endg\u00fcltig klar, dass das Empire auf dem besten Weg war, zu einer zweitrangigen Macht abzusteigen, deren weltweiter Einfluss neben dem der beiden neuen Superm\u00e4chte verblasste und deren Wirtschaft von einem Kapitalismus behindert wurde, der die britische W\u00e4hrung gef\u00e4hrlich im Wert sinken lie\u00df. Statt an abgelegenen L\u00e4ndern wie Pal\u00e4stina festzuhalten, sah die Labour-Regierung ihre vorrangige Aufgabe darin, zu Hause einen Wohlfahrtsstaat aufzubauen. Letzten Endes verlie\u00dfen die Briten das Land in aller Eile und ohne Bedauern.\n\nBen Gurion war bereits Ende 1946 klar, dass die Briten auf dem R\u00fcckzug waren. Er begann mit seinen Mitarbeitern eine Generalstrategie zu entwerfen, die sich gegen die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung einsetzen lie\u00dfe, sobald die Briten fort w\u00e4ren. Diese Strategie bildete Plan C oder _Gimel_ auf Hebr\u00e4isch.\n\nPlan C war eine \u00fcberarbeitete Version der beiden fr\u00fcheren Pl\u00e4ne A und B. Plan A hie\u00df auch \u00bbElimelech-Plan\u00ab nach Elimelech Avnir, dem Hagana-Kommandeur in Tel Aviv, der bereits 1937 auf Ben Gurions Bitte m\u00f6gliche Richtlinien f\u00fcr die \u00dcbernahme Pal\u00e4stinas im Fall eines britischen Abzugs aufgestellt hatte. Plan B stammte von 1946, und beide wurden nun zu Plan C zusammengefasst.\n\nWie Plan A und B zielte auch Plan C darauf, die Streitkr\u00e4fte der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina auf die Offensiven gegen l\u00e4ndliche und urbane Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas vorzubereiten, die sie sofort nach dem Abzug der Briten f\u00fchren w\u00fcrden. Zweck solcher Aktionen sollte die \u00bbAbschreckung\u00ab der pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung gegen Angriffe auf j\u00fcdische Siedlungen und die Vergeltung f\u00fcr \u00dcbergriffe auf j\u00fcdische H\u00e4user, Stra\u00dfen und Verkehr sein. Plan C sagte klar und deutlich, was solche Strafaktionen beinhalten sollten:\n\nT\u00f6ten der pal\u00e4stinensischen politischen F\u00fchrung.\n\nT\u00f6ten der pal\u00e4stinensischen Anstifter und ihrer finanziellen Unterst\u00fctzer.\n\nT\u00f6ten der Pal\u00e4stinenser, die gegen Juden vorgehen.\n\nT\u00f6ten hoher pal\u00e4stinensischer Beamter und Bediensteter [der Mandatsverwaltung].\n\nZerst\u00f6rung pal\u00e4stinensischer Transportmittel.\n\nZerst\u00f6rung lebenswichtiger pal\u00e4stinensischer Einrichtungen: Brunnen, M\u00fchlen etc.;\n\nAngriffe auf benachbarte pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer, die k\u00fcnftige Angriffe wahrscheinlich unterst\u00fctzen k\u00f6nnten;\n\nAngriffe auf pal\u00e4stinensische Clubs, Kaffeeh\u00e4user, Treffpunkte etc.\n\nPlan C erg\u00e4nzte, dass alle erforderlichen Informationen f\u00fcr die Durchf\u00fchrung dieser Aktionen in den Dorfdossiers zu finden seien: Listen der Anf\u00fchrer, Aktivisten, der \u00bbpotenziellen menschlichen Ziele\u00ab, die genaue Lage der D\u00f6rfer usw.48\n\nInnerhalb weniger Monate entstand jedoch ein weiterer Plan: Plan D ( _Dalet_ ).49 Dieser Plan besiegelte das Schicksal der Pal\u00e4stinenser in dem Territorium, das die zionistischen F\u00fchrer f\u00fcr ihren zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat ins Auge gefasst hatten. Unabh\u00e4ngig davon, ob diese Pal\u00e4stinenser sich entschlie\u00dfen w\u00fcrden, mit ihrem j\u00fcdischen Staat zusammenzuarbeiten oder gegen ihn zu opponieren, forderte Plan Dalet ihre systematische und vollst\u00e4ndige Vertreibung aus ihrer Heimat.\nKAPITEL 3\n\nTeilung und Zerst\u00f6rung: Die UN-Resolution 181 und ihre Folgen\n\n_Das brutalste Element des Konflikts im ehemaligen Jugoslawien war die \u00bbethnische S\u00e4uberung\u00ab mit dem Ziel, Minderheitengruppen aus Gebieten zwangsweise zu vertreiben, die von einer anderen Mehrheit bewohnt werden._\n\n_Vorher lebten verschiedene Volksgruppen zusammen im selben Dorf und es gab keine Teilung in ethnische Gruppen und keine ethnische S\u00e4uberung. Die Ursachen der Situation waren also eindeutig politisch._\n\nSummary record of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 6. 3.1995 with regard to the former Yugoslavia\n\nDie Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas\n\nAls die zionistische Bewegung Anfang Dezember 1947 mit ihren ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen in Pal\u00e4stina begann, gab es im Land eine \u00bbgemischte\u00ab Bev\u00f6lkerung aus Pal\u00e4stinensern und Juden. Die einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinenser stellten eine Zweidrittelmehrheit, nachdem sie zu Beginn der Mandatszeit noch etwa 90 Prozent der Bev\u00f6lkerung ausgemacht hatten. Ein Drittel waren j\u00fcdische Zuwanderer, also zionistische Siedler und Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus dem vom Krieg zerrissenen Europa, von denen die meisten nach 1920 ins Land gekommen waren. Seit Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts hatten die Pal\u00e4stinenser das Recht auf Selbstbestimmung angestrebt, zun\u00e4chst im Rahmen einer panarabischen Identit\u00e4t, aber schon bald nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg durch das Mandatssystem, das die von ihm geschaffenen neuen Nationalstaaten im Nahen und Mittleren Osten zur Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit und zu einer Zukunft auf der Basis demokratischer Prinzipien zu f\u00fchren versprach. Aber die britische Mandats-Charta f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina bezog auch die Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung von 1917 ein und damit das britische Versprechen an die zionistische Bewegung, den Juden eine \u00bbHeimst\u00e4tte\u00ab in Pal\u00e4stina zu gew\u00e4hrleisten.\n\nTrotz der prozionistischen Politik der Briten und der Anwesenheit einer wachsenden j\u00fcdischen Minderheit war Pal\u00e4stina bis zum Ende der Mandatszeit nach wie vor ein \u00fcberwiegend arabisches Land. Nahezu das gesamte Ackerland in Pal\u00e4stina befand sich in der Hand der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung \u2013 nur 5,8 Prozent war 1947 in j\u00fcdischem Besitz \u2013, weshalb die Bezeichnung \u00bbgemischte\u00ab Bev\u00f6lkerung, gelinde gesagt, etwas irref\u00fchrend ist. Seit die zionistische Bewegung nach Pal\u00e4stina gekommen war, hatten ihre F\u00fchrer zwar j\u00fcdische Einwanderer zu bewegen versucht, sich auf dem Land niederzulassen, aber es war ihnen nicht gelungen: Die \u00fcberwiegende Mehrheit der j\u00fcdischen Zuwanderer zog die St\u00e4dte vor. Folglich lagen die meisten zionistischen Siedlungen in l\u00e4ndlichen Gegenden weit voneinander entfernt. In manchen Gebieten wie Galil\u00e4a im Norden und Naqab (Negev) im S\u00fcden waren sie isolierte Inseln inmitten l\u00e4ndlicher pal\u00e4stinensischer Gegenden.\n\nAufgrund dieser Isolation waren diese Siedlungen wie Festungen, nicht wie D\u00f6rfer gebaut: Ihre Anlage war st\u00e4rker von Sicherheitserw\u00e4gungen gepr\u00e4gt als von menschlichen Wohnbed\u00fcrfnissen. Ihre introvertierte Abgeschiedenheit stand in seltsamem Kontrast zur Weitl\u00e4ufigkeit traditioneller pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer mit ihren Natursteinh\u00e4usern und leicht zug\u00e4nglichen, unbehinderten Wegen in die umliegenden Felder, Obstplantagen und Olivenhaine.\n\nDass sich so wenige Juden in l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten Pal\u00e4stinas angesiedelt hatten, erwies sich als ernsthaftes Problem f\u00fcr diejenigen, die als L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr den zunehmenden Konflikt zwischen den beiden Bev\u00f6lkerungsgruppen eine Teilung anstrebten. Einerseits diktierten Logik und gesunder Menschenverstand, dass die l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete \u2013 mehr als drei Viertel des Territoriums \u2013 pal\u00e4stinensisch bleiben m\u00fcssten. Dagegen waren die Anteile der beiden Bev\u00f6lkerungsgruppen in den St\u00e4dten ann\u00e4hernd gleich. Es stellte sich also die Frage, wie angesichts dieser Realit\u00e4ten vor Ort zwei klar unterschiedene Gebilde mit homogener pal\u00e4stinensischer beziehungsweise j\u00fcdischer Bev\u00f6lkerung denkbar w\u00e4ren. Urspr\u00fcnglich war eine Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas ein britischer L\u00f6sungsvorschlag, der aber ab 1937 ein Kernst\u00fcck zionistischer Politik wurde. Zuvor hatten die Briten mehrere andere M\u00f6glichkeiten vorgeschlagen, namentlich die Schaffung eines binationalen Staates, den die Juden abgelehnt hatten, oder ein in Kantone (nach Schweizer Modell) gegliedertes Pal\u00e4stina, das beide Seiten sich weigerten auch nur in Erw\u00e4gung zu ziehen. Letzten Endes gab London jeglichen Versuch auf, eine L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr den drohenden Konflikt zu suchen, und \u00fcberantwortete die Pal\u00e4stinafrage im Februar 1947 den Vereinten Nationen. Schon bald ging es nur noch um die von der zionistischen F\u00fchrung favorisierte Teilung, die Gro\u00dfbritannien nun unterst\u00fctzte. Die Interessen der Pal\u00e4stinenser wurden fast v\u00f6llig aus diesem Prozess ausgeklammert.\n\nDer UN-Teilungsplan\n\nDie unerfahrenen Vereinten Nationen, die 1947 erst zwei Jahre alt waren, legten die Frage des zuk\u00fcnftigen Schicksals Pal\u00e4stinas in die H\u00e4nde eines Sonderausschusses f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina (Special Committee for Palestine, UNSCOP), von dessen Mitgliedern keiner vorherige Konfliktl\u00f6sungserfahrungen mitbrachte oder viel \u00fcber die Geschichte Pal\u00e4stinas wusste.\n\nAuch der UNSCOP sprach sich f\u00fcr eine Teilung als Leitlinie einer k\u00fcnftigen L\u00f6sung aus. Die Mitglieder berieten zwar eine Weile \u00fcber die M\u00f6glichkeit, ganz Pal\u00e4stina zu einem demokratischen Staat zu machen \u2013 \u00fcber dessen Zukunft die Mehrheitsentscheidung der Bev\u00f6lkerung befinden sollte \u2013, gab diese Idee aber schlie\u00dflich auf. Stattdessen empfahl der Sonderausschuss der UN-Generalversammlung die Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas in zwei Staaten, die durch Wirtschaftsunion f\u00f6deralistisch verbunden sein sollten. Er empfahl au\u00dferdem Jerusalem als _corpus separatum_ unter ein internationales Regime zu stellen und von den Vereinten Nationen zu verwalten. Der Bericht, den der UNSCOP letztlich vorlegte, sah zwei zuk\u00fcnftige Staaten vor, die abgesehen von ihrem inneren demografischen Gleichgewicht, identisch w\u00e4ren, und betonte daher die Notwendigkeit, dass beide Staatsgebilde freiheitlich-demokratische Grunds\u00e4tze einhalten sollten. Am 29. November 1947 wurde daraus die Resolution 181 der UN-Generalversammlung.\n\nEs ist klar, dass die Vereinten Nationen bei der Annahme des Teilungsplans die ethnische Zusammensetzung der Landesbev\u00f6lkerung v\u00f6llig au\u00dfer Acht lie\u00dfen. H\u00e4tten die Vereinten Nationen beschlossen, die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe des zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staates dem Territorium in Pal\u00e4stina anzupassen, das von Juden besiedelt war, h\u00e4tten sie Anspruch auf nicht mehr als zehn Prozent des Landes gehabt. Aber die Vereinten Nationen akzeptierten die nationalistischen Anspr\u00fcche, die die zionistische Bewegung auf Pal\u00e4stina erhob, und waren zudem bestrebt, die Juden f\u00fcr den Holocaust in Europa zu entsch\u00e4digen.\n\nIm Ergebnis \u00bbgaben\u00ab sie der zionistischen Bewegung einen Staat, der mehr als die H\u00e4lfte des Landes umfasste. Dass die Mitglieder des UNSCOP auf den zionistischen Standpunkt umschwenkten, lag auch daran, dass die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung seit 1918 eine Teilung des Landes abgelehnt hatte. Im Laufe ihrer Geschichte hatte diese F\u00fchrung, die \u00fcberwiegend aus st\u00e4dtischen Notabeln bestand, recht oft die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas nicht wirklich vertreten, aber dieses Mal machten sie es richtig und stellten sich voll und ganz hinter den Unmut, der in der breiten pal\u00e4stinensischen Gesellschaft \u00fcber den Gedanken herrschte, ihr Heimatland mit europ\u00e4ischen Siedlern zu \u00bbteilen\u00ab, die gekommen waren, um es zu kolonisieren.\n\nDie Arabische Liga, die regionale interarabische Organisation, und das Arabische Oberkomitee (Arab Higher Committee, die embryonale pal\u00e4stinensische Regierung) beschlossen vor der UN-Resolution, die Verhandlungen mit dem UNSCOP zu boykottieren, und beteiligten sich nach November 1947 auch nicht an den Beratungen \u00fcber deren Umsetzung. Dieses Vakuum f\u00fcllte die zionistische F\u00fchrung m\u00fchelos und selbstbewusst aus und trat bald mit den Vereinten Nationen in einen bilateralen Dialog \u00fcber die Zukunftsplanung f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina. Auf dieses Muster werden wir in der Geschichte der Friedensbem\u00fchungen in Pal\u00e4stina noch \u00f6fter sto\u00dfen, besonders nachdem die Amerikaner 1967 einbezogen wurden: \u00bbPal\u00e4stina Frieden zu bringen\u00ab hat bis heute immer bedeutet, ein ausschlie\u00dflich zwischen den USA und Israel erarbeitetes Konzept zu verfolgen, ohne dass es ernsthafte Konsultationen mit, geschweige denn R\u00fccksicht auf die Pal\u00e4stinenser gegeben h\u00e4tte.\n\nDie zionistische Bewegung dominierte 1947 das diplomatische Geschehen so schnell, dass die F\u00fchrung der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde zuversichtlich genug war, vom UNSCOP die Zuweisung eines Staatsgebiets zu fordern, das \u00fcber 80 Prozent des Landes ausmachte. Die zionistischen Gesandten bei den Verhandlungen mit den Vereinten Nationen legten sogar eine Landkarte mit dem Staatsgebiet vor, das sie sich w\u00fcnschten: Es umfasste das gesamte Territorium, das Israel ein Jahr sp\u00e4ter besetzt hatte, n\u00e4mlich das Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stina ohne Westjordanland. Die meisten UNSCOP-Mitglieder hatten allerdings das Gef\u00fchl, das sei ein bisschen zu viel, und \u00fcberzeugten die Juden, sich mit 65 Prozent des Landes zufrieden zu geben. Au\u00dferdem dr\u00e4ngten die katholischen L\u00e4nder die Vereinten Nationen, Jerusalem wegen seiner religi\u00f6sen Bedeutung zu einer internationalen Stadt zu machen, daher lehnte der UNSCOP auch die zionistische Forderung ab, die Heilige Stadt in den k\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat einzubeziehen.\n\nDie Teilung des \u2013 \u00fcberwiegend pal\u00e4stinensischen \u2013 Landes in zwei gleiche Teile erwies sich als \u00fcberaus katastrophal, weil sie gegen den Willen der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerungsmehrheit erfolgte. Indem die Vereinten Nationen ihre Absicht, in Pal\u00e4stina zwei gleichberechtigte politische Staatsgebilde f\u00fcr Juden und Araber zu schaffen, \u00fcber Rundfunk ausstrahlte, verletzte sie die Grundrechte der Pal\u00e4stinenser und missachtete v\u00f6llig die Sorge um Pal\u00e4stina in der \u00fcbrigen arabischen Welt, die sich damals auf dem H\u00f6hepunkt ihres antikolonialistischen Kampfes im Nahen und Mittleren Osten befand.\n\nWeit schlimmer waren die Auswirkungen, die die Entscheidung auf das Land und seine Bev\u00f6lkerung hatte. Statt, wie beabsichtigt, die Situation zu beruhigen, versch\u00e4rfte die Resolution die Spannungen noch und f\u00fchrte unmittelbar zu einer der gewaltsamsten Phasen in der Geschichte des Landes. Schon als die Briten im Februar 1947 erstmals ihre R\u00fcckzugsabsichten aus Pal\u00e4stina verk\u00fcndet hatten, hatte es den Anschein gehabt, als seien die beiden Bev\u00f6lkerungsgruppen einem totalen Zusammenprall n\u00e4her denn je. Bevor die Vereinten Nationen am 29. November 1947 ihre Teilungsresolution verabschiedete, wurden zwar keine besonderen Gewaltausbr\u00fcche gemeldet, aber in den gemischten St\u00e4dten herrschte gro\u00dfe Anspannung. So lange unklar war, welche Richtung die Vereinten Nationen einschlagen w\u00fcrden, lief das Leben mehr oder weniger normal weiter, aber sobald die W\u00fcrfel gefallen waren und die Bev\u00f6lkerung erfuhr, dass die Vereinten Nationen mit \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigender Mehrheit f\u00fcr die Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas gestimmt hatten, brachen Recht und Ordnung zusammen und es verbreiteten sich schlimme Vorahnungen auf die endg\u00fcltige Kraftprobe, die die Teilung bedeutete. Das Chaos, das folgte, f\u00fchrte zum ersten arabisch-israelischen Krieg: Die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas hatte begonnen.\n\nDie arabische und pal\u00e4stinensische Position\n\nDie pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung beschloss, wie bereits gesagt, von Anfang an die UN-Verhandlungen zu boykottieren. Diese Entscheidung gilt in der zeitgen\u00f6ssischen israelischen Propaganda h\u00e4ufig als Beleg, dass die Pal\u00e4stinenser selbst \u2013 nicht Israel \u2013 f\u00fcr das Schicksal verantwortlich zu machen seien, das sie 1948 erlitten. Solche Beschuldigungen wehrte die pal\u00e4stinensische Geschichtsschreibung erfolgreich ab, indem sie aufzeigte, wie ungerecht und unrechtm\u00e4\u00dfig die von den Vereinten Nationen gew\u00e4hlten Verfahrensweisen waren, und indem sie die Gr\u00fcnde analysierte, die hinter der Einrichtung des UNSCOP standen. Diese Argumente m\u00f6chte ich zun\u00e4chst zusammenfassen und eingehender untersuchen.\n\nIndem die Vereinten Nationen sich f\u00fcr eine Teilung als Prim\u00e4rziel entschieden, ignorierten sie einen grunds\u00e4tzlichen Einwand, den die Pal\u00e4stinenser gegen den Plan vorbrachten und den die Vermittler kannten, seit die Briten 30 Jahre zuvor die Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung abgegeben hatten. Walid Khalidi formulierte die pal\u00e4stinensische Position kurz und b\u00fcndig: \u00bbDie einheimische Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas weigerte sich wie die einheimische Bev\u00f6lkerung jeden anderen Landes in der arabischen Welt, in Asien, Afrika, Amerika oder Europa, das Land mit einer Siedlergemeinde zu teilen.\u00ab\n\nInnerhalb weniger Wochen, nachdem UNSCOP seine Arbeit aufgenommen hatte, wurde den Pal\u00e4stinensern klar, dass sie schlechte Karten hatten: Das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses w\u00e4re eine UN-Resolution, die das Land zwischen den Pal\u00e4stinensern als der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung und einer Siedlerkolonie von Zuwanderern teilen w\u00fcrde, von denen viele erst kurz zuvor ins Land gekommen waren. Als die Resolution 181 im November 1947 angenommen wurde, sahen sie ihren schlimmsten Alptraum wahr werden: Neun Monate nachdem die Briten ihren Entschluss verk\u00fcndet hatten, das Land zu verlassen, waren die Pal\u00e4stinenser auf Gedeih und Verderb einer internationalen Organisation ausgeliefert, die offenbar bereit war, alle internationalen Vermittlungsregeln au\u00dfer Acht zu lassen, die ihre eigene Charta vorsah, und eine L\u00f6sung zu beschlie\u00dfen, die in den Augen der Pal\u00e4stinenser sowohl rechtswidrig als auch unmoralisch war. Mehrere f\u00fchrende Pal\u00e4stinenser forderten damals, die Legalit\u00e4t der Resolution vor dem (1946 geschaffenen) Internationalen Gerichtshof \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen zu lassen, aber dazu kam es nie. Man braucht keine sonderlichen juristischen Fachkenntnisse oder Einblicke, um sich denken zu k\u00f6nnen, wie der Internationale Gerichtshof dar\u00fcber geurteilt h\u00e4tte, dass einem Land eine L\u00f6sung aufgezwungen wurde, die seine Bev\u00f6lkerungsmehrheit vehement ablehnte.\n\nDie Ungerechtigkeit war damals ebenso eklatant, wie sie heute erscheint, und dennoch gab es kaum Kommentare dazu in den f\u00fchrenden westlichen Zeitungen, die in dieser Zeit \u00fcber Pal\u00e4stina berichteten: Die Juden, denen weniger als sechs Prozent der Gesamtfl\u00e4che Pal\u00e4stinas geh\u00f6rten und die nicht mehr als ein Drittel der Bev\u00f6lkerung stellten, bekamen \u00fcber die H\u00e4lfte des Gesamtterritoriums. Innerhalb der Grenzen des von den Vereinten Nationen vorgeschlagenen Staates besa\u00dfen sie nur elf Prozent des Landes und waren in jedem Distrikt in der Minderheit. Im Negev \u2013 ein W\u00fcstengebiet, das einen gro\u00dfen Teil des j\u00fcdischen Staates ausmachte, aber doch eine betr\u00e4chtliche l\u00e4ndliche Bev\u00f6lkerung und Beduinen besa\u00df \u2013 stellten sie nur ein Prozent der Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung.\n\nSchon bald tauchten weitere Aspekte auf, die die rechtliche und moralische Glaubw\u00fcrdigkeit der Resolution ersch\u00fctterten. Die Teilungsresolution ordnete den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil des fruchtbaren Landes dem vorgeschlagenen j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiet zu sowie fast alle St\u00e4dte und l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete, in denen Juden lebten. Aber sie bezog auch 400 (von \u00fcber 1000) pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer in den designierten j\u00fcdischen Staat ein. R\u00fcckblickend lie\u00dfe sich zur Verteidigung des UNSCOP anf\u00fchren, dass die Resolution 181 auf der Annahme beruhte, die beiden neuen politischen Staatsgebilde w\u00fcrden friedlich koexistieren, und daher habe man kein besonderes Augenmerk auf eine demografische und geografische Ausgewogenheit legen m\u00fcssen. Sollte dies der Fall gewesen sein, wie einige UNSCOP-Mitglieder sp\u00e4ter argumentierten, dann w\u00e4re ihnen vorzuwerfen, dass sie den Zionismus v\u00f6llig falsch auslegten und seine Ambitionen grob untersch\u00e4tzten. Um es noch einmal mit Walid Khalidis Worten auszudr\u00fccken: Die Resolution 181 war \u00bbein vorschneller Akt, die H\u00e4lfte Pal\u00e4stinas einer ideologischen Bewegung zuzusprechen, die schon in den 1930er Jahren unverhohlen ihren Wunsch erkl\u00e4rt hatte, Pal\u00e4stina zu entarabisieren\u00ab. Daher ist es der unmoralischste Aspekt der Resolution 181, dass sie keinerlei Mechanismen vorsah, um die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas zu verhindern.\n\nSchauen wir uns die endg\u00fcltige Landkarte genauer an, die die Vereinten Nationen im November 1947 vorschlugen (s. Karte 5). Demnach sollte Pal\u00e4stina in drei Teile geteilt werden. Auf 42 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che sollten 818000 Pal\u00e4stinenser einen Staat bekommen, in dem 10000 Juden lebten; der j\u00fcdische Staat sollte dagegen fast 56 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che erhalten, die 499 000 Juden sich mit 438000 Pal\u00e4stinensern teilen w\u00fcrden. Der dritte Teil bestand aus einer kleinen Enklave mit Jerusalem, das unter internationale Verwaltung gestellt w\u00fcrde und dessen 200000 Einwohner zu etwa gleichen Teilen Pal\u00e4stinenser und Juden waren.\n\nIn dem vorgesehenen j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiet herrschte ein nahezu ausgewogenes demografisches Verh\u00e4ltnis, das f\u00fcr die zionistische F\u00fchrung einen politischen Alptraum geschaffen h\u00e4tte, wenn man diese Grenzen tats\u00e4chlich umgesetzt h\u00e4tte: Der Zionismus h\u00e4tte keines seiner grundlegenden Ziele jemals erreichen k\u00f6nnen. Simcha Flapan \u2013 einer der ersten israelischen Juden, die die konventionelle zionistische Version der Ereignisse von 1948 in Frage stellte \u2013 vermutete, falls die Araber oder die Pal\u00e4stinenser sich entschlossen h\u00e4tten, der Teilungsresolution zuzustimmen, h\u00e4tte die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung die vom UNSCOP angebotene Karte sicher abgelehnt.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich war die Trag\u00f6die, die am Tag nach der Annahme der Resolution 181 begann, mit dieser UN-Karte vorprogrammiert. Wissenschaftler haben bei der Analyse ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen immer wieder festgestellt: Wenn in einer h\u00f6chst angespannten ethnischen Realit\u00e4t eine Ideologie der Exklusivit\u00e4t vertreten wird, kann das nur zu einem einzigen Ergebnis f\u00fchren \u2013 zu ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen. Als die UN-Mitglieder, die f\u00fcr die Teilungsresolution stimmten, die Teilungskarte so festlegten, wie sie es taten, trugen sie indirekt zu dem Verbrechen bei, das kurz darauf begangen wurde.\n\nDie j\u00fcdische Reaktion\n\nBen Gurion stand 1947 an der Spitze einer politischen Entscheidungsstruktur, die wahrscheinlich den komplexesten Aspekt der hier geschilderten Geschichte darstellt (sie wurde bereits an anderer Stelle eingehend behandelt). F\u00fcr kurze Zeit erlaubte sie ihm, nahezu im Alleingang die Politik der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde gegen\u00fcber der Welt, den arabischen Nachbarn und den Pal\u00e4stinensern in ihren Grundz\u00fcgen zu bestimmen. Es war Ben Gurion, der nun seine Kollegen dazu brachte, die UN-Teilungsresolution vom 29. November 1947 zu akzeptieren und zugleich zu ignorieren.\n\nDie kategorische Ablehnung des Teilungsplans durch die arabischen Regierungen und die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung machte es Ben Gurion ohne Zweifel einfacher zu glauben, er k\u00f6nne den Plan akzeptieren und gleichzeitig dagegen arbeiten. Schon im Oktober 1947, bevor die Resolution angenommen wurde, machte Ben Gurion seinen Freunden in der F\u00fchrung klar, wenn die Grenzziehung des Teilungsplans nicht zufriedenstellend ausfiele, w\u00e4re der j\u00fcdische Staat nicht verpflichtet, sie zu akzeptieren.\n\nDie Ablehnung oder Annahme des Plans durch die Pal\u00e4stinenser h\u00e4tte also nichts an Ben Gurions Einsch\u00e4tzung ge\u00e4ndert, welche M\u00e4ngel der Plan nach seiner Auffassung aufwies. F\u00fcr ihn und seine Freunde an der Spitze der zionistischen Hierarchie bedeutete ein lebensf\u00e4higer j\u00fcdischer Staat ein Staatsgebiet, das den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil Pal\u00e4stinas und, wenn \u00fcberhaupt, nur eine verschwindende Zahl von Pal\u00e4stinensern umfasste. Auch von der Forderung der Resolution, Jerusalem unter internationale Verwaltung zu stellen, lie\u00df Ben Gurion sich nicht beeindrucken. Er war fest entschlossen, die ganze Stadt zur Hauptstadt der Juden zu machen. Dass ihm das letztlich nicht gelang, lag lediglich an Komplikationen und Unstimmigkeiten, die sich bei den jordanisch-j\u00fcdischen Verhandlungen \u00fcber die Zukunft des Landes und der Stadt ergaben (dazu sp\u00e4ter mehr).\n\nSo unzufrieden Ben Gurion mit der UN-Karte auch war, erkannte er doch, dass unter den gegebenen Umst\u00e4nden \u2013 der vollst\u00e4ndigen Ablehnung der Karte durch die arabische Welt und die Pal\u00e4stinenser \u2013 der endg\u00fcltige Grenzverlauf eine offene Frage bleiben w\u00fcrde. Was z\u00e4hlte war die internationale Anerkennung des Rechts der Juden auf einen eigenen Staat in Pal\u00e4stina. Ein aufmerksamer britischer Beamter in Jerusalem schrieb an seine Regierung, die Zionisten akzeptierten die Teilungsresolution nur selektiv: Sie freuten sich \u00fcber die internationale Anerkennung des j\u00fcdischen Staates, behaupteten aber dann, die UN habe \u00bbunzionistische Bedingungen f\u00fcr seine Erhaltung\u00ab angeboten.\n\nDie erwartete arabische und pal\u00e4stinensische Ablehnung des Teilungsplans erlaubte es Ben Gurion und der zionistischen F\u00fchrung, den UN-Plan f\u00fcr nichtig zu erkl\u00e4ren, sobald er angenommen war \u2013 nat\u00fcrlich abgesehen von der Klausel, die die Legalit\u00e4t des j\u00fcdischen Staates in Pal\u00e4stina anerkannte. Angesichts der pal\u00e4stinensischen und arabischen Ablehnung w\u00fcrden seine Grenzen \u00bbdurch Gewalt entschieden, nicht durch die Teilungsresolution\u00ab, erkl\u00e4rte Ben Gurion. Das Gleiche galt f\u00fcr das Schicksal der Araber, die dort lebten.\n\nDie Beratergruppe nimmt die Arbeit auf\n\nVon nun an zeigte sich eine gewisse Regelm\u00e4\u00dfigkeit. Je unbedeutender das Gremium war, vor dem Ben Gurion erschien, umso st\u00e4rker unterst\u00fctzte er die Teilungsresolution; je wichtiger das Forum, umso unerbittlicher erwies er sich in seiner zornigen Ablehnung des Plans. Im Verteidigungskomitee, das ihn in Sicherheitsfragen beriet, lehnte er die Teilungsresolution rundweg ab, und schon am 7. Oktober1947 \u2013 noch bevor die UN-Resolution 181 angenommen war \u2013 erkl\u00e4rte er seinem inneren Zirkel in der Beratergruppe, dass es angesichts der arabischen Weigerung mit den Vereinten Nationen zu kooperieren, \u00bbkeine Territorialgrenzen f\u00fcr den zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat gibt\u00ab.\n\nIm Oktober und November 1947 entwickelte sich das Beratergremium zu Ben Gurions wichtigster Bezugsgruppe. Nur mit ihnen sprach er offen \u00fcber die m\u00f6glichen Folgen seiner Entscheidung, die Teilungsgrenzen zu missachten und die j\u00fcdische Bev\u00f6lkerungsmehrheit und Exklusivit\u00e4t im Land mit Gewalt durchzusetzen. In derart \u00bbheiklen\u00ab Angelegenheiten konnte er nur diesem handverlesenen Kreis von Politkern und Milit\u00e4rs vertrauen.\n\nEben weil Ben Gurion klar war, dass diese Fragen nicht an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit dringen durften, hatte er diese \u00bbBeratergruppe\u00ab \u00fcberhaupt geschaffen. Wie bereits dargelegt, handelte es sich nicht um eine offizielle Institution, daher besitzen wir von den meisten Sitzungen auch keine Protokolle. Es ist fraglich, ob \u00fcberhaupt Aufzeichnungen gemacht wurden \u2013 abgesehen von ein, zwei sehr wichtigen Sitzungen, die protokolliert wurden und auf die ich sp\u00e4ter noch zur\u00fcckkomme. Ben Gurion hielt jedoch Zusammenfassungen vieler Sitzungen in seinem Tagebuch fest, das eine wichtige historische Quelle jener Jahre ist. Au\u00dferdem wurden einige Mitglieder der Beratergruppe in sp\u00e4teren Jahren interviewt, andere schrieben Autobiografien und Memoiren. Die folgenden Darlegungen st\u00fctzen sich auf Hinweise in Ben Gurions Tageb\u00fcchern, in archivierten Korrespondenzen und im Privatarchiv Israel Galilis, der bei allen Sitzungen anwesend war (diese Quellen befinden sich alle in den Ben-Gurion Archives in Sdeh Boker). Dar\u00fcber hinaus gab es im Umfeld dieser Treffen eingehende Korrespondenzen, die in verschiedenen israelischen Archiven zu finden sind. Die Sitzungen fanden teils in Ben Gurions Haus in Tel Aviv statt, teils im Roten Haus. Manche, wie die Sitzung vom 10. M\u00e4rz 1948, waren mittwochs im Roten Haus im Rahmen der offiziellen w\u00f6chentlichen Sitzungen des Oberkommandos, _Matkal_ (die Protokolle des offiziellen Teils dieser Sitzungen sind in den IDF-Archiven). Andere, vertraulichere Konsultationen fanden einen Tag nach den offiziellen Mittwochstreffen in Ben Gurions Haus statt. Sehr vorsichtige Hinweise auf diese Treffen finden sich in Ben Gurions Tagebuch, aber sie lassen sich anhand anderer Quellen rekonstruieren, zum Beispiel Yossef Weitz' Tagebuch, Israel Galilis Archive und Briefe Ben Gurions an verschiedene Kollegen, vor allem an seinen Stellvertreter Moshe Sharett (der sich in dieser Zeit \u00fcberwiegend im Ausland aufhielt). Am 15. Mai 1948 wurden die Treffen an einen Ort \u00f6stlich von Tel Aviv verlegt, der zum Hauptquartier der israelischen Armee wurde.\n\nDie Beratergruppe setzte sich, wie bereits gesagt, aus f\u00fchrenden Sicherheitskr\u00e4ften und Experten f\u00fcr \u00bbarabische Angelegenheiten\u00ab zusammen. Diese Formel sollte sp\u00e4ter den meisten Gremien zugrunde gelegt werden, die im Laufe der Jahre israelische Regierungen in Fragen der Staatssicherheit sowie bei der Planung von Strategie und Politik gegen\u00fcber der arabischen Welt im Allgemeinen und den Pal\u00e4stinensern im Besonderen berieten. Dieser enge Kreis um Ben Gurion kam ab Februar 1947, als die Briten ihren R\u00fcckzug aus Pal\u00e4stina beschlossen, regelm\u00e4\u00dfig zusammen und traf sich im Oktober 1947 h\u00e4ufiger, nachdem durchgesickert war, dass die Pal\u00e4stinenser den UN-Teilungsplan ablehnen w\u00fcrden. Sobald die pal\u00e4stinensische und die allgemeine arabische Position klar waren, wussten die Mitglieder der Beratergruppe nicht nur, dass die Entscheidung \u00fcber das Schicksal der Pal\u00e4stinenser in dem von den Vereinten Nationen designierten j\u00fcdischen Staat bei ihnen liegen, sondern auch, dass ihre Politik Auswirkungen auf das Leben der Pal\u00e4stinenser in den Gebieten haben w\u00fcrde, die die Vereinten Nationen dem arabischen Staat in Pal\u00e4stina zugedacht hatten. Das folgende Kapitel zeichnet nach, wie sich die \u00dcberlegungen in der Beratergruppe entwickelten bis zur Aufstellung ihres endg\u00fcltigen Plans f\u00fcr die Vertreibung einer Million Pal\u00e4stinenser, egal in welchen Landesteilen diese sich befanden.\n\nDie erste dokumentierte Zusammenkunft der Beratergruppe fand am 18. Juni 1947 bei einer regul\u00e4ren Mittwochssitzung des Oberkommandos statt. Ben Gurion schrieb \u00fcber diese Sitzung sowohl in seinem Tagebuch als auch in seinen ver\u00f6ffentlichten Memoiren. Den Anwesenden erkl\u00e4rte er, die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde m\u00fcsse \u00bbnicht nur unsere Siedlungen, sondern das Land als Ganzes und unsere nationale Zukunft verteidigen\u00ab. Sp\u00e4ter wiederholte er in einer Rede am 3. Dezember 1947 den Begriff \u00bbunsere nationale Zukunft\u00ab und verwendete ihn als Code f\u00fcr das demografische Zahlenverh\u00e4ltnis im Land.\nKAPITEL 4\n\nAufstellen eines Masterplans\n\n_Wie NATO-Sprecher Jamie Shea erkl\u00e4rte, deuteten s\u00e4mtliche Berichte, die die NATO erreichten, darauf hin, dass das, was im Kosovo passiere, einem gut organisierten Masterplan Belgrads entspreche. Er sagte, das gemeldete Gewaltmuster sehe so aus, dass serbische Panzer D\u00f6rfer umstellten, paramilit\u00e4rische Kr\u00e4fte dann hineingingen, mit Waffe im Anschlag Zivilisten zusammentrieben und junge M\u00e4nner von Frauen und Kindern trennten. Die Frauen und Kinder werden anschlie\u00dfend aus ihren H\u00e4usern vertrieben und an die Grenze geschickt. Nachdem sie die D\u00f6rfer verlassen haben, werden die H\u00e4user gepl\u00fcndert und systematisch in Brand gesteckt._\n\nCNN, 30. M\u00e4rz 1999\n\n_Diese Operationen lassen sich folgenderma\u00dfen durchf\u00fchren: entweder durch Zerst\u00f6rung von D\u00f6rfern (indem man sie in Brand steckt, sprengt und die Tr\u00fcmmer vermint) und insbesondere von Wohngebieten, die auf Dauer schwer zu kontrollieren sind; oder durch Durchsuchungs- und Kontrollaktionen nach folgenden Richtlinien: Umstellen und Durchk\u00e4mmen der D\u00f6rfer. Im Fall von Widerstand sind die bewaffneten Kr\u00e4fte auszuschalten und die Einwohner \u00fcber die Landesgrenzen zu vertreiben._\n\nPlan Dalet, 10. M\u00e4rz 1948\n\nDie Methoden der S\u00e4uberung\n\nAn dieser Stelle ist es angebracht, kurz die Chronologie der Schl\u00fcsselereignisse von Februar 1947 bis Mai 1948 zu skizzieren. In diesem Kapitel gebe ich einen knappen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber den Zeitraum, auf den ich mich konzentrieren m\u00f6chte.\n\nIm Februar 1947 beschloss die britische Regierung, sich aus dem Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stina zur\u00fcckzuziehen und die Entscheidung \u00fcber die Zukunft des Landes den Vereinten Nationen zu \u00fcberlassen. Die UN brauchten neun Monate, um \u00fcber diese Frage zu beraten, und entschieden sich dann f\u00fcr eine Teilung des Landes. Diesen Beschluss nahm die zionistische F\u00fchrung an, die ohnehin f\u00fcr eine Teilung war, w\u00e4hrend die arabische Welt und die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung ihn ablehnten und vorschlugen, Pal\u00e4stina als staatliche Einheit zu erhalten und in einem wesentlich l\u00e4ngeren Verhandlungsprozess eine L\u00f6sung zu suchen. Am 29. November 1947 wurde die Teilungsresolution verabschiedet. Anfang Dezember 1947 begann die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas mit einer Serie j\u00fcdischer Angriffe auf pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer und Stadtviertel als Vergeltung f\u00fcr die bei den pal\u00e4stinensischen Protesten gegen die UN-Resolution in den ersten Tagen nach deren Annahme zerst\u00f6rten und verw\u00fcsteten Busse und L\u00e4den. Diese ersten j\u00fcdischen Angriffe waren zwar sporadisch, aber schwer genug, um den Exodus einer betr\u00e4chtlichen Zahl von Menschen zu bewirken (fast 75000).\n\nAm 9. Januar marschierten Einheiten der ersten allarabischen Freiwilligenarmee nach Pal\u00e4stina ein und lieferten sich mit den j\u00fcdischen Truppen Gefechte um Stra\u00dfen und abgelegene j\u00fcdische Siedlungen. Bei diesen Scharm\u00fctzeln gewann die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung m\u00fchelos die Oberhand, \u00e4nderte nun offiziell ihre Taktik und ging von Vergeltungsschl\u00e4gen zu S\u00e4uberungsaktionen \u00fcber. Mitte Februar folgten gewaltsame Vertreibungen, bei denen es j\u00fcdischen Truppen gelang, an einem einzigen Tag f\u00fcnf pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer zu r\u00e4umen. Am 10. M\u00e4rz 1948 wurde Plan Dalet beschlossen. Die ersten Ziele waren die St\u00e4dte Pal\u00e4stinas, die bis Ende April alle besetzt wurden. In dieser Phase, die mit mehreren Massakern einherging \u2013 vor allem mit dem Massaker von Deir Yassin \u2013, wurden etwa 250000 Pal\u00e4stinenser entwurzelt. Angesichts dieser Entwicklungen beschloss die Arabische Liga am letzten Tag im April, milit\u00e4risch einzugreifen, allerdings erst nach Beendigung des britischen Mandats.\n\nDie Briten zogen am 15. Mai 1948 ab, und sofort verk\u00fcndete die Jewish Agency die Gr\u00fcndung eines j\u00fcdischen Staates in Pal\u00e4stina, der von den beiden damaligen Superm\u00e4chten USA und UdSSR offiziell anerkannt wurde. Noch am selben Tag marschierten regul\u00e4re arabische Truppen in Pal\u00e4stina ein.\n\nBereits im Februar 1948 war die amerikanische Regierung zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass die UN-Teilungsresolution keineswegs ein Friedensplan war, sondern dass anhaltendes Blutvergie\u00dfen und Feindseligkeiten darin vorprogrammiert waren. Daher machte sie, um einer Eskalation des Konflikts vorzubeugen, zwei Alternativvorschl\u00e4ge: und zwar im Februar 1948 einen Plan f\u00fcr eine f\u00fcnfj\u00e4hrige Treuhandverwaltung und am 12. Mai eine dreimonatige Waffenruhe. Beide Friedensvorschl\u00e4ge lehnte die zionistische F\u00fchrung rundweg ab.\n\nDie offizielle zionistische Strategie war in dieser Phase durchg\u00e4ngig von zwei Impulsen getrieben. Der erste bestand in Ad-hoc-Reaktionen auf zwei \u00fcberraschende Entwicklungen vor Ort: Zum einen kam es zur Zersplitterung, wenn nicht gar zum v\u00f6lligen Zusammenbruch des politischen und milit\u00e4rischen Machtapparats der Pal\u00e4stinenser, und zum anderen herrschte in der arabischen Welt zunehmend Unordnung und Verwirrung angesichts der j\u00fcdischen Angriffe und der gleichzeitigen internationalen Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr das zionistische Projekt und den zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat.\n\nDer zweite Impuls f\u00fcr das strategische Denken der Zionisten war der Drang, gr\u00f6\u00dftm\u00f6glichen Nutzen aus der einmaligen historischen Gelegenheit zu ziehen, die sich ihnen bot, um ihren Traum eines ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdischen Staates zu verwirklichen. Diese Vision eines rein j\u00fcdischen Nationalstaats hatte, wie gesagt, zentrale Bedeutung in der zionistischen Ideologie, seit die Bewegung Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts entstanden war. Um Mitte der 1930er Jahre hatte eine Handvoll zionistischer F\u00fchrer klar erkannt, dass das Ende der britischen Herrschaft eine M\u00f6glichkeit zur Entarabisierung Pal\u00e4stinas \u2013 also der S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas von Arabern \u2013 er\u00f6ffnen k\u00f6nnte. Bis Ende November 1947 war dieser Nexus offenbar den meisten im inneren F\u00fchrungskreis klar geworden, und unter Ben Gurions Leitung richteten sie nun ihre gesamte Aufmerksamkeit auf die Frage, wie sich die Chance, die dieser Zusammenhang ihnen bot, bestm\u00f6glich nutzen lie\u00dfe.\n\nVor 1947 hatten andere, dringendere Fragen die Tagesordnung beherrscht: Die vordringliche Aufgabe hatte darin bestanden, eine politische, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle zionistische Enklave im Land aufzubauen und j\u00fcdische Zuwanderung in die Region zu gew\u00e4hrleisten. Vorstellungen, wie sich am besten mit der einheimischen pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung verfahren lie\u00dfe, waren, wie gesagt, vage geblieben. Aber das bevorstehende Ende des britischen Mandats, die arabische Ablehnung der Teilungsresolution und Ben Gurions klare Erkenntnis, wie gro\u00df der Anteil an Pal\u00e4stina w\u00e4re, den er f\u00fcr einen lebensf\u00e4higen j\u00fcdischen Staat brauchte, trugen nun dazu bei, fr\u00fchere Ideologien und nebul\u00f6se Szenarien in einen spezifischen Masterplan zu \u00fcbersetzen.\n\nBis M\u00e4rz 1948 lie\u00dfen sich die Aktivit\u00e4ten, die die zionistische F\u00fchrung zur Verwirklichung ihrer Vision unternahm, noch als Vergeltung f\u00fcr feindselige Aktionen der Pal\u00e4stinenser oder Araber darstellen. Ab M\u00e4rz 1948 war das jedoch nicht mehr der Fall: Unumwunden erkl\u00e4rte die zionistische F\u00fchrung \u2013 zwei Monate _vor_ Beendigung des Mandats \u2013 ihr Bestreben, das Land zu \u00fcbernehmen und die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung gewaltsam zu vertreiben, und zwar in Plan Dalet.\n\nAbstecken des Territoriums\n\nAls erster Schritt in Richtung auf das zionistische Ziel, sich einen m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas mit m\u00f6glichst wenigen Pal\u00e4stinensern zu verschaffen, war zu kl\u00e4ren, wie ein lebensf\u00e4higer Staat geografisch auszusehen h\u00e4tte. Der in Resolution 181 festgelegte UN-Teilungsplan sprach den Juden den Negev, die K\u00fcstenregion, die \u00f6stlichen T\u00e4ler (Marj Ibn Amir und Baysan-Tal) und Untergalil\u00e4a zu; aber das gen\u00fcgte nicht. Ben Gurion traf sich damals regelm\u00e4\u00dfig mit seinem \u00bbKriegskabinett\u00ab, wie er es nannte: einer Ad-hoc-Gruppe j\u00fcdischer Offiziere, die in der britischen Armee gedient hatten (auf Dr\u00e4ngen anderer Hagana-Mitglieder musste er sie sp\u00e4ter aufl\u00f6sen). Diese Offiziere machte er nun mit dem Gedanken vertraut, sich auf die Besetzung des gesamten Landes vorzubereiten. Im Oktober 1947 schrieb Ben Gurion an General Ephraim Ben-Artzi, den rangh\u00f6chsten Offizier von ihnen, er wolle eine Streitmacht aufbauen, die sowohl einen potenziellen Angriff arabischer Nachbarstaaten abwehren als auch einen m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfen Teil des Landes, m\u00f6glichst sogar das ganze Land besetzen k\u00f6nne.\n\nVorerst beschloss die zionistische F\u00fchrung, das Territorium ihres zuk\u00fcnftigen Staates anhand der abgelegensten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen abzustecken. Das gesamte Land zwischen diesen Kolonien, die isoliert an den \u00e4u\u00dfersten Enden des Mandatsgebiets lagen, sollte j\u00fcdisch werden und vorzugsweise von zus\u00e4tzlichen \u00bbSicherheitszonen\u00ab als Puffern zu pal\u00e4stinensischen Wohngebieten umgeben sein.\n\nDa mehrere F\u00fchrungsmitglieder in die fortlaufenden Verhandlungen mit den Haschemiten in Transjordanien eingeweiht waren, stellten sie sich nur auf eine eventuelle Einschr\u00e4nkung in der Gestaltung ihrer zuk\u00fcnftigen Landkarte ein, und das war die M\u00f6glichkeit, dass gewisse Gebiete Ostpal\u00e4stinas im heutigen Westjordanland nicht Teil Gro\u00dfisraels, sondern Gro\u00dfjordaniens werden k\u00f6nnten. Ende 1946 hatte die Jewish Agency intensive Verhandlungen mit K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Jordanien aufgenommen. Abdullah war ein Spr\u00f6ssling der haschemitischen K\u00f6nigsfamilie aus dem Hidjas \u2013 wo die heiligen muslimischen St\u00e4dte Mekka und Medina liegen \u2013, die im Ersten Weltkrieg auf Seiten der Briten gek\u00e4mpft hatte. Zum Dank f\u00fcr die Dienste, die sie der britischen Krone erwiesen hatten, bekamen die Haschemiten die K\u00f6nigreiche Irak und Jordanien, die das Mandatssystem geschaffen hatte. Urspr\u00fcnglich hatten die Briten ihnen \u2013 zumindest nach haschemitischem Verst\u00e4ndnis \u2013 (in einem Briefwechsel zwischen Husayn und McMahon von 1915\/1916) auch Syrien versprochen, um zu verhindern, dass die Franzosen diesen Teil des Nahen Ostens \u00fcbernahmen. Als die Franzosen aber Abdullahs Bruder Faysal aus Syrien vertrieben, machten die Briten ihn statt Abdullah zum irakischen K\u00f6nig.\n\nAls \u00e4ltester Sohn der Dynastie war Abdullah mit seinem Anteil unzufrieden, zumal die Saudis 1924 den Haschemiten ihr Stammgebiet, den Hidjas, abrangen. Transjordanien war kaum mehr als ein W\u00fcstenemirat am Ostufer des Jordans mit Beduinenst\u00e4mmen und ein paar tscherkessischen D\u00f6rfern. Kein Wunder, dass er eine Expansion in das fruchtbare, kultivierte und besiedelte Pal\u00e4stina anstrebte und ihm daf\u00fcr jedes Mittel recht war. Schon bald erkannte er, dass der sicherste Weg zu diesem Ziel in guten Beziehungen zur zionistischen F\u00fchrung bestand. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg einigte er sich im Prinzip mit der Jewish Agency, Pal\u00e4stina nach Beendigung der Mandatsherrschaft untereinander aufzuteilen. Vage Vorstellungen \u00fcber eine Aufteilung des Territoriums dienten als Grundlage ernsthafter Verhandlungen, die begannen, nachdem die UN-Teilungsresolution 181 am 29. November 1947 verabschiedet wurde. Da es in dem Gebiet, das der K\u00f6nig haben wollte (das heutige Westjordanland), nur sehr wenige j\u00fcdische Siedlungen gab, waren die meisten in der F\u00fchrungsspitze der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde durchaus \u00bbbereit\u00ab, diesen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas aufzugeben, obwohl dort einige biblische j\u00fcdische St\u00e4tten wie die Stadt Hebron (al-Khalil) lagen. Viele von ihnen sollten diese Entscheidung sp\u00e4ter bereuen und im Junikrieg 1967 eine Besetzung des Westjordanlands unterst\u00fctzen, aber damals erschien ihnen der Tauschhandel mit Jordanien sehr verlockend: Abdullah versprach, sich nicht an etwaigen allarabischen Milit\u00e4roperationen gegen den j\u00fcdischen Staat zu beteiligen. Gegen Ende der Mandatszeit erlebten diese Verhandlungen H\u00f6hen und Tiefen, wurden aber fortgesetzt; das lag nicht nur an der geringen Zahl j\u00fcdischer Siedler im Westjordanland, sondern auch an der Tatsache, dass die Jordanier in der zweiten H\u00e4lfte des Jahres 1948 wiederholte j\u00fcdische Versuche, Teile des Westjordanlands zu besetzen, mit Hilfe eines irakischen Truppenkontingents erfolgreich abwehrten (einer der wenigen Triumphe in der arabischen Milit\u00e4rgeschichte von 1948).\n\nDamit war das Territorium abgesteckt, das die zionistische Bewegung anstrebte: also ganz Pal\u00e4stina, wie sie es im Biltmore-Programm von 1942 gefordert hatte, allerdings mit dieser einen Einschr\u00e4nkung, sofern man davon ausgeht \u2013 wie die meisten Historiker es heute tun \u2013, dass die zionistische F\u00fchrung sich an ihre geheimen Absprachen mit den Jordaniern gebunden f\u00fchlte. Somit stellte die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung sich auf ein k\u00fcnftiges Staatsgebiet ein, das sich \u00fcber 80 Prozent des pal\u00e4stinensischen Mandatsgebiets erstrecken sollte: die 56 Prozent, die die Vereinten Nationen den Juden zugesagt hatten, sowie weitere 24 Prozent des Territoriums, das die UN den Pal\u00e4stinensern f\u00fcr den arabischen Staat zugedacht hatten. Die restlichen 20 Prozent sollten die Jordanier \u00fcbernehmen.\n\nDiese geheimen Absprachen mit Jordanien waren in mancherlei Hinsicht bereits der zweite Schritt, der ein ungehindertes Vorgehen bei der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung gew\u00e4hrleistete: Im Wesentlichen neutralisierten sie die st\u00e4rkste Armee der arabischen Welt und zwangen sie, nur in einem sehr kleinen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas gegen die j\u00fcdischen Truppen zu k\u00e4mpfen. Ohne die jordanische Armee, die Arabische Legion, besa\u00df die arabische Welt keinerlei ernst zu nehmende Kapazit\u00e4ten mehr zur Verteidigung der Pal\u00e4stinenser und zur Vereitelung der zionistischen Pl\u00e4ne, auf Kosten der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung einen j\u00fcdischen Staat in Pal\u00e4stina zu errichten.\n\nSchaffung der Mittel\n\nDer dritte und wohl entscheidende Schritt, um eine erfolgreiche ethnische S\u00e4uberung zu gew\u00e4hrleisten, bestand im Aufbau einer entsprechenden milit\u00e4rischen St\u00e4rke. Die Beratergruppe wollte sichergehen, dass die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde \u00fcber ausreichend starke Streitkr\u00e4fte verf\u00fcgte, um ihren zweigleisigen Plan, den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil Pal\u00e4stinas zu \u00fcbernehmen und die dort lebenden Pal\u00e4stinenser zu vertreiben, erfolgreich umzusetzen. Diese Streitkr\u00e4fte mussten nicht nur das Mandatsgebiet \u00fcbernehmen, sobald die letzten britischen Truppen abgezogen w\u00e4ren, sondern auch jegliche Invasionsversuche arabischer Truppen in den entstehenden j\u00fcdischen Staat unterbinden und gleichzeitig die ethnische S\u00e4uberung aller besetzten Teile Pal\u00e4stinas durchf\u00fchren. Eine h\u00f6chst kompetente, professionelle Armee war somit ein wichtiges Instrument f\u00fcr den Aufbau eines stabilen j\u00fcdischen Staates im ehemaligen Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stina.\n\nAlles in allem umfassten die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte amVorabend des Krieges von 1948 etwa 50000 Mann; davon geh\u00f6rten 30000 zu Kampfeinheiten, die restlichen zu Hilfstruppen, die in den verschiedenen Siedlungen lebten. Im Mai 1948 konnten diese Truppen auf die Unterst\u00fctzung einer kleinen Luftwaffe und Marine z\u00e4hlen und auf die Panzereinheiten, die sie mit Panzerfahrzeugen und schwerer Artillerie begleiteten. Ihnen standen paramilit\u00e4rische Einheiten der Pal\u00e4stinenser gegen\u00fcber, die nicht mehr als 7000 Mann umfassten: Kampftrupps ohne jede Struktur und Hierarchie, die im Vergleich zu den j\u00fcdischen Truppen schlecht ausger\u00fcstet waren. Au\u00dferdem kamen im Februar 1948 etwa 1000 Freiwillige aus der arabischen Welt hinzu, deren Zahl in den folgenden Monaten auf 3000 anwuchs.\n\nBis Mai 1948 waren beide Seiten schlecht ausger\u00fcstet. Dann erhielt die neu gegr\u00fcndete israelische Armee mit Hilfe der Kommunistischen Partei des Landes eine gro\u00dfe Lieferung schwerer Waffen aus der Tschechoslowakei und der Sowjetunion, w\u00e4hrend die regul\u00e4ren arabischen Armeen einige schwere Gesch\u00fctze aus eigenen Best\u00e4nden heranschafften. In den Wochen nach Kriegsbeginn gestaltete sich die israelische Rekrutierung so effizient, dass ihre Armee bis zum Ende des Sommers auf 80000 Mann anwuchs. Die regul\u00e4ren arabischen Truppen brachten es nie \u00fcber eine St\u00e4rke von 50000 Mann hinaus und erhielten zudem keine Waffenlieferungen mehr von Gro\u00dfbritannien, das ihr Hauptr\u00fcstungslieferant war.\n\nIn den Anfangsstadien der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung (bis Mai 1948) standen also ein paar tausend irregul\u00e4re pal\u00e4stinensische und arabische K\u00e4mpfer Zehntausenden gut ausgebildeten j\u00fcdischen Soldaten gegen\u00fcber. Im Verlauf der folgenden Phasen hatten die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte mit einer Truppenst\u00e4rke, die fast das Doppelte aller arabischen Armeen zusammen betrug, kaum Schwierigkeiten, ihre Aufgabe abzuschlie\u00dfen.\n\nAn den R\u00e4ndern der israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte operierten zwei extremere Gruppierungen: die Irgun (auf hebr\u00e4isch allgemein _Etzel_ genannt) und die Stern-Gruppe _(Lehi_ ). Die Irgun hatte sich 1931 von der Hagana abgespalten und stand in den 1940er Jahren unter der F\u00fchrung Menachem Begins. Sie hatte ihre eigene Angriffspolitik sowohl gegen die britische Pr\u00e4senz als auch gegen die einheimische Bev\u00f6lkerung entwickelt. Die Stern-Gruppe war wiederum ein Ableger der Irgun, von der sie sich 1940 trennte. Zusammen mit der Hagana bildeten diese beiden Organisationen in den Tagen der Nakba eine vereinte Armee (obwohl sie nicht immer vereint und koordiniert vorgingen, wie wir noch sehen werden).\n\nEin wichtiger Teil der zionistischen Milit\u00e4ranstrengungen bestand in der Ausbildung von Sturmbrigaden, der 1941 gegr\u00fcndeten Palmach. Urspr\u00fcnglich wurden sie geschaffen, um die britische Armee im Krieg gegen die Nazis zu unterst\u00fctzen, falls die Deutschen Pal\u00e4stina erreichen sollten. Schon bald richteten sich die Aktivit\u00e4ten und der Eifer der Palmach jedoch gegen die l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas. Ab 1944 war sie zudem der wichtigste Pioniertrupp beim Bau neuer j\u00fcdischer Siedlungen. Vor ihrer Aufl\u00f6sung im Herbst 1948 waren die Mitglieder der Palmach \u00e4u\u00dferst aktiv und besorgten einige der gro\u00dfen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen im Norden und im Zentrum des Landes.\n\nBei den folgenden ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen waren Hagana-, Palmach- und Irgun-Truppen f\u00fcr die eigentliche Besetzung der D\u00f6rfer zust\u00e4ndig. Kurz nach der Besetzung \u00fcbergaben sie die Ortschaften weniger k\u00e4mpferischen Truppen, den Feldwachen (hebr\u00e4isch _Hish_ ), dem 1939 gegr\u00fcndeten logistischen Zweig der j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte. Von diesen Hilfstruppen wurden manche der Gr\u00e4ueltaten begangen, die mit den S\u00e4uberungsaktionen einhergingen.\n\nDie Hagana besa\u00df auch einen 1933 gegr\u00fcndeten Geheimdienst, dessen Hauptaufgabe es war, die britischen Beh\u00f6rden und die Kommunikation zwischen arabischen politischen Institutionen innerhalb und au\u00dferhalb des Landes auszuspionieren. Diese Abteilung leitete, wie gesagt, den Aufbau der Dorfdossiers und des Netzwerks von Spionen und Kollaborateuren im l\u00e4ndlichen Hinterland, die Tausende von Pal\u00e4stinensern zu identifizieren halfen, um sie nach Beginn der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen an Ort und Stelle hinzurichten oder f\u00fcr lange Zeit zu inhaftieren.\n\nZusammen bildeten diese Truppen eine ausreichend starke Milit\u00e4rmacht, um Ben Gurion in der \u00dcberzeugung zu best\u00e4rken, dass die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde f\u00e4hig war, sowohl das Erbe der Mandatsmacht anzutreten als auch den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil des pal\u00e4stinensischen Territoriums mit allen Verm\u00f6genswerten, die es enthielt, zu \u00fcbernehmen.\n\nUnmittelbar nachdem die UN-Resolution 181 verabschiedet war, erkl\u00e4rten die arabischen F\u00fchrer offiziell, dass sie Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina entsenden w\u00fcrden. Dennoch hatten Ben Gurion und, das ist hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, auch der enge Zirkel zionistischer F\u00fchrungskr\u00e4fte um ihn herum zwischen Ende November 1947 und Mai 1948 kein einziges Mal den Eindruck, ihr zuk\u00fcnftiger Staat sei in Gefahr oder die Liste der milit\u00e4rischen Aufgaben so \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigend, dass es die Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser beeintr\u00e4chtigen k\u00f6nnte. In der \u00d6ffentlichkeit verbreiteten die F\u00fchrer der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde Untergangsszenarien und warnten ihr Publikum vor einem drohenden \u00bbzweiten Holocaust\u00ab. Hinter verschlossenen T\u00fcren war davon allerdings nie die Rede. Sie waren sich vollauf bewusst, dass der arabischen Kriegsrhetorik keinerlei ernsthafte Vorbereitungen vor Ort entsprachen. Wie bereits gesagt, waren sie gut informiert \u00fcber die schlechte Ausr\u00fcstung dieser Armeen und ihre mangelhafte Kampferfahrung und Ausbildung, und wussten daher, dass sie nur \u00fcber begrenzte F\u00e4higkeiten verf\u00fcgten, einen Krieg zu f\u00fchren. Die zionistische F\u00fchrung war zuversichtlich, dass sie milit\u00e4risch die Oberhand hatte und ihre ehrgeizigen Pl\u00e4ne weitgehend durchsetzen k\u00f6nnte. Und sie hatte Recht.\n\nMoshe Sharett, der \u00bbdesignierte\u00ab j\u00fcdische Au\u00dfenminister, befand sich in den Monaten unmittelbar vor der Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitserkl\u00e4rung des Staates au\u00dfer Landes. Ab und an erhielt er Briefe, in denen Ben Gurion ihm Anweisungen gab, wie er am besten die n\u00f6tige globale und j\u00fcdische Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr einen von Annullierung bedrohten zuk\u00fcnftigen Staat gewinnen k\u00f6nnte, und in denen er ihn gleichzeitig \u00fcber die tats\u00e4chlichen Realit\u00e4ten vor Ort auf dem Laufenden hielt. Am 18. Februar 1948 schrieb Sharett an Ben Gurion: \u00bbWir werden nur genug Truppen haben, um uns zu verteidigen, nicht um das Land einzunehmen\u00ab, worauf Ben Gurion antwortete:\n\nWenn wir die Waffen, die wir bereits gekauft haben, rechtzeitig erhalten, und vielleicht sogar einige, die die UN uns versprochen haben, k\u00f6nnen wir uns nicht nur verteidigen, sondern auch den Syrern in ihrem eigenen Land t\u00f6dliche Schl\u00e4ge versetzen \u2013 und ganz Pal\u00e4stina einnehmen. Daran hege ich keinerlei Zweifel. Wir k\u00f6nnen es mit den gesamten arabischen Truppen aufnehmen. Das ist kein Wunderglaube, sondern k\u00fchle, n\u00fcchterne Berechnung aufgrund praktischer Untersuchungen.\n\nDieses Schreiben deckte sich im Tenor mit anderen Briefen, die die beiden seit Sharetts Auslandseinsatz gewechselt hatten. Es fing mit einem Brief von Dezember 1947 an, in dem Ben Gurion seinen politischen Korrespondenten von der milit\u00e4rischen \u00dcberlegenheit der Juden in Pal\u00e4stina zu \u00fcberzeugen versuchte: \u00bbWir k\u00f6nnen die Araber von Haifa und Jaffa aushungern (wenn wir wollen).\u00ab Diese zuversichtliche Einsch\u00e4tzung, dass die Hagana f\u00e4hig sei, ganz Pal\u00e4stina und sogar Teile des Umlands einzunehmen, blieb w\u00e4hrend der gesamten K\u00e4mpfe bestehen und wurde lediglich durch die Zusagen eingeschr\u00e4nkt, die sie den Jordaniern gemacht hatten.\n\nSelbstverst\u00e4ndlich gab es bei der Umsetzung der Politik auch Krisenzeiten, auf die ich sp\u00e4ter noch eingehen werde. Sie traten auf, als es sich als unm\u00f6glich erwies, alle abgelegenen j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen zu verteidigen und die ungehinderte Nachschubversorgung in die j\u00fcdischen Teile Jerusalems zu sichern. Aber meist reichten die Truppen, die der zionistischen F\u00fchrung zur Verf\u00fcgung standen, aus, damit die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde sich sowohl auf eine m\u00f6gliche Konfrontation mit der arabischen Welt als auch auf die Vertreibung der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung vorbereiten konnte. Zudem kam es erst am 15. Mai 1948, also f\u00fcnfeinhalb Monate nach Verabschiedung der UN-Teilungsresolution, zur arabischen Intervention. In dieser langen Zeitspanne blieben die meisten Pal\u00e4stinenser \u2013 abgesehen von einigen wenigen Enklaven, in denen paramilit\u00e4rische Gruppen einen gewissen Widerstand zu organisieren versuchten \u2013 schutzlos den j\u00fcdischen Operationen ausgeliefert, die bereits im Gang waren.\n\nWenn es darum geht, jenen Teil eines historischen Prozesses zu rekonstruieren, in dem schwer fassbare Ideologie zu greifbarer Realit\u00e4t wird, k\u00f6nnen wir Historiker zwischen zwei Herangehensweisen w\u00e4hlen. Bei den Ereignissen in Pal\u00e4stina 1948 w\u00e4re die erste M\u00f6glichkeit, aufzuzeigen, dass die zionistischen F\u00fchrer \u2013 von Herzl bis hin zu Ben Gurion \u2013 durchg\u00e4ngig bestrebt waren, so viele Pal\u00e4stinenser wie m\u00f6glich aus dem k\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat zu entfernen, und anschlie\u00dfend den Zusammenhang zu den tats\u00e4chlichen Vertreibungen zu beschreiben, die 1948 begangen wurden. F\u00fcr diese Herangehensweise steht vor allem das Werk des Historikers Nur Masalha, der sorgf\u00e4ltig die Genealogie der Vertreibungstr\u00e4ume und -pl\u00e4ne der zionistischen \u00bbGr\u00fcndungsv\u00e4ter\u00ab nachgezeichnet hat. Wie er zeigt, stellte der Wunsch, Pal\u00e4stina zu entarabisieren, einen Grundpfeiler zionistischen Denkens von dem Moment an dar, als die Bewegung in Gestalt Theodor Herzls die politische B\u00fchne betrat. Ben Gurion artikulierte seine Vorstellungen zu dieser Frage 1937 klar und deutlich. Sein Biograf Michael Bar-Zohar erkl\u00e4rt: \u00bbIn internen Diskussionen, in Anweisungen an seine Leute legte der \u203aAlte\u2039 eine klare Haltung an den Tag: Es war besser, dass eine m\u00f6glichst kleine Zahl von Arabern im Staatsgebiet blieb.\u00ab Die zweite Herangehensweise w\u00e4re, sich auf die zunehmende Entwicklung im politischen Entscheidungsprozess zu konzentrieren und aufzuzeigen, wie strategische und methodische Entscheidungen sich von Sitzung zu Sitzung allm\u00e4hlich zu einem systematischen und umfassenden Plan f\u00fcr eine ethnische S\u00e4uberung verdichteten. Ich werde beide Wege nutzen.\n\nDie Frage, was in dem zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat mit der pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung geschehen sollte, wurde in den Monaten bis zum Ende der Mandatsverwaltung eingehend diskutiert, dabei tauchte in den zionistischen Machtzentren immer wieder ein neuer Begriff auf: \u00bbdie Balance\u00ab. Damit ist das demografische Verh\u00e4ltnis zwischen Arabern und Juden in Pal\u00e4stina gemeint: Sobald die Waagschale gegen eine j\u00fcdische Majorit\u00e4t oder Exklusivit\u00e4t im Land ausschlug, wurde die Lage als katastrophal bezeichnet. Und sowohl innerhalb der Grenzen, die die Vereinten Nationen den Juden angeboten hatten, als auch in den von den Zionisten selbst definierten Grenzen war das demografische Verh\u00e4ltnis aus Sicht der j\u00fcdischen F\u00fchrung genau das: eine dr\u00e4uende Katastrophe.\n\nDie zionistische F\u00fchrung entwickelte zweierlei Reaktionen auf dieses Dilemma: eine f\u00fcr die \u00d6ffentlichkeit, die andere f\u00fcr den Kreis enger Vertrauter, die Ben Gurion um sich geschart hatte. Nach au\u00dfen sprachen er und seine Kollegen in \u00f6ffentlichen Foren wie der \u00f6rtlichen Abgeordnetenversammlung (dem j\u00fcdischen \u00bbParlament\u00ab in Pal\u00e4stina) von der Notwendigkeit, massive j\u00fcdische Zuwanderung ins Land zu f\u00f6rdern. In kleinerem Rahmen gaben die f\u00fchrenden K\u00f6pfe zu, dass eine verst\u00e4rkte Einwanderung niemals ausreichen w\u00fcrde, die pal\u00e4stinensische Mehrheit aufzuwiegen: Die Zuwanderung musste um andere Mittel erg\u00e4nzt werden. Bereits 1937 hatte Ben Gurion diese Mittel skizziert, als er mit Freunden das Fehlen einer soliden j\u00fcdischen Majorit\u00e4t in einem k\u00fcnftigen Staat diskutiert hatte. Er hatte ihnen erkl\u00e4rt, eine solche \u00bbRealit\u00e4t\u00ab \u2013 die pal\u00e4stinensische Mehrheit im Land \u2013 w\u00fcrde die j\u00fcdischen Siedler zwingen, Gewalt anzuwenden, um den \u00bbTraum\u00ab eines rein j\u00fcdischen Pal\u00e4stina zu verwirklichen. Zehn Jahre sp\u00e4ter, am 3. Dezember 1947, umriss er in einer Rede vor f\u00fchrenden Parteimitgliedern der Mapai (Israelische Arbeiterpartei) expliziter, wie man mit inakzeptablen Realit\u00e4ten umgehen sollte, wie die UN-Teilungsresolution sie vorsehe:\n\nIn den Gebieten, die dem j\u00fcdischen Staat zugewiesen sind, gibt es 40 Prozent Nichtjuden. Diese Zusammensetzung ist keine solide Basis f\u00fcr einen j\u00fcdischen Staat. Und dieser neuen Realit\u00e4t m\u00fcssen wir uns in ihrer ganzen H\u00e4rte und Klarheit stellen. Ein derartiges demografisches Verh\u00e4ltnis stellt unsere F\u00e4higkeit in Frage, j\u00fcdische Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t zu bewahren ... Nur ein Staat mit mindestens 80 Prozent Juden ist ein lebensf\u00e4higer und stabiler Staat.\n\nAm 2. November, also fast einen Monat, bevor die UN-Generalversammlung die Resolution 181 verabschiedete, sprach Ben Gurion in einem anderen Gremium, der Exekutive der Jewish Agency, zum ersten Mal in unmissverst\u00e4ndlichen Worten aus, dass ethnische S\u00e4uberung das alternative oder erg\u00e4nzende Mittel darstelle, um zu gew\u00e4hrleisten, dass der neue Staat ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdisch w\u00e4re. Er erkl\u00e4rte seinen Zuh\u00f6rern, die Pal\u00e4stinenser im j\u00fcdischen Staat k\u00f6nnten zu einer f\u00fcnften Kolonne werden, und in diesem Fall \u00bbk\u00f6nnen sie massenhaft verhaftet oder vertrieben werden; besser ist, sie zu vertreiben\u00ab.\n\nAber wie lie\u00df sich dieses strategische Ziel umsetzen? Simcha Flapan behauptet, die Mehrheit der zionistischen F\u00fchrung w\u00e4re damals vor Massenvertreibungen zur\u00fcckgeschreckt. Mit anderen Worten: H\u00e4tten die Pal\u00e4stinenser nach Verabschiedung der Teilungsresolution keine j\u00fcdischen Ziele angegriffen und h\u00e4tte die pal\u00e4stinensische Elite nicht die St\u00e4dte verlassen, dann w\u00e4re es f\u00fcr die zionistische Bewegung schwierig geworden, ihre Vision eines ethnisch ges\u00e4uberten Pal\u00e4stinas umzusetzen. Doch Flapan akzeptiert auch, dass Plan Dalet ein Masterplan f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas war. Im Gegensatz zu der Analyse, die beispielsweise Benny Morris in der Erstauflage seines Buches \u00fcber die Entstehung des Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblems anbot (aber ganz im Sinne der Wendung, die er dieser Analyse in der zweiten Auflage gab), entstand die eindeutige Blaupause f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas, Plan Dalet, nicht in einem Vakuum. Als endg\u00fcltige Planung entwickelte sie sich durch eine Art Ad-hoc-Politik, die sich im Laufe der Zeit in Reaktion auf die allm\u00e4hliche Entwicklung der Ereignisse vor Ort herauskristallisierte. Aber diese Reaktion gr\u00fcndete unersch\u00fctterlich in der zionistischen Ideologie und dem rein j\u00fcdischen Staat, den sie anstrebte. Das Hauptziel war also von Anfang an klar: die Entarabisierung Pal\u00e4stinas; aber die Mittel, mit denen es sich am effektivsten erreichen lie\u00dfe, entwickelten sich parallel zur tats\u00e4chlichen milit\u00e4rischen Besetzung der pal\u00e4stinensischen Territorien, die den neuen Staat Israel ausmachen sollten.\n\nNachdem nun das Territorium abgesteckt und die milit\u00e4rische \u00dcberlegenheit gesichert war, sorgte die zionistische F\u00fchrung im vierten Schritt in Richtung auf die Enteignung Pal\u00e4stinas f\u00fcr die konkreten praktischen Mittel, die es ihnen erm\u00f6glichen w\u00fcrden, eine so gro\u00dfe Bev\u00f6lkerung zu entfernen. Auf dem Gebiet ihres gr\u00f6\u00dferen zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staates lebten Anfang Dezember 1947 eine Million von insgesamt 1,3 Millionen Pal\u00e4stinensern, w\u00e4hrend die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde eine Minderheit von 600 000 stellte.\n\nDie Wahl der Mittel: Beunruhigende Normalit\u00e4t (Dezember 1947)\n\nAus Protest gegen den UN-Beschluss, die Teilungsresolution anzunehmen, rief das Arabische Oberkomitee einen dreit\u00e4gigen Streik aus und organisierte eine Demonstration. Das war nichts Neues: Es war die \u00fcbliche Reaktion der Pal\u00e4stinenser auf politische Vorg\u00e4nge, die sie f\u00fcr sch\u00e4dlich oder gef\u00e4hrlich hielten \u2013 kurz und ineffektiv. Einige der Demonstrationen gerieten au\u00dfer Kontrolle und schwappten \u00fcber in j\u00fcdische Gesch\u00e4ftsviertel wie in Jerusalem, wo Demonstranten \u00fcber j\u00fcdische L\u00e4den und einen Markt herfielen. Bei anderen Zwischenf\u00e4llen handelte es sich jedoch um \u00dcbergriffe, die laut j\u00fcdischen Geheimdiensten nichts mit dem UN-Beschluss zu tun hatten. So kam es beispielsweise zu einem Angriff aus dem Hinterhalt auf einen j\u00fcdischen Bus, ein Zwischenfall, der in fast allen israelischen Geschichtsb\u00fcchern als Beginn des Krieges von 1948 auftaucht. Der Angriff war von der Abu-Qishq-Bande inszeniert und eher von claninternen und kriminellen Impulsen motiviert als von einer nationalen Agenda. Jedenfalls stellten ausl\u00e4ndische Reporter, die die Demonstrationen und Streiks beobachteten, nach drei Tagen in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung ein wachsendes Widerstreben fest, die Proteste fortzusetzen, und bemerkten den zunehmenden Wunsch, zur Normalit\u00e4t zur\u00fcckzukehren. Schlie\u00dflich bedeutete die Resolution 181 f\u00fcr die meisten Pal\u00e4stinenser ein zwar trauriges, aber keineswegs neues Kapitel ihrer Geschichte. Im Laufe der Jahrhunderte war das Land von einer Hand in die andere \u00fcbergegangen und hatte mal europ\u00e4ischen oder asiatischen Invasoren, mal muslimischen Reichen geh\u00f6rt. Aber das Leben der Menschen war mehr oder weniger unver\u00e4ndert weitergegangen; sie hatten ihre Felder bestellt oder ihren Handel getrieben, wo sie gerade waren, und sich schnell mit der neuen Situation abgefunden, bis sie sich wieder einmal \u00e4nderte. Daher warteten die Menschen in den St\u00e4dten und auf dem Land erst einmal in Ruhe ab, was die Zugeh\u00f6rigkeit zu einem j\u00fcdischen Staat oder einem neuen Regime, das die britische Herrschaft ersetzen w\u00fcrde, f\u00fcr sie bringen mochte. Die meisten von ihnen hatten keine Ahnung, was sie erwartete und dass die bevorstehenden Ereignisse ein beispielloses Kapitel in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Geschichte werden sollte: n\u00e4mlich nicht blo\u00df den \u00dcbergang von einem Herrscher zu einem anderen, sondern die tats\u00e4chliche Vertreibung der Menschen aus dem Land, in dem sie lebten.\n\nDie Augen der Pal\u00e4stinenser richteten sich auf Kairo, den Sitz der Arabischen Liga und die vor\u00fcbergehende Residenz ihres F\u00fchrers, Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, der im Exil lebte, seit die Briten ihn 1937 ausgewiesen hatten. In den ersten Tagen nach Verabschiedung der Teilungsresolution herrschte unter den arabischen F\u00fchrern ein v\u00f6lliges Durcheinander, aber im Dezember 1947 nahm allm\u00e4hlich eine Art von Politik Gestalt an. Vor allem in den Nachbarl\u00e4ndern Pal\u00e4stinas zogen arabische F\u00fchrer es vor, nicht im Alleingang drastische Entscheidungen zu diesem Thema zu treffen. Sie waren sich aber durchaus bewusst, dass die \u00f6ffentliche Meinung in ihren L\u00e4ndern Sofortma\u00dfnahmen gegen den UN-Beschluss verlangte. Daher empfahl der Rat der Arabischen Liga, der sich aus den Au\u00dfenministern der arabischen Staaten zusammensetzte, Waffen an die Pal\u00e4stinenser zu liefern und eine allarabische Freiwilligentruppe zu schaffen, die Arabische Befreiungsarmee ( _Jaish al-Inqath_ , w\u00f6rtlich \u00bbRettungsarmee\u00ab von dem Verb _anqatha_ : \u00bbaus drohender Gefahr retten\u00ab) hei\u00dfen sollte. Zum Befehlshaber ernannte die Liga einen syrischen General. Im Laufe des Monats begannen kleine Trupps dieser Armee nach Pal\u00e4stina einzudringen und lieferten damit der Beratergruppe einen willkommenen Vorwand, \u00fcber eine weitere Eskalation der Hagana-Operationen zu diskutieren, die bereits im Gang waren.\n\nDamit war das Muster festgelegt, und unter diesem Aspekt ist der Dezember 1947 das vielleicht interessanteste Kapitel in der Geschichte der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas. Ben Gurions Beratergruppe begr\u00fc\u00dfte die lasche Reaktion in den arabischen Hauptst\u00e4dten rund um Pal\u00e4stina \u2013 aber die indifferente, fast lethargische pal\u00e4stinensische Reaktion _beunruhigte_ sie. In den ersten drei Tagen nach Verabschiedung der Teilungsresolution kam ein kleiner, ausgesuchter Kreis aus der Beratergruppe t\u00e4glich zusammen, aber allm\u00e4hlich legte sich die Anspannung und sie kehrten zum w\u00f6chentlichen Turnus der Mittwochstreffen mit dem Oberkommando und der zus\u00e4tzlichen Zusammenk\u00fcnfte der kleineren Gruppe am Tag danach (meist in Ben Gurions Haus) zur\u00fcck. Bei den ersten Sitzungen im Dezember ging es darum, Stimmung und Intentionen der Pal\u00e4stinenser einzusch\u00e4tzen. Wie die \u00bbExperten\u00ab berichteten, war die Bev\u00f6lkerung trotz des Eintreffens erster Freiwilliger in den pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten offenbar bestrebt, ganz normal weiterzuleben. Diese Sehnsucht nach Normalit\u00e4t blieb in den folgenden Jahren selbst in den schlimmsten Krisen und Tiefpunkten ihres Kampfes typisch f\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser in Pal\u00e4stina, aber eben diese Normalit\u00e4t wurde ihnen seit 1948 verwehrt.\n\nDie rasche R\u00fcckkehr zur Normalit\u00e4t und der Wunsch der Pal\u00e4stinenser, nicht in einen B\u00fcrgerkrieg verwickelt zu werden, stellten ein Problem f\u00fcr eine zionistische F\u00fchrung dar, die entschlossen war, die Zahl der Araber in ihrem k\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat drastisch, wenn nicht gar vollst\u00e4ndig zu reduzieren. Sie brauchte einen Vorwand, der nat\u00fcrlich schwerer herbeizuf\u00fchren war, wenn die moderate pal\u00e4stinensische Reaktion anhielt. \u00bbZum Gl\u00fcck\u00ab f\u00fcr die zionistische F\u00fchrung weitete die arabische Freiwilligenarmee irgendwann ihre Angriffe gegen j\u00fcdische Konvois und Siedlungen aus und machte es dem Beratergremium damit einfacher, die Besetzungs- und Vertreibungspolitik als eine Form gerechtfertigter \u00bbVergeltung\u00ab \u2013 hebr\u00e4isch _tagmul_ \u2013 darzustellen. Aber bereits im Dezember 1947 benutzte die Beratergruppe das hebr\u00e4ische Wort _yotzma_ (\u00bbInitiative\u00ab) f\u00fcr die Strategie, die sie im angestrebten Territorium ihres j\u00fcdischen Staates gegen\u00fcber den Pal\u00e4stinensern verfolgen wollte. \u00bbInitiative\u00ab bedeutete, gegen die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung vorzugehen, ohne abzuwarten, bis sich ein Vorwand f\u00fcr _tagmul_ ergab. Immer h\u00e4ufiger fehlten denn auch solche Vorw\u00e4nde f\u00fcr Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge.\n\nPalti Sela geh\u00f6rte den Geheimdiensteinheiten an, die eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Durchf\u00fchrung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen spielen sollten. Eine ihrer Aufgaben war, t\u00e4glich \u00fcber Stimmung und Tendenzen in der Landbev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas Bericht zu erstatten. Sela, der in den T\u00e4lern im Nordosten des Landes stationiert war, wunderte sich \u00fcber die offenkundig unterschiedlichen Reaktionen, die die Gemeinden beider Seiten auf die neue politische Realit\u00e4t um sie herum an den Tag legten. Die j\u00fcdischen Bauern in den Kibbuzim und in den Kollektiv- oder Privatsiedlungen verwandelten ihre D\u00f6rfer in verteidigungs- und angriffsbereite milit\u00e4rische Vorposten \u2013 verst\u00e4rkten ihre Befestigungsanlagen, reparierten Z\u00e4une, legten Minen usw.; jeder bekam eine Schusswaffe und wurde in die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte aufgenommen. In den pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern ging das Leben zu Selas Verwunderung \u00bbwie gewohnt weiter\u00ab. In den drei D\u00f6rfern, die er besuchte \u2013 Ayndur, Dabburiyya und Ayn Mahel \u2013 empfingen die Menschen ihn wie immer, hie\u00dfen ihn als potenziellen Kunden f\u00fcr Tauschgesch\u00e4fte willkommen, handelten mit ihm und tauschten H\u00f6flichkeiten und Neuigkeiten aus. Diese D\u00f6rfer lagen in der N\u00e4he des britischen Hospitals Afula, wo Einheiten der Arabischen Legion stationiert waren, die zur britischen Polizeitruppe des Landes geh\u00f6rten. Auch diese jordanischen Soldaten betrachteten die Lage offenbar als v\u00f6llig normal und trafen keine besonderen Vorkehrungen. In seinem Monatsbericht f\u00fcr Dezember 1947 fasste Sela zusammen: Normalit\u00e4t ist die Regel, Agitation die Ausnahme. Wenn diese Menschen vertrieben werden sollten, konnte es nicht als \u00bbVergeltung\u00ab f\u00fcr Aggressionen von ihrer Seite geschehen.\n\nDer Stimmungsumschwung in der Beratergruppe: Von Vergeltung zu Einsch\u00fcchterung\n\nAm Mittwoch, dem 10. Dezember 1947, kam nachmittags eine entt\u00e4uschte Beratergruppe im obersten Stock des Roten Hauses zur Lagebesprechung zusammen. Zwei Teilnehmer bestimmten das Gespr\u00e4ch: Ezra Danin und Yehoshua Palmon.\n\nEzra Danin war, wie erw\u00e4hnt, Betreiber einer Zitrusplantage, den man wegen seiner Arabischkenntnisse (er war in Syrien geboren) in das Geheimdienstcorps geholt hatte. Als Danin 1940 zur Hagana kam, war er Mitte vierzig. Ab 1947 leitete er dort die \u00bbArabische Abteilung\u00ab; sie beaufsichtigte die Arbeit der arabischen Juden und einheimischen arabischen Kollaborateure, die f\u00fcr das Oberkommando Spionagearbeit in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinde und den benachbarten arabischen L\u00e4ndern leistete. Im Mai 1948 \u00fcbernahm er eine neue Aufgabe: die Aufsicht \u00fcber die Aktivit\u00e4ten der j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte nach der Besetzung von Ortschaften, wenn die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen ernsthaft begannen. Seine Leute waren f\u00fcr das Vorgehen verantwortlich, nachdem ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf oder Wohngebiet besetzt worden war. Mit Hilfe von Informanten suchten und identifizierten sie M\u00e4nner, die im Verdacht standen, fr\u00fcher Juden angegriffen zu haben oder der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nationalbewegung anzugeh\u00f6ren; vielleicht waren sie aber auch nur den \u00f6rtlichen Informanten missliebig, die diese Gelegenheit nutzten, um alte Rechnungen zu begleichen. In der Regel wurden die selektierten M\u00e4nner an Ort und Stelle exekutiert. Oft kam Danin, um diese Operationen pers\u00f6nlich zu inspizieren. Seine Einheit war auch daf\u00fcr verantwortlich, unmittelbar nach der Besetzung eines Ortes s\u00e4mtliche M\u00e4nner im \u00bbwehrf\u00e4higen Alter\u00ab, also zwischen zehn und f\u00fcnfzig Jahren, von den \u00fcbrigen Einwohnern zu trennen und anschlie\u00dfend \u00bbnur\u00ab auszuweisen oder f\u00fcr lange Zeit in Kriegsgefangenenlagern zu inhaftieren.\n\nYehoshua (\u00bbJosh\u00ab) Palmon war in mancherlei Hinsicht Danins Stellvertreter und zeigte gro\u00dfes pers\u00f6nliches Interesse an der Durchf\u00fchrung der Selektionen, Verh\u00f6re und manchmal auch Exekutionen. Er war j\u00fcnger als Danin, in Pal\u00e4stina geboren und hatte bereits eine beeindruckende milit\u00e4rische Karriere hinter sich. Als Rekrut einer britischen Kommandoeinheit hatte er 1941 an der Besetzung Syriens und des Libanons teilgenommen, die der Herrschaft der franz\u00f6sischen Vichy-Regierung dort ein Ende bereitete. Die Offiziere unter Danins und Palmons Befehl waren bei vielen Pal\u00e4stinensern ber\u00fcchtigt und gef\u00fcrchtet, die sie bald zu erkennen lernten, auch wenn diese sich unauff\u00e4llig in Khakiuniform kleideten. In Hunderten D\u00f6rfern agierten sie hinter den Kulissen; die m\u00fcndlich \u00fcberlieferte Geschichte der Nakba ist voll von Berichten \u00fcber diese M\u00e4nner und die von ihnen begangenen Gr\u00e4ueltaten.\n\nAber am 10. Dezember 1947 waren Danin und Palmon noch nicht ins Blickfeld der \u00d6ffentlichkeit ger\u00fcckt. Sie er\u00f6ffneten die Sitzung und berichteten, dass Angeh\u00f6rige der urbanen pal\u00e4stinensischen Oberschicht ihre H\u00e4user verlie\u00dfen und in ihre Winterresidenzen in Syrien, Libanon und \u00c4gypten zogen. Das war eine typische Reaktion der Stadtbev\u00f6lkerung in Spannungssituationen: sich in Sicherheit zu bringen, bis die Lage sich beruhigt hatte. Dennoch haben israelische Historiker, auch revisionistische wie Benny Morris, diese traditionelle vor\u00fcbergehende Abwesenheit als \u00bbfreiwillige Flucht\u00ab interpretiert, um uns zu sagen, Israel sei daf\u00fcr nicht verantwortlich. Diese Menschen gingen jedoch in der festen Absicht fort, sp\u00e4ter wieder in ihre H\u00e4user zur\u00fcckzukehren, wurden aber von den Israelis daran gehindert: Menschen nach einem kurzen Auslandsaufenthalt an der R\u00fcckkehr in ihre Heimat zu hindern ist eine ebensolche Vertreibung wie jeder andere Akt gegen die einheimische Bev\u00f6lkerung, der auf eine Entv\u00f6lkerung abzielt.\n\nNach Danins Bericht waren das die einzigen von ihnen beobachteten F\u00e4lle, dass Pal\u00e4stinenser das UN-designierte j\u00fcdische Staatsgebiet verlassen hatten, abgesehen von einigen Beduinenst\u00e4mmen, die aus Angst vor j\u00fcdischen Angriffen n\u00e4her an arabische Ortschaften gezogen waren. Danin war dar\u00fcber offenbar entt\u00e4uscht, denn fast im gleichen Atemzug verlangte er eine wesentlich aggressivere Politik \u2013 obwohl es von pal\u00e4stinensischer Seite keine Offensivinitiativen oder -tendenzen gab \u2013 und erkl\u00e4rte der Beratergruppe, welche Vorteile sie h\u00e4tte: Seine Informanten hatten ihm gesagt, Gewaltaktionen gegen Pal\u00e4stinenser w\u00fcrden ihnen Angst und Schrecken einjagen, \u00bbwas Hilfe aus der arabischen Welt nutzlos machen wird\u00ab; zwischen den Zeilen hie\u00df das, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen mit ihnen machen k\u00f6nnten, was sie wollten.\n\n\u00bbWas meinen Sie mit Gewaltaktion?\u00ab, fragte Ben Gurion.\n\n\u00bbVerkehrsmittel (Busse, Lastwagen mit landwirtschaftlichen Erzeugnissen und Privatwagen) zerst\u00f6ren ... ihre Fischerboote in Jaffa versenken, ihre L\u00e4den schlie\u00dfen und verhindern, dass Rohstoffe ihre Fabriken erreichen.\u00ab\n\n\u00bbWie werden sie reagieren?\u00ab, fragte Ben Gurion.\n\n\u00bbAnfangs k\u00f6nnte es zu Unruhen kommen, aber letztlich werden sie die Botschaft verstehen.\u00ab Das Hauptziel war also, daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, dass die Bev\u00f6lkerung den Zionisten auf Gedeih und Verderb ausgeliefert w\u00e4re, um ihr Schicksal besiegeln zu k\u00f6nnen. Ben Gurion gefiel dieser Vorschlag offenbar; drei Tage sp\u00e4ter schrieb er an Sharett, um ihm die Idee in groben Z\u00fcgen zu erkl\u00e4ren: Die pal\u00e4stinensische Gemeinde auf j\u00fcdischem Gebiet w\u00e4re \u00bbuns ausgeliefert\u00ab, und die Juden k\u00f6nnten mit ihr machen, was sie wollten, einschlie\u00dflich \u00bbsie auszuhungern\u00ab.\n\nEin anderer syrischer Jude, Eliyahu Sasson, versuchte gewisserma\u00dfen in der Beratergruppe den Advocatus Dioaboli zu spielen und stand dem von Danin und Palmon vorgeschlagenen aggressiven Vorgehen offenbar skeptisch gegen\u00fcber. Er war 1927 nach Pal\u00e4stina emigriert und das wohl faszinierendste und auch ambivalenteste Mitglied der Beratergruppe. Bevor er Zionist wurde, hatte er sich 1919 der arabischen Nationalbewegung in Syrien angeschlossen. In den 1940er Jahren bestand seine Hauptrolle darin, in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinde, aber auch in benachbarten arabischen L\u00e4ndern eine Politik nach dem Motto \u00bbteile und herrsche\u00ab anzustiften. So trug er wesentlich dazu bei, die Allianz mit dem jordanischen Haschemitenk\u00f6nig \u00fcber die Zukunft Pal\u00e4stinas zu f\u00f6rdern, aber seine Versuche, eine pal\u00e4stinensische Gruppe gegen die andere auszuspielen, sollten bald obsolet werden, da die zionistische F\u00fchrung sich nun in Richtung einer umfassenden ethnischen S\u00e4uberung des ganzen Landes bewegte. Aber das Verm\u00e4chtnis seiner \u00bbTeile-und-herrsche\u00ab-Politik hatte unweigerliche Auswirkungen auf die israelische Politik sp\u00e4terer Jahre; das zeigte sich beispielsweise an den Bem\u00fchungen Ariel Sharons, als er 1981 als Verteidigungsminister auf Anraten des Arabistikprofessors Menahem Milson die pal\u00e4stinensische Befreiungsbewegung zu untergraben versuchte, indem er im Rahmen einer pro-israelischen Organisierung des besetzten Westjordanlands \u00bbVillage Leagues\u00ab schuf. Diese Bestrebungen waren nur von kurzer Dauer und fruchtlos. Erfolgreicher verlief bereits 1948 die Eingliederung der Drusen-Minderheit in die israelische Armee in Einheiten, die sp\u00e4ter zum wichtigsten Unterdr\u00fcckungsinstrument der Pal\u00e4stinenser in den besetzten Gebieten wurden.\n\nDie Sitzung vom 10. Dezember 1947 sollte die letzte sein, auf der Sasson seine Kollegen zu \u00fcberzeugen versuchte, dass es trotz der Notwendigkeit eines, wie er sagte, \u00bbumfassenden Plans\u00ab \u2013 n\u00e4mlich zur Vertreibung der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung \u2013 ratsam sei, nicht alle arabischen Einwohner als Feinde zu betrachten und weiterhin eine \u00bbTeile-und-herrsche\u00ab-Taktik anzuwenden. Er war sehr stolz auf seine Rolle bei der Bewaffnung pal\u00e4stinensischer Gruppen in den 1930er Jahren, der \u00bbFriedensgruppen\u00ab, die aus Rivalen des Pal\u00e4stinenserf\u00fchrers al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni bestanden. Diese Einheiten k\u00e4mpften w\u00e4hrend der arabischen Revolte gegen die nationalen pal\u00e4stinensischen Formationen. Nun wollte Sasson die gleiche Spaltungstaktik bei einigen loyalen Beduinenst\u00e4mmen einsetzen.\n\nDezember 1947: Erste Aktionen\n\nDie Beratergruppe lehnte nicht nur die Idee ab, weitere \u00bbarabische\u00ab Kollaborateure anzuwerben, sondern ging sogar so weit vorzuschlagen, sie sollten das Konzept der \u00bbVergeltung\u00ab, wie sie es damals auf den Rat von Orde Wingate \u00fcbernommen hatten, v\u00f6llig aufgeben. Die meisten Sitzungsteilnehmer waren f\u00fcr ein \u00bbEngagement\u00ab in einer systematischen Einsch\u00fcchterungskampagne. Ben Gurion stimmte zu, und am folgenden Tag wurde die neue Politik umgesetzt.\n\nDer erste Schritt war eine gut inszenierte Drohkampagne. Sondereinheiten der Hagana durchsuchten D\u00f6rfer nach \u00bbInfiltranten\u00ab (sprich \u00bbarabischen Freiwilligen\u00ab) und verteilten Flugbl\u00e4tter, auf denen sie die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung vor Kooperation mit der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee warnte. Jeder Widerstand gegen solche \u00dcberf\u00e4lle endete damit, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen wahllos um sich schossen und mehrere Dorfbewohner t\u00f6teten. Die Hagana nannte diese Einf\u00e4lle \u00bbgewaltsame Erkundung\u00ab ( _hasiyur ha-alim_ ). Auch sie geh\u00f6rten zum Verm\u00e4chtnis Orde Wingates, der die Hagana in den 1930er Jahren im Einsatz dieser Terrormethoden gegen pal\u00e4stinensische Dorfbewohner geschult hatte. Im Grunde ging es darum, gegen Mitternacht in ein wehrloses Dorf einzufallen, einige Stunden zu bleiben, auf alle zu schie\u00dfen, die es wagten, das Haus zu verlassen, und dann wieder abzuziehen. Schon zu Wingates Zeiten waren solche \u00dcberf\u00e4lle mehr als Demonstration der St\u00e4rke, denn als Straf- oder Vergeltungsaktion gedacht.\n\nIm Dezember 1947 wurden zwei wehrlose D\u00f6rfer ausgesucht, um Wingates Taktik wiederaufleben zu lassen: Deir Ayyub und Beit Affa. F\u00e4hrt man heute von der Stadt Ramla 15 Kilometer nach S\u00fcdosten, so st\u00f6\u00dft man auf einen bizarren Anblick, besonders an Wintertagen, wenn der Stechginster auf den Ebenen im pal\u00e4stinensischen Binnenland gr\u00fcn wird: Auf freiem Feld erstrecken sich lange Schutt- und Steinreihen rund um eine relativ gro\u00dfe etwa rechteckige Fl\u00e4che. Das waren die Mauern von Deir Ayyub. Die niedrigen Steinmauern, die 1947 hier standen, dienten eher \u00e4sthetischen Zwecken als dem Schutz des Dorfes, das etwa 500 Einwohner hatte. Es war benannt nach Ayyub \u2013 der arabische Name f\u00fcr Hiob \u2013, und die \u00fcberwiegend muslimischen Einwohner lebten in den typischen Feldstein- und Lehmh\u00e4usern der Gegend. Unmittelbar vor dem j\u00fcdischen Angriff hatte das Dorf die Er\u00f6ffnung der neuen Schule gefeiert, die bereits 51 Sch\u00fcler hatte; das Geld f\u00fcr ihren Bau und das Gehalt des Lehrers hatten die Dorfbewohner untereinander gesammelt. Aber ihre Freude wurde schlagartig getr\u00fcbt, als gegen 22 Uhr ein Trupp von 20 j\u00fcdischen Soldaten ins Dorf st\u00fcrmte \u2013 das wie so viele D\u00f6rfer im Dezember keinerlei Vorkehrungen zu seinem Schutz besa\u00df \u2013 und wahllos das Feuer auf einige H\u00e4user er\u00f6ffnete. Sp\u00e4ter wurde das Dorf noch drei Mal angegriffen, bevor es im April 1948 zwangsger\u00e4umt und v\u00f6llig zerst\u00f6rt wurde. Ebenso griffen j\u00fcdische Truppen im Dezember Beit Affa im Gazastreifen an, das den \u00dcberfall aber erfolgreich abwehrte.\n\nAuch in syrischen und libanesischen D\u00f6rfern an der pal\u00e4stinensischen Grenze wurden Flugbl\u00e4tter mit Drohungen und Warnungen an die Bev\u00f6lkerung verteilt:\n\nWenn der Krieg in euer Dorf getragen wird, wird er zu massiven Vertreibungen der Dorfbewohner mit ihren Frauen und Kindern f\u00fchren. Wer von euch dieses Schicksal nicht erleiden will, dem sage ich: In diesem Krieg wird ohne Mitleid und Erbarmen get\u00f6tet. Wenn ihr euch nicht an diesem Krieg beteiligt, m\u00fcsst ihr eure H\u00e4user und D\u00f6rfer nicht verlassen.\n\nEs folgte eine Reihe von Zerst\u00f6rungsaktionen in begrenzten l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten und Stadtvierteln Pal\u00e4stinas. Auf dem Land war das Vorgehen anfangs z\u00f6gernd. Drei D\u00f6rfer im \u00f6stlichen Obergalil\u00e4a wurden ausgesucht: Khisas, Na'ima und Jahula, aber die Operation wurde abgeblasen, vielleicht weil das Oberkommando sie noch f\u00fcr zu ehrgeizig hielt. Der Palmach-Kommandeur f\u00fcr den Nordteil des Landes, Yigal Allon, ignorierte allerdings den Widerruf des Einsatzbefehls teilweise. Allon wollte zumindest ein Dorf angreifen und entschied sich f\u00fcr Khisas.\n\nKhisas war ein kleiner Ort, in dem ein paar hundert Muslime und hundert Christen friedlich zusammenlebten; er hatte eine einmalige topografische Lage im Norden des Hula-Tals: auf einer nat\u00fcrlichen Terrasse, die vor tausenden Jahren durch das allm\u00e4hliche Schrumpfen des Hula-Sees entstanden war. Ausl\u00e4ndische Reisende besuchten das Dorf gern wegen seiner malerischen Lage am Seeufer und wegen seiner N\u00e4he zum Fluss Hasbani. Am 18. Dezember 1947 \u00fcberfielen j\u00fcdische Truppen das Dorf mitten in der Nacht und sprengten wahllos H\u00e4user in die Luft, w\u00e4hrend die Bewohner noch fest schliefen. Bei dem Angriff wurden 15 Einwohner get\u00f6tet, darunter f\u00fcnf Kinder. Der Korrespondent der _New York Times_ , der die Entwicklung der Ereignisse aufmerksam verfolgte, war schockiert \u00fcber den Vorfall und verlangte eine Erkl\u00e4rung von der Hagana, die zun\u00e4chst die Operation leugnete. Als der hartn\u00e4ckige Reporter nicht locker lie\u00df, gab sie den Einsatz zu. Ben Gurion entschuldigte sich \u00f6ffentlich dramatisch und behauptete, das Vorgehen sei nicht genehmigt gewesen, f\u00fchrte es aber einige Monate sp\u00e4ter, im April, in einer Liste erfolgreicher Operationen an.\n\nAls die Beratergruppe am Mittwoch, den 17. Dezember, wieder zusammenkam, nahmen auch Yohanan Ratner und Fritz Eisenshtater (Eshet) teil, zwei Offiziere, die Ben Gurion noch vor Schaffung des Beratergremiums beauftragt hatte, eine \u00bbnationale Strategie\u00ab auszuarbeiten. In der Sitzung ging es ausf\u00fchrlich um die Folgerungen aus dem erfolgreichen Einsatz in Khisas, wobei einige Mitglieder weitere \u00bbVergeltungsschl\u00e4ge\u00ab forderten, die die Zerst\u00f6rung von D\u00f6rfern, die Vertreibung der Einwohner und die Ansiedlung j\u00fcdischer Siedler an ihrer Stelle umfassen sollten. Am folgenden Tag fasste Ben Gurion diese Besprechung vor dem \u00bbVerteidigungsausschuss\u00ab zusammen, dem offiziellen gr\u00f6\u00dferen Gremium der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde, das f\u00fcr Verteidigungsfragen zust\u00e4ndig war. Offenbar waren alle von der Operation begeistert, auch der Vertreter der Vereinigung ultraorthodoxer Juden, _Agudat Israel_ , der sagte: \u00bbMan hat uns gesagt, dass die Armee f\u00e4hig sei, ein ganzes Dorf zu zerst\u00f6ren und s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner zu vertreiben; dann machen wir es doch!\u00ab Der Ausschuss genehmigte auch den Einsatz von Geheimdienstoffizieren bei jeder solchen Operation. Sie sollten eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Durchf\u00fchrung der n\u00e4chsten Phasen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung spielen.\n\nDie neue Politik richtete sich auch auf Stadtgebiete in Pal\u00e4stina, und als erstes Ziel wurde Haifa ausgesucht. Interessanterweise f\u00fchren israelische Mainstream-Historiker und der revisionistische Historiker Benny Morris diese Stadt als Beispiel f\u00fcr den aufrichtigen guten Willen der Zionisten gegen\u00fcber der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung an. Die Wirklichkeit sah Ende 1947 jedoch v\u00f6llig anders aus. Ab dem Tag, nachdem die UN-Teilungsresolution verabschiedet wurde, waren die 75000 Pal\u00e4stinenser der Stadt einer Terrorkampagne ausgesetzt, die Irgun und Hagana gemeinsam betrieben. Da erst in den vorangegangenen Jahrzehnten j\u00fcdische Siedler in die Stadt gezogen waren, hatten sie ihre H\u00e4user h\u00f6her am Hang gebaut. Sie wohnten also oberhalb ihrer arabischen Nachbarn und konnten sie ohne weiteres bombardieren und aus dem Hinterhalt beschie\u00dfen. Ab Anfang Dezember taten sie das h\u00e4ufig. Sie benutzten auch noch andere Einsch\u00fcchterungsmethoden: Die j\u00fcdischen Truppen lie\u00dfen Sprengstofff\u00e4sser und riesige Stahlkugeln in die arabischen Wohnviertel hinunterrollen und gossen auf die absch\u00fcssigen Stra\u00dfen ein Gemisch aus \u00d6l und Benzin, das sie dann anz\u00fcndeten. Sobald die pal\u00e4stinensischen Anwohner in Panik aus ihren H\u00e4usern rannten, um die brennenden Str\u00f6me zu l\u00f6schen, sahen sie sich dem Dauerfeuer von Maschinenpistolen ausgesetzt. In Gegenden, wo die beiden Gemeinden noch Kontakte miteinander unterhielten, brachte die Hagana mit Sprengladungen und Z\u00fcndmechanismen pr\u00e4parierte Autos zur Reparatur in pal\u00e4stinensische Werkst\u00e4tten, wo sie Tod und Chaos verursachten. Hinter Anschl\u00e4gen dieser Art stand eine Sondereinheit der Hagana, _Hashahar_ (\u00bbMorgend\u00e4mmerung\u00ab), die aus _mistarvim_ bestand \u2013 das hebr\u00e4ische Wort bedeutet \u00bbarabisch werden\u00ab und bezeichnete Juden, die sich als Pal\u00e4stinenser tarnten. Der f\u00fchrende Kopf dieser Operationen war ein gewisser Dani Agmon, der an der Spitze dieser Hashahar-Einheiten stand. Der offizielle Historiker der Palmach schreibt auf der Internetseite der Organisation: \u00bbAb Dezember wurden die Pal\u00e4stinenser [in Haifa] belagert und eingesch\u00fcchtert.\u00ab Aber es sollte noch schlimmer kommen.\n\nDie ersten Gewaltausbr\u00fcche bereiteten einer relativ langen Tradition der Arbeitersolidarit\u00e4t und -kooperation in der gemischten Stadt Haifa ein trauriges Ende. In den 1920er und 1930er Jahren hatte die nationale F\u00fchrung beider Seiten dieses Klassenbewusstsein zwar einzud\u00e4mmen versucht, vor allem die j\u00fcdische Gewerkschaftsbewegung, aber es hatte weiterhin gemeinsame Arbeitsk\u00e4mpfe gegen Arbeitgeber aller Art und gegenseitige Hilfe in Zeiten der Rezession und Not gegeben.\n\nDie j\u00fcdischen \u00dcbergriffe in der Stadt sch\u00fcrten Spannungen in einem der Hauptgebiete, in dem Juden und Araber Seite an Seite arbeiteten: in der Raffinerie der Iraqi Petroleum Company am Hafen. Es begann damit, dass ein Irgun-Trupp eine Bombe in eine gro\u00dfe Gruppe von Pal\u00e4stinensern warf, die am Werkseingang auf Einlass warteten. Die Irgun stellte es als Vergeltungsschlag f\u00fcr einen vorherigen Angriff arabischer Arbeiter auf ihre j\u00fcdischen Kollegen dar, ein neues Ph\u00e4nomen in einem Betrieb, in dem arabische und j\u00fcdische Arbeiter gew\u00f6hnlich vereint f\u00fcr bessere Arbeitsbedingungen gegen ihre britischen Arbeitgeber gek\u00e4mpft hatten. Aber die UN-Teilungsresolution versetzte dieser Klassensolidarit\u00e4t einen schweren Schlag, und die Spannungen wuchsen. Bomben in arabische Menschenmengen zu werfen war eine Spezialit\u00e4t der Irgun, die solche Anschl\u00e4ge bereits vor 1947 ver\u00fcbt hatte. Der Bombenanschlag an der Raffinerie erfolgte jedoch in Absprache mit der Hagana im Rahmen des neuen Plans, die Pal\u00e4stinenser zu terrorisieren, um sie aus Haifa zu vertreiben. Innerhalb von Stunden reagierten pal\u00e4stinensische Arbeiter mit Unruhen und t\u00f6teten zahlreiche \u2013 93 \u2013 j\u00fcdische Arbeiter in einem der schlimmsten pal\u00e4stinensischen Gegenangriffe, der allerdings auch der letzte in der sonst \u00fcblichen Kette von Vergeltungsscharm\u00fctzeln war.\n\nDie n\u00e4chste Phase leitete ein neues Kapitel in der Geschichte Pal\u00e4stinas ein. Da das Hagana-Oberkommando unter anderem darauf brannte, die britische Wachsamkeit angesichts ihrer Aktionen zu testen, beschloss es im Rahmen der Beratergruppe, ein ganzes Dorf zu pl\u00fcndern und einen gro\u00dfen Teil der Einwohner zu massakrieren. Damals waren die britischen Beh\u00f6rden noch f\u00fcr Recht und Ordnung zust\u00e4ndig und in Pal\u00e4stina stark pr\u00e4sent. Das Oberkommando w\u00e4hlte das Dorf Balad al-Shaykh aus, wo sich das Grab von Shaykh Izz al-Din al-Qassam befand, der zu den verehrtesten und charismatischsten Pal\u00e4stinenserf\u00fchrern der 1930er Jahre geh\u00f6rte und 1935 von den Briten get\u00f6tet wurde. Seine Grabst\u00e4tte geh\u00f6rt zu den wenigen \u00dcberresten des Dorfes, die heute noch etwa zehn Kilometer \u00f6stlich von Haifa existieren.\n\nEin \u00f6rtlicher Kommandeur, Haim Avinoam, erhielt den Befehl, \u00bbdas Dorf zu umstellen, m\u00f6glichst viele M\u00e4nner zu t\u00f6ten, Hab und Gut zu verw\u00fcsten, aber keine Frauen und Kinder anzugreifen\u00ab. Der \u00dcberfall fand am 31. Dezember statt und dauerte drei Stunden. Er forderte \u00fcber 60 pal\u00e4stinensische Todesopfer, nicht nur M\u00e4nner. Auffallend ist, dass hier noch zwischen M\u00e4nnern und Frauen unterschieden wurde: In ihrer n\u00e4chsten Sitzung kam die Beratergruppe zu dem Schluss, dass eine solche Unterscheidung k\u00fcnftige Operationen unn\u00f6tig erschwere. Gleichzeitig mit dem \u00dcberfall auf Balad al-Shaykh sondierten Hagana-Einheiten in Haifa das Terrain mit einer drastischeren Aktion: Sie fielen in ein arabisches Viertel der Stadt ein, Wadi Rushmiyya, vertrieben die Einwohner und sprengten die H\u00e4user. Dieser Akt l\u00e4sst sich als offizieller Beginn der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen in pal\u00e4stinensischen St\u00e4dten werten. W\u00e4hrend diese Gr\u00e4ueltaten begangen wurden, schauten die Briten fort.\n\nZwei Wochen sp\u00e4ter, im Januar 1948, \u00bbnutzte\u00ab die Palmach die geschaffene Dynamik, um Hawassa, ein relativ abgelegenes Viertel Haifas, zu \u00fcberfallen und zu r\u00e4umen. In diesem Elendsviertel der Stadt standen urspr\u00fcnglich nur H\u00fctten von verarmten Bauern, die in den 1920er Jahren auf der Suche nach Arbeit hergekommen waren und hier unter armseligen Bedingungen hausten. Damals lebten etwa 5000 Pal\u00e4stinenser in diesem \u00f6stlichen Stadtteil. Die Palmach machten die H\u00fctten und die \u00f6rtliche Schule platt, und die ausbrechende Panik trieb viele Menschen in die Flucht. Die Schule wurde auf den Tr\u00fcmmern von Hawassa, das heute zum Stadtteil Tel-Amal geh\u00f6rt, wieder aufgebaut, aber auch dieses Geb\u00e4ude wurde k\u00fcrzlich abgerissen, um Platz f\u00fcr eine neue j\u00fcdische Schule zu schaffen.\n\nJanuar 1948: Abschied vom Vergeltungsgedanken\n\nDiese Operationen gingen einher mit Terroranschl\u00e4gen der Irgun und der Stern-Gruppe. Dass es ihnen m\u00f6glich war, in den arabischen Vierteln Haifas und anderer St\u00e4dte Angst und Schrecken zu verbreiten, stand unmittelbar in Zusammenhang mit dem allm\u00e4hlichen, aber offenkundigen R\u00fcckzug der Briten aus jeglicher Verantwortung f\u00fcr Recht und Ordnung. Allein in der ersten Januarwoche ver\u00fcbte die Irgun mehrTerroranschl\u00e4ge als in der gesamten Zeit zuvor. Unter anderem brachte ein Bombenanschlag das Sarraya-Haus in Jaffa, den Sitz des \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees, zum Einsturz und t\u00f6tete 26 Menschen. Es folgte ein Bombenanschlag auf das Samiramis Hotel in Qatamon, Westjerusalem, bei dem viele Menschen starben, darunter auch der spanische Konsul. Diese Tatsache veranlasste offenbar den letzten britischen High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, zu einer laschen Beschwerde bei Ben Gurion, der sich allerdings weigerte, den Anschlag privat oder \u00f6ffentlich zu verurteilen. In Haifa kam es nun t\u00e4glich zu solchen Aktionen.\n\nAls Cunningham in den folgenden Wochen bemerkte, dass die Hagana von Vergeltungsaktionen zu Offensiven \u00fcberging, appellierte er erneut an Ben Gurion, der seine Proteste allerdings ignorierte. Bei seiner letzten Unterredung mit Ben Gurion im M\u00e4rz 1948 erkl\u00e4rte er dem Zionistenf\u00fchrer, seiner Ansicht nach versuchten die Pal\u00e4stinenser, die Ruhe im Land zu bewahren, w\u00e4hrend die Hagana nach Kr\u00e4ften zur Eskalation der Lage beitrage. Das widersprach durchaus nicht Ben Gurions Einsch\u00e4tzung. Kurz nach dem Treffen mit Cunningham sagte er der Exekutive der Jewish Agency: \u00bbIch glaube, die Mehrheit der pal\u00e4stinensischen Masse akzeptiert die Teilung als Fait accompli und h\u00e4lt es nicht f\u00fcr m\u00f6glich, sie zu \u00fcberwinden oder zu verhindern ... Die \u00fcberwiegende Mehrheit von ihnen will nicht gegen uns k\u00e4mpfen.\u00ab In Paris fragte sich der dortige Vertreter der Jewish Agency, Emile Najjar, wie er angesichts der gegenw\u00e4rtigen Realit\u00e4ten eine effektive Propagandaarbeit leisten k\u00f6nne.\n\nImmer wieder appellierte das Nationalkomitee der Pal\u00e4stinenser in Haifa an die Briten in der irrigen Annahme, da Haifa die letzte Station beim britischen Abzug sei, k\u00f6nnten sie sich zumindest bis dahin auf ihren Schutz verlassen. Als er ausblieb, schrieben sie zahlreiche verzweifelte Briefe an Mitglieder des Arabischen Oberkomitees innerhalb und au\u00dferhalb Pal\u00e4stinas und baten um Anweisungen und Unterst\u00fctzung. Im Januar erreichte eine kleine Gruppe Freiwilliger die Stadt, aber mittlerweile war einigen der Notabeln und f\u00fchrendenGemeindemitglieder klar geworden, dass man sie in dem Moment, als die Vereinten Nationen die Teilungsresolution verabschiedet hatten, dazu verurteilt hatte, von ihren j\u00fcdischen Nachbarn vertrieben zu werden \u2013 von Menschen, die sie selbst gegen Ende des Osmanischen Reiches eingeladen hatten, bei ihnen zu leben, die arm und abgerissen aus Europa gekommen waren und mit denen sie die bl\u00fchende kosmopolitische Stadt geteilt hatten \u2013 bis die Vereinten Nationen ihren verh\u00e4ngnisvollen Beschluss fassten.\n\nVor diesem Hintergrund ist daran zu erinnern, dass damals etwa 15000 Angeh\u00f6rige der pal\u00e4stinensischen Oberschicht Haifa verlie\u00dfen \u2013 viele von ihnen waren reiche Kaufleute, deren Weggang Handel und Gewerbe des Ortes ruinierte und damit die \u00e4rmeren Bev\u00f6lkerungsteile der Stadt zus\u00e4tzlich belastete.\n\nUm das Bild zu vervollst\u00e4ndigen, m\u00fcssen hier auch die allgemeinen arabischen Aktivit\u00e4ten bis Anfang Januar 1948 erw\u00e4hnt werden. Im Laufe des Dezembers 1947 hatten irregul\u00e4re arabische Trupps j\u00fcdische Konvois, aber keine j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen angegriffen. Bereits im November hatte die Beratergruppe ihre Politik der Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge f\u00fcr jeden solchen Angriff festgelegt. Aber innerhalb der zionistischen F\u00fchrung herrschte der Eindruck, dass sie zu drastischeren Aktionen \u00fcbergehen m\u00fcsse.\n\nDie lange Tagung: 31. Dezember bis 2. Januar\n\n\u00bbDas reicht nicht\u00ab, rief Yossef Weitz, als die Beratergruppe am Mittwoch, dem 31. Dezember 1947, nur wenige Stunden vor dem Massaker an den Einwohnern von Balad al-Shaykh zusammenkam. Und nun schlug er offen vor, was er bereits Anfang der 1940er Jahre im Stillen in sein Tagebuch geschrieben hatte: \u00bbIst jetzt nicht der Zeitpunkt gekommen, sie loszuwerden? Warum sollen wir diese Stachel weiter in unserer Mitte dulden, wenn sie eine Gefahr f\u00fcr uns darstellen?\u00ab Vergeltung erschien ihm als \u00fcberholte Vorgehensweise, da sie den Hauptzweck verfehlte, D\u00f6rfer anzugreifen und anschlie\u00dfend zu besetzen. Weitz war in die Beratergruppe aufgenommen worden, weil er Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung im J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds war und bereits entscheidend daran mitgewirkt hatte, die vagen Transfervorstellungen seiner Freunde in konkrete Politik umzusetzen. Er hatte den Eindruck, der gegenw\u00e4rtigen Diskussion \u00fcber die vor ihnen liegenden Aufgaben mangele es an einer gewissen Zielstrebigkeit und Orientierung, die er bereits in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren skizziert hatte.\n\n\u00bbTransfer dient nicht nur einem Ziel \u2013 die arabische Bev\u00f6lkerung zu reduzieren \u2013, sie dient auch einem zweiten, keineswegs unwichtigeren Zweck, n\u00e4mlich: Land zu r\u00e4umen, das derzeit von Arabern bestellt wird, und es frei zu machen f\u00fcr j\u00fcdische Besiedlung\u00ab, hatte er 1940 geschrieben und war zu dem Schluss gekommen: \u00bbDie einzige L\u00f6sung ist, die Araber von hier in Nachbarl\u00e4nder umzusiedeln. Kein einziges Dorf und kein einziger Stamm darf ausgelassen werden.\u00ab\n\nAufgrund seiner fr\u00fcheren Mitwirkung an den Dorfdossiers war Weitz eine besonders wertvolle Erg\u00e4nzung der Beratergruppe. Er k\u00fcmmerte sich mehr als jedes andere Mitglied der Beratergruppe um die praktische Seite der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung, notierte Details \u00fcber jeden Ort und jedes Dorf und erg\u00e4nzte die Dorfdossiers um eigene Erhebungen. Sein engster Vertrauter in jener Zeit war sein Kollege und Seelenverwandter Yossef Nachmani, der Weitz' Ver\u00e4rgerung \u00fcber die ihrer Ansicht nach schwache Leistung der j\u00fcdischen F\u00fchrung in dieser Frage teilte. Weitz schrieb an Nachmani, die \u00dcbernahme s\u00e4mtlichen arabischen Landes sei eine \u00bbheilige Pflicht\u00ab. Nachmani stimmte ihm zu und f\u00fcgte hinzu, es bed\u00fcrfe einer Art Dschihad (er benutzte den Ausdruck _milhement kibush_ , Eroberungskrieg), aber die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung sehe dessen Notwendigkeit nicht ein: \u00bbDie gegenw\u00e4rtige F\u00fchrung ist von impotenten Schw\u00e4chlingen gepr\u00e4gt.\u00ab Weitz war ebenso entt\u00e4uscht \u00fcber die, wie er es sah, Unf\u00e4higkeit der F\u00fchrung, die historische Chance zu nutzen. Durch seine Einladung in die Beratergruppe, und besonders zu ihrer ersten Sitzung im Januar, erfuhr er zum ersten Mal von den Pl\u00e4nen f\u00fcr eine ethnische S\u00e4uberung, die sich auf F\u00fchrungsebene entwickelten.\n\nSofort bot sich Weitz Gelegenheit, seine Ideen ausf\u00fchrlicher darzulegen, da dieses erste Mittwochstreffen im Januar sich zu einer langen Tagung ausdehnte, zu der die Teilnehmer in Ben Gurions nahe gelegenes Haus umzogen. Die Idee zu einer l\u00e4ngeren Tagung stammte von Ben Gurion, da er den Eindruck hatte, dass sich Chancen er\u00f6ffneten, seinen Traum eines Gro\u00dfisraels zu verwirklichen. In diesem bequemeren Rahmen konnten Weitz und andere in Ruhe ihre Ansichten in ausf\u00fchrlicheren Redebeitr\u00e4gen darlegen. Es ist die einzige Sitzung der Beratergruppe, von der uns ein Protokoll aus den Archiven der Hagana vorliegt. F\u00fcr diese \u00bbLange Tagung\u00ab hatte Weitz ein Memorandum vorbereitet, das sich an Ben Gurion pers\u00f6nlich richtete und ihn dr\u00e4ngte, seine Transferpl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung aus Gebieten, die die Juden besetzen wollten, zu unterst\u00fctzen und solche Aktionen zum \u00bbEckpfeiler zionistischer Politik\u00ab zu machen. Offensichtlich hatte er den Eindruck, das \u00bbtheoretische\u00ab Stadium der Transferpl\u00e4ne sei vorbei. Es war an der Zeit, mit der Umsetzung der Ideen anzufangen. Als Weitz die lange Tagung verlie\u00df, hatte er tats\u00e4chlich die Genehmigung erhalten, seinen eigenen kleinen Zirkel unter der Bezeichnung \u00bbTransferkomitee\u00ab aufzubauen (dar\u00fcber sp\u00e4ter mehr).\n\nSelbst der liberalste Teilnehmer der langen Tagung, Dr.Yaacov Tahon, war offenbar einverstanden und lie\u00df die z\u00f6gerliche Haltung fallen, die er vorher vertreten hatte. Tahon war ein deutscher Jude, der gemeinsam mit Arthur Rupin in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts die ersten Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr eine j\u00fcdische Kolonisierung Pal\u00e4stinas entwickelt hatte. Als echter Kolonialist sah er zun\u00e4chst keine Notwendigkeit, die \u00bbEingeborenen\u00ab zu vertreiben; er wollte sie lediglich ausbeuten. Aber w\u00e4hrend der langen Tagung war er offenbar auch von Weitz' Vorstellung eingenommen, dass es \u00bbohne Transfer keinen j\u00fcdischen Staat geben wird\u00ab.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich gab es kaum abweichende Meinungen, weshalb die \u00bbLange Tagung\u00ab eine so entscheidende Sitzung in dieser Geschichte war. Ihr von allen akzeptierter Ausgangspunkt war, dass ethnische S\u00e4uberung notwendig sei; die restlichen Fragen \u2013 oder vielmehr: Probleme \u2013 waren eher psychologischer und logistischer Art. Ideologen wie Weitz, Orientalisten wie Machnes und Generale wie Allon beklagten, dass ihre Truppen die bisherigen Befehle, die Operationen \u00fcber die \u00fcblichen selektiven Aktionen hinaus auszuweiten, noch nicht richtig erfasst h\u00e4tten. Ihrer Ansicht nach war das Hauptproblem, dass sie anscheinend nicht in der Lage waren, die alten Methoden der Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge hinter sich zu lassen. \u00bbSie sprengen immer noch hier ein Haus und da ein Haus\u00ab, klagte Gad Machnes, ein Kollege von Danin und Palmon, der ironischerweise 1949 das israelische Minderheitenministerium \u00fcbernahm (zu seinen Gunsten ist anzumerken, dass er offenbar eine gewisse Reue f\u00fcr sein Verhalten von 1948 empfand, da er in den 1960er Jahren freim\u00fctig zugab: \u00bbWenn nicht die offenen [zionistischen Milit\u00e4r-] Vorbereitungen gewesen w\u00e4ren, die etwas Provokatives hatten, h\u00e4tte sich das Abdriften in einen Krieg [1948] abwenden lassen k\u00f6nnen.\u00ab) Aber damals, im Januar 1948, wirkte er ungeduldig, weil die j\u00fcdischen Truppen immer noch in jedem Ort \u00bbeinzelne Schuldige\u00ab suchten, statt aktiv Verw\u00fcstungen anzurichten.\n\nAllon und Palmon erkl\u00e4rten nun ihren Kollegen die neue Ausrichtung: In Gebieten, in denen es \u00bbschon zu lange ruhig\u00ab war, war eine aggressivere Politik notwendig. Ben Gurion brauchte davon nicht erst \u00fcberzeugt zu werden. Am Ende der langen Tagung hatte er gr\u00fcnes Licht f\u00fcr eine ganze Serie provokativer und verheerender Angriffe auf D\u00f6rfer gegeben, die teils Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge waren, teils nicht und die darauf abzielten, m\u00f6glichst viel Schaden anzurichten und so viele Einwohner wie m\u00f6glich zu t\u00f6ten. Als er erfuhr, dass die ersten vorgeschlagenen Ziele f\u00fcr diese neue Politik alle im Norden lagen, verlangte er auch eine Testaktion im S\u00fcden, allerdings nicht allgemein, sondern sehr spezifisch. Darin erwies er sich pl\u00f6tzlich als rachs\u00fcchtiger Buchhalter. Er dr\u00e4ngte auf einen Angriff auf die Stadt Beersheba (heute Beer Sheva) und forderte insbesondere die K\u00f6pfe des stellvertretenden B\u00fcrgermeisters, al-Hajj Salameh Ibn Said, und seines Bruders, die beide in der Vergangenheit eine Kooperation mit den zionistischen Siedlungspl\u00e4nen in dieser Gegend verweigert hatten. Ben Gurion betonte, es bestehe keine Notwendigkeit mehr, zwischen \u00bbUnschuldigen\u00ab und \u00bbSchuldigen\u00ab zu unterscheiden \u2013 die Zeit sei reif f\u00fcr Kollateralsch\u00e4den. Jahre sp\u00e4ter erinnerte sich Danin, dass Ben Gurion ausdr\u00fccklich erkl\u00e4rte, was Kollateralsch\u00e4den hie\u00df: \u00bbJeder Angriff muss mit Besetzung, Zerst\u00f6rung und Vertreibung enden.\u00ab Danin behauptete sogar, dass \u00fcber bestimmte D\u00f6rfer gesprochen wurde.\n\nWas die \u00bbkonservative\u00ab Einstellung innerhalb der Hagana-Truppen anging, die Wingate speziell f\u00fcr Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge ausgebildet hatte, schlug Yigael Yadin, der Stabschef der Hagana und ab 15. Mai 1948 der israelischen Armee, vor, zu einer neuen, klareren Sprache und st\u00e4rkeren Indoktrination \u00fcberzugehen. Er empfahl, den Begriff \u00bbVergeltung\u00ab aufzugeben: \u00bbDas entspricht nicht dem, was wir machen; das ist eine Offensive und wir m\u00fcssen Pr\u00e4ventivschl\u00e4ge initiieren, es ist nicht n\u00f6tig, dass ein Dorf uns [zuerst] angreift. Wir haben unsere M\u00f6glichkeiten, die Wirtschaft der Pal\u00e4stinenser zu strangulieren, nicht richtig genutzt.\u00ab Der f\u00fcr viele Israelis legend\u00e4re Palmach-Chef Yitzhak Sadeh stimmte Yadin zu und erg\u00e4nzte: \u00bbEs war falsch von uns, nur Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge zu f\u00fchren.\u00ab Den Truppen musste eingeimpft werden, dass Angriff \u00bbjetzt das A und O ist\u00ab.\n\nSein Stellvertreter, Yigal Allon, war noch kritischer. Indirekt bem\u00e4ngelte er, dass die Beratergruppe Anfang Dezember keine expliziten Befehle zu einem umfassenden Angriff erteilt hatte. \u00bbInzwischen h\u00e4tten wir ohne weiteres Jaffa einnehmen k\u00f6nnen und die D\u00f6rfer um Tel Aviv angreifen sollen. Wir m\u00fcssen eine Reihe \u203akollektiver Strafaktionen\u2039 angehen, selbst wenn in den [angegriffenen] H\u00e4usern Kinder leben.\u00ab Als Eliyahu Sasson mit Unterst\u00fctzung seines Assistenten Reuven Shiloah (sp\u00e4ter ein f\u00fchrender Kopf unter den israelischen Orientalisten) darauf hinzuweisen versuchte \u2013 wie er es w\u00e4hrend dieser Tagung durchg\u00e4ngig tat \u2013, dass Provokationen freundlich gesinnte oder friedliche Pal\u00e4stinenser gegen die Juden aufbringen w\u00fcrden, fiel Allon ihm ungeduldig ins Wort: \u00bbEin Ruf nach Frieden ist Schw\u00e4che!\u00ab Moshe Dayan \u00e4u\u00dferte \u00e4hnliche Ansichten, und Ben Gurion lehnte jeden Versuch ab, in Jaffa oder anderen Orten Nichtangriffsabkommen zu schlie\u00dfen.\n\nAm Fall Jaffa trat deutlich zutage, dass es innerhalb der Truppe immer noch psychologische Probleme gab. Bei der w\u00f6chentlichen Sitzung am 7. Januar 1948 kam eine Anfrage von Vertretern der Stadt Tel Aviv zur Sprache, die sich wunderten, wieso nicht nur die Irgun, sondern auch die Hagana die Araber von Jaffa provozierte, obwohl es ihnen doch gelungen war, eine friedliche Atmosph\u00e4re zwischen den beiden Nachbarst\u00e4dten sicherzustellen. Am 25. Januar 1948 suchte eine Delegation dieser f\u00fchrenden Kommunalpolitiker Ben Gurion zu Hause auf und beklagte sich, dass sie eine deutliche Ver\u00e4nderung im Verhalten der Hagana gegen\u00fcber Jaffa festgestellt h\u00e4tten. Zwischen Jaffa und Tel Aviv bestand ein ungeschriebenes Abkommen, dass ein Niemandlandstreifen an der K\u00fcste die beiden St\u00e4dte trennen und so eine spannungsgeladene Koexistenz sichern sollte. Ohne die Kommunalbeh\u00f6rden zu konsultieren, waren Hagana-Truppen in die Zitrushaine dieses Gebiets eingedrungen und hatten das prek\u00e4reVerh\u00e4ltnis gest\u00f6rt. Und das war ausgerechnet in einer Zeit passiert, als die beiden Kommunen sich um einen neuen Modus Vivendi bem\u00fchten, erkl\u00e4rte ein Delegationsmitglied und beklagte, dass die Hagana offenbar nach Kr\u00e4ften solche Bem\u00fchungen durch wahllose Angriffe zu vereiteln suchte: Er sprach von Menschen, die im Niemandsland in der N\u00e4he der Brunnen ohne jede Provokation get\u00f6tet wurden, von Arabern, die ausgeraubt und misshandelt wurden, von zerst\u00f6rten Brunnen, konfisziertem Privateigentum und Sch\u00fcssen, die ausschlie\u00dflich der Einsch\u00fcchterung dienten.\n\nWie Ben Gurion in seinem Tagebuch notierte, kamen \u00e4hnliche Klagen auch aus anderen j\u00fcdischen Gemeinden in der N\u00e4he arabischer St\u00e4dte und D\u00f6rfer. Proteste gab es aus Rehovot, Nes Ziona, Rishon Le-Zion und Petah Tikva, den \u00e4ltesten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen im Gro\u00dfraum Tel Aviv, deren Einwohner ebenso wie ihre pal\u00e4stinensischen Nachbarn nicht begriffen, dass die Hagana eine \u00bbneue Haltung\u00ab zur pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung eingenommen hatte.\n\nEinen Monat sp\u00e4ter waren eben diese Gemeindevertreter bereits in den Sog der allgemeinen Atmosph\u00e4re von Kompromisslosigkeit geraten und erkl\u00e4rten Ben Gurion: \u00bbWir m\u00fcssen Jaffa auf jede erdenkliche Weise treffen.\u00ab Die Versuchung war gro\u00df: Im Februar war die Ernte der Orangen, f\u00fcr die Jaffa so ber\u00fchmt ist, in vollem Gang, und sehr bald gab die gierige Kommunalvertretung Tel Avivs ihre bisherige Haltung auf, einen Modus Vivendi mit der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nachbarstadt zu bewahren. Sie brauchten die israelische F\u00fchrung allerdings nicht erst zu bitten: Bereits einige Tage zuvor hatte das Oberkommando beschlossen, die Zitrushaine und Pfl\u00fcckstationen der Pal\u00e4stinenser in Jaffa anzugreifen.\n\nAm Wochenende nach der langen Tagung deutete Ben Gurion in einer Besprechung mit sechs von elf Mitgliedern seiner Beratergruppe an, warum die Politik des milit\u00e4rischen Oberkommandos seiner Ansicht nach anfangs bei den zivilen Kommunalpolitikern nicht recht angekommen war, und schlug in diesem kleineren Kreis vor, einen neuen Begriff zu verwenden: \u00bbaggressive Verteidigung\u00ab. Yadin gefiel die Idee: \u00bbWir m\u00fcssen unseren Kommandeuren erkl\u00e4ren, dass wir die Oberhand haben ... wir sollten das arabische Transportwesen und ihre Wirtschaft lahm legen, sie in ihren D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten schikanieren und sie demoralisieren.\u00ab Galili stimmte zu, mahnte aber: \u00bbWir k\u00f6nnen noch keine Orte zerst\u00f6ren, weil uns die Ausr\u00fcstung fehlt\u00ab; au\u00dferdem machte er sich Sorgen, wie die Briten reagieren w\u00fcrden.\n\nAber nicht die Gemeindevertreter von Tel Aviv, sondern Yigal Allon behielt an diesem Wochenende die Oberhand. Er wollte eine eindeutige Direktive von oben an die Truppen, die, wie er berichtete, nun voller Enthusiasmus waren und darauf brannten, bald arabische D\u00f6rfer und Stadtviertel anzugreifen. Das Fehlen einer klaren Koordination machte auch den anderen Milit\u00e4rs der Beratergruppe Sorgen. Sie berichteten, dass \u00fcbereifrige Truppen manchmal D\u00f6rfer in Gebieten angriffen, in denen das Oberkommando vorerst jede Provokation vermeiden wollte. W\u00e4hrend der langen Tagung war ein Zwischenfall in Romema, einem westlichen Stadtbezirk Jerusalems, zur Sprache gekommen. In diesem Teil der Stadt war es besonders ruhig geblieben, bis ein \u00f6rtlicher Hagana-Kommandeur beschlossen hatte, die Pal\u00e4stinenser dieser Gegend unter dem Vorwand einzusch\u00fcchtern, ein Tankstellenbesitzer ermuntere Einwohner zu Angriffen auf vorbeifahrende j\u00fcdische Fahrzeuge. Als K\u00e4mpfer den Tankstellenbesitzer t\u00f6teten, griff sein Dorf, Lifta, zur Vergeltung einen j\u00fcdischen Bus an. Sasson f\u00fcgte hinzu, dass die Behauptung sich als falsch erwiesen hatte. Aber der Hagana-Angriff signalisierte den Beginn einer Reihe von Offensiven gegen pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer an den Westh\u00e4ngen der Jerusalemer Berge, vor allem gegen das Dorf Lifta, das selbst nach Geheimdiensterkenntnissen der Hagana nie Konvois angegriffen hatte.\n\nBis vor f\u00fcnf Jahren, als ein neuer Zubringer von den n\u00f6rdlichen Stadtteilen Jerusalems zu der Schnellstra\u00dfe Jerusalem\u2013Tel Aviv \u2013 rechtswidrig auf Gebiet, das nach 1967 besetzt wurde \u2013 gebaut wurde, sah man auf der Fahrt in die Stadt links einige attraktive, fast v\u00f6llig unversehrte alte H\u00e4user am Hang kleben. Inzwischen sind sie verschwunden, aber lange Jahre waren sie die letzten \u00dcberreste des malerischen Dorfes Lifta, das als eines der ersten in Pal\u00e4stina ethnisch ges\u00e4ubert wurde. Hier hatte Qasim Ahmad gelebt, der F\u00fchrer der Rebellion von 1834 gegen die \u00e4gyptische Herrschaft Ibrahim Paschas, die manche Historiker als erste nationale Revolte in Pal\u00e4stina einstufen. Das Dorf mit seiner parallel zum Hang verlaufenden Hauptstra\u00dfe war ein sch\u00f6nes Beispiel l\u00e4ndlicher Architektur. Der relative Wohlstand, den es wie viele andere D\u00f6rfer besonders w\u00e4hrend und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg genoss, manifestierte sich im Bau neuer H\u00e4user, besserer Stra\u00dfen und Pflasterungen und in einem insgesamt h\u00f6heren Lebensstandard. Lifta war ein gro\u00dfes Dorf mit 2500 \u00fcberwiegend muslimischen Einwohnern und einigen Christen. Ein weiteres Zeichen f\u00fcr den erst k\u00fcrzlich erworbenen Wohlstand war die M\u00e4dchenschule, die mehrere D\u00f6rfer mit vereinten Kr\u00e4ften und Kapital 1945 gebaut hatten.\n\nDas Dorfleben in Lifta konzentrierte sich in dem kleinen Gesch\u00e4ftszentrum, wo es auch einen Club und zwei Kaffeeh\u00e4user gab. Es lockte Besucher aus Jerusalem an, wie es sicher auch heute noch der Fall w\u00e4re, wenn es noch existieren w\u00fcrde. Eins der Kaffeeh\u00e4user wurde zum Ziel der Hagana, als sie das Dorf am 28. Dezember 1948 \u00fcberfiel. Die Juden nahmen das Kaffeehaus mit Maschinenpistolen unter Beschuss, w\u00e4hrend Mitglieder der Stern-Gruppe in der N\u00e4he einen Bus anhielten und wahllos darauf feuerten. Es war die erste Operation der Stern-Gruppe in einem l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiet Pal\u00e4stinas; vor dem \u00dcberfall hatte die Gruppe an ihre Aktivisten Flugbl\u00e4tter verteilt: \u00bbZerst\u00f6rt arabische Stadtviertel und bestraft arabische D\u00f6rfer.\u00ab\n\nDie Beteiligung der Stern-Gruppe an dem Angriff auf Lifta war wohl, laut Beratergruppe, im \u00fcbergeordneten Plan der Hagana f\u00fcr Jerusalem nicht vorgesehen, aber nachdem es sich so ergeben hatte, wurde sie in die Planung einbezogen. Nach einem Muster, das sich wiederholen sollte, entwickelte es sich zum Bestandteil der Gesamtstrategie, vollendete Tatsachen zu schaffen. Zun\u00e4chst verurteilte das Oberkommando der Hagana Ende Dezember den Angriff der Stern-Gruppe, doch als es feststellte, dass der \u00dcberfall Dorfbewohner zur Flucht veranlasst hatte, befahl es eine weitere Operation am 11. Januar gegen dasselbe Dorf, um die Vertreibung zu vollenden. Die Hagana sprengte die meisten H\u00e4user des Ortes und vertrieb s\u00e4mtliche Bewohner, die noch dort waren.\n\nDas war letztlich ein Ergebnis der langen Tagung: Die zionistische F\u00fchrung erkannte zwar die Notwendigkeit eines koordinierten, gelenkten Vorgehens, beschloss aber, jede nicht genehmigte Initiative in einen Bestandteil des Plans umzum\u00fcnzen, und gab ihr damit nachtr\u00e4glich ihren Segen. So war es auch in Jerusalem, wo sporadische Vergeltungsaktionen systematisch zu einer Besetzungs- und Vertreibungsoffensive ausgeweitet wurden. Am 31. Januar gab Ben Gurion dem Milit\u00e4rkommandeur der Stadt, David Shaltiel, unmittelbar den Befehl, f\u00fcr die r\u00e4umliche Ausdehnung und den Zusammenschluss j\u00fcdischer Viertel zu sorgen, indem er den Stadtteil Shaykh Jarrah zerst\u00f6ren, andere Viertel besetzen und in den ger\u00e4umten H\u00e4usern sofort Juden einquartieren lie\u00df. Seine Aufgabe lautete, \u00bbin jedem Haus eines ger\u00e4umten halbarabischen Viertels wie Romema Juden anzusiedeln\u00ab.\n\nDie Mission wurde erfolgreich ausgef\u00fchrt. Am 7. Februar 1948, der zuf\u00e4llig auf einen Samstag, den j\u00fcdischen Sabbat, fiel, kam Ben Gurion von Tel Aviv, um sich das ger\u00e4umte und zerst\u00f6rte Dorf Lifta anzusehen. Am selben Abend berichtete er dem Mapai-Rat in Jerusalem jubelnd, was er gesehen hatte:\n\nWenn ich jetzt nach Jerusalem komme, habe ich das Gef\u00fchl, in einer j\u00fcdischen ( _Ivrit_ ) Stadt zu sein. Das ist ein Gef\u00fchl, das ich bisher nur in Tel Aviv oder in einer landwirtschaftlichen Siedlung hatte. Es stimmt zwar, dass nicht ganz Jerusalem j\u00fcdisch ist, aber es hat schon jetzt einen riesigen j\u00fcdischen Block: Wenn man durch Lifta und Romema, durch Mahaneh Yehuda, King George Street und Mea Sharim in die Stadt kommt \u2013 da gibt es keine Araber. Hundert Prozent Juden. Seit Jerusalem von den R\u00f6mern zerst\u00f6rt wurde, war die Stadt nicht mehr so j\u00fcdisch wie jetzt. In vielen arabischen Vierteln im Westen sieht man keinen einzigen Araber. Ich nehme nicht an, dass sich das \u00e4ndern wird. Und was in Jerusalem und Haifa passiert ist, kann auch in weiten Teilen des Landes passieren. Wenn wir unbeirrt weitermachen, ist es durchaus m\u00f6glich, dass es in den n\u00e4chsten sechs bis acht Monaten betr\u00e4chtliche Ver\u00e4nderungen im Land gibt, ganz betr\u00e4chtliche Ver\u00e4nderungen zu unserem Vorteil. Mit Sicherheit wird es erhebliche Ver\u00e4nderungen in der demografischen Zusammensetzung des Landes geben.\n\nBen Gurions Tagebuch l\u00e4sst erkennen, wie sehr er im Januar darauf brannte, den Aufbau einer effektiveren Angriffstruppe voranzutreiben. Besondere Sorgen machte ihm, dass Irgun und Stern-Gruppe ihre Terroranschl\u00e4ge gegen die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung weiterhin ohne jede Koordination durch das Hagana-Kommando ausf\u00fchrten. David Shaltiel, der Hagana-Kommandeur von Jerusalem, berichtete ihm, dass die Irgun in seiner Stadt und eigentlich im ganzen Land h\u00e4ufig in Gebieten aktiv wurde, in denen andere Truppen noch nicht ganz einsatzbereit waren. So hatten Irgun-Leute in Tiberias arabische Kraftfahrer ermordet und folterten \u00fcberall gefangen genommene Dorfbewohner. Shaltliel machte sich vor allem Sorgen \u00fcber die Auswirkungen auf das isolierte j\u00fcdische Viertel in der Jerusalemer Altstadt. S\u00e4mtliche Versuche der Juden, diesen Teil der Stadt einzunehmen, scheiterten damals und sp\u00e4ter am Widerstand der jordanischen Arabischen Legion, die entschlossen daf\u00fcr sorgte, dass er jordanisch blieb. Letzten Endes beschlossen die Einwohner des j\u00fcdischen Viertels, aufzugeben.\n\nAllon, Yadin, Sadeh und Dayan, die Berufsmilit\u00e4rs in der Beratergruppe, verstanden den \u00bbAlten\u00ab, wie sie Ben Gurion liebevoll nannten, besser als alle anderen. Jede Milit\u00e4raktion, ob genehmigt oder nicht, trug zur Vertreibung der \u00bbFremden\u00ab bei. Wenn Ben Gurion ihnen im kleinen Kreis seine Vorstellungen anvertraute, gab er noch einen weiteren Grund an, weshalb sie neben einer offiziellen koordinierten Politik gleichzeitig auch lokale \u00bbunautorisierte\u00ab Initiativen f\u00f6rdern sollten: Die neue Einsch\u00fcchterungstaktik musste mit der Frage j\u00fcdischer Siedlungen verkn\u00fcpft werden. In dem UN-designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet gab es 30 j\u00fcdische Siedlungen. Einer der effektivsten Wege, sie in den j\u00fcdischen Staat einzugliedern, bestand im Bau neuer Siedlungsg\u00fcrtel zwischen ihnen und den designierten j\u00fcdischen Gebieten. Es war dieselbe Taktik, die Israel in den Jahren nach den Oslo-Abkommen und erneut in den ersten Jahren des 21. Jahrhunderts anwenden sollte.\n\nDer Mann, der Ben Gurion am wenigsten verstand, war Eliyahu Sasson. Er berichtete w\u00e4hrend der langen Tagung von einem weiteren Fall, den er f\u00fcr einen unprovozierten, \u00bbbarbarischen\u00ab j\u00fcdischen Angriff auf friedliche Dorfbewohner hielt. Es handelte sich um den bereits erw\u00e4hnten Fall Khisas. Auf der Tagung monierte er: \u00bbAktionen wie die in Khisas werden ruhige Araber dazu bringen, gegen uns vorzugehen. In allen Gebieten, wo wir keine provokativen Aktionen gemacht haben \u2013 in der K\u00fcstenebene und im Negev \u2013 herrscht Ruhe, aber nicht in Galil\u00e4a.\u00ab Wie schon zuvor h\u00f6rte niemand auf ihn. Alle Anwesenden stimmten Moshe Dayan zu, als er Sasson erwiderte: \u00bbUnsere Aktion gegen Khisas hat Galil\u00e4a in Brand gesteckt, und das war gut so.\u00ab Anscheinend war keine Spur mehr von Ben Gurions fr\u00fcherer Reaktion auf die Khisas-Operation zu sp\u00fcren, als er noch so weit gegangen war, eine Entschuldigung zu ver\u00f6ffentlichen. Auf der langen Tagung stellte er sich auf die Seite derer, die den Vorfall begr\u00fc\u00dften, schlug aber vor, solche Aktionen sollten nicht offiziell im Namen der Hagana erfolgen: \u00bbWir m\u00fcssen den Mossad [die Sonderabteilung, aus der sp\u00e4ter der israelische Geheimdienst hervorgehen sollte] in solche Aktionen einbinden.\u00ab In seinem Tagebuch fasste er die Sitzung lakonisch in Allons Worten zusammen:\n\nEs ist jetzt notwendig, energisch und brutal zu reagieren. Wir m\u00fcssen Zeitpunkt, Ort und die, die wir angreifen, sorgf\u00e4ltig ausw\u00e4hlen. Wenn wir eine Familie beschuldigen, m\u00fcssen wir erbarmungslos gegen sie vorgehen, Frauen und Kinder eingeschlossen. Sonst ist es keine effektive Reaktion. W\u00e4hrend der Operation ist es nicht n\u00f6tig, zwischen schuldig und unschuldig zu unterscheiden.\n\nEliyahu Sasson verlie\u00df die lange Tagung immer noch in dem Glauben, er habe Ben Gurion \u00fcberzeugt, weiter eine selektive Politik zu betreiben, die sich gegen \u00bbfeindliche\u00ab Araber richtete und Ruhe und Frieden in den \u00bbfreundlich gesinnten\u00ab Gebieten, also im gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil des Landes, zulie\u00dfe. Aber bei den folgenden Zusammenk\u00fcnften schloss er sich der allgemeinen Linie an und redete nicht mehr von der Teile-und-herrsche-Taktik, die er zuvor vertreten hatte, da er wohl merkte, dass keiner seiner Kollegen mehr daran interessiert war, Differenzen zwischen den politischen Kr\u00e4ften zu nutzen, und es nur noch darum ging, m\u00f6glichst viele Pal\u00e4stinenser zu vertreiben.\n\nYigal Allon und Israel Galili verlie\u00dfen die Tagung dagegen mit dem Eindruck, dass man ihnen freie Hand gegeben hatte, zu massiven Angriffen auf pal\u00e4stinensische St\u00e4dte und D\u00f6rfer im Gebiet des angestrebten j\u00fcdischen Staates \u00fcberzugehen. Die Milit\u00e4rs verstanden offenbar Ben Gurions W\u00fcnsche besser oder nahmen zumindest an, dass er keine Einw\u00e4nde gegen aggressivere Initiativen ihrerseits erheben w\u00fcrde. Sie hatten Recht.\n\nDass Ben Gurion zu diesem Zeitpunkt zu systematischen \u00dcbernahme-, Besetzungs- und Vertreibungsoperationen \u00fcberging, hatte viel mit seinem Scharfblick f\u00fcr Ver\u00e4nderungen in der globalen Stimmung zu tun. Auf der langen Tagung betonte er die Notwendigkeit zu weiterem schnellem Handeln, da er einen m\u00f6glichen Umschwung in der internationalen politischen Haltung zur Pal\u00e4stinafrage sp\u00fcrte. UN-Vertretern war ebenso wie amerikanischen Diplomaten und Briten allm\u00e4hlich klar geworden, dass die Friedensregelung, die ihre Organisation verabschiedet hatte, keineswegs eine L\u00f6sung darstellte, sondern Krieg sch\u00fcrte. Die Pr\u00e4senz der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee (ALA) trug insgesamt zwar dazu bei, pal\u00e4stinensische Aktionen im Zaum zu halten und eine allgemeine arabische Invasion gr\u00f6\u00dferen Stils hinauszuz\u00f6gern, aber es bestand die Gefahr eines Umschwungs in der Politik der Vereinten Nationen und der USA, und vollendete Tatsachen zu schaffen hielt Ben Gurion f\u00fcr die beste M\u00f6glichkeit, eine solche potenzielle politische Kehrtwende zu vereiteln.\n\nDer Eindruck, dass sich eine g\u00fcnstige Gelegenheit bot, eine S\u00e4uberung des Landes zu betreiben, wurde zudem noch durch die Tatsache verst\u00e4rkt, dass die zionistische F\u00fchrung genau wusste, wie schwach die milit\u00e4rische Opposition der Pal\u00e4stinenser und Araber tats\u00e4chlich war. Die Geheimdienstabteilung der Hagana wusste aus abgefangenen Telegrammen sehr gut, dass die ALA nicht mit den Freisch\u00e4rlergruppen unter der F\u00fchrung von Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni in Jerusalem und Hassan Salameh in Jaffa zusammenarbeitete. Diese mangelnde Kooperation f\u00fchrte im Januar 1948 zum Entschluss der ALA, nicht in den St\u00e4dten zu operieren, sondern Angriffe auf isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu versuchen. Befehlshaber der ALA war Fawzi al-Qawqji, ein syrischer Offizier, der w\u00e4hrend der Revolte 1936 eine Gruppe \u00fcberwiegend irakischer Freiwilliger nach Pal\u00e4stina gef\u00fchrt hatte. Seitdem lag er im Streit mit der Familie Husayni und f\u00fchlte sich den Regierungen Syriens und des Irak loyal verbunden, die sowohl 1936 als auch 1948 seine Entsendung nach Pal\u00e4stina autorisiert hatten. Die irakische Regierung sah in al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni einen Rivalen f\u00fcr ihr haschemitisches Bruderland Jordanien, w\u00e4hrend die damalige syrische Regierung besorgt war \u00fcber seine panarbischen Ambitionen. Es war daher eine Farce, als die Arabische Liga beschloss, die Zust\u00e4ndigkeit f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina unter den drei Kommandeuren aufzuteilen: im Norden al-Qawqji, in Jerusalem Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni und in Jaffa Salameh; die Art ihres Einsatzes machte die geringe Milit\u00e4rst\u00e4rke, die die Pal\u00e4stinenser selbst besa\u00dfen, v\u00f6llig ineffektiv.\n\nIn gewisser Weise h\u00e4tten die Bedenken, die in der internationalen Gemeinschaft \u00fcber den Verlauf der Dinge herrschten, und die \u00e4u\u00dferst begrenzten panarabischen Milit\u00e4ranstrengungen die Ruhe in Pal\u00e4stina wiederherstellen und den Weg zu einem neuen L\u00f6sungsversuch des Problems er\u00f6ffnen k\u00f6nnen. Aber die neue zionistische Angriffspolitik, die die Beratergruppe in aller Eile betrieb, blockierte jeden denkbaren Schritt hin zu einer vers\u00f6hnlicheren Lage.\n\nAm 9. Januar 1948 r\u00fcckte die erste gr\u00f6\u00dfere Freiwilligeneinheit der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee in Pal\u00e4stina ein, vor allem in Gebiete, die die Vereinten Nationen dem zuk\u00fcnftigen arabischen Staat zugedacht hatten; h\u00e4ufig schlugen sie ihr Lager entlang der Grenzen dieses imagin\u00e4ren Staates auf. Im Allgemeinen verfolgten sie eine Defensivstrategie und konzentrierten sich darauf, die Verteidigungsanlagen der Bev\u00f6lkerung in Kooperation mit den Nationalkomitees \u2013 Gremien lokaler Notabeln, die 1937 geschaffen wurden und in den St\u00e4dten als Notregierung fungierten \u2013 und den Dorf-Muchtars zu organisieren. In einigen Einzelf\u00e4llen griffen sie allerdings j\u00fcdische Konvois und Siedlungen an, besonders kurz nachdem sie \u00fcber die Grenze gekommen waren. Die ersten Siedlungen, die angegriffen wurden, waren Kefar Sold (9. Januar 1948) und Kefar Etzion (14. Januar 1948). Bei einem Angriff aus dem Hinterhalt auf einen Hilfskonvoi f\u00fcr Kefar Etzion (s\u00fcdwestlich von Jerusalem) wurden 35 Hagana-Leute des j\u00fcdischen Begleittrupps get\u00f6tet. Noch lange nach diesem Zwischenfall diente \u00bb35\u00ab \u2013 \u00bb _Lamed-Heh_ \u00ab auf Hebr\u00e4isch (das Zahlen durch Buchstaben ersetzt) \u2013 als Codename f\u00fcr Operationen, die angeblich als Vergeltung f\u00fcr diesen Angriff stattfanden. Ben Gurions Biograf Michael Bar-Zohar merkte v\u00f6llig richtig an, dass diese Operationen bereits w\u00e4hrend der langen Tagung ins Auge gefasst wurden und alle darauf abzielten, die Art von Kollateralsch\u00e4den herbeizuf\u00fchren, die Ben Gurion als w\u00fcnschenswert angestrebt hatte. Der Angriff auf den _Lamed-Heh_ -Konvoi bot lediglich einen weiteren Vorwand f\u00fcr die neue Offensive, deren endg\u00fcltiger Plan im M\u00e4rz 1948 umgesetzt werden sollte.\n\nNach der langen Tagung gingen j\u00fcdische Milit\u00e4roperationen systematischer \u00fcber Vergeltungsschl\u00e4ge und Strafaktionen hinaus zu S\u00e4uberungsaktionen innerhalb des UN-designierten j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiets \u00fcber. In den Sitzungen der Beratergruppe fand der Begriff der S\u00e4uberung, \u00bb _tihur_ \u00ab, nur sparsam Verwendung, tauchte aber auf jedem Befehl auf, den das Oberkommando den Einheiten vor Ort erteilte. Im Hebr\u00e4ischen bedeutet dieser Begriff das Gleiche wie in jeder anderen Sprache: die Vertreibung einer ganzen Bev\u00f6lkerung aus ihren D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten. Dieses Ziel \u00fcberschattete alle anderen politischen Erw\u00e4gungen. Es sollten Scheidewege kommen, wo die zionistische F\u00fchrung von den Vereinigten Staaten wie auch von arabischen Akteuren vor Ort eine Chance erhielt, einen anderen Kurs einzuschlagen. Aber Ben Gurion und seine Beratergruppe hatten beschlossen, einen klaren Weg nach vorn zu verfechten, und lehnten diese Angebote nacheinander ab.\n\nFebruar 1948: \u00bbShock and Awe\u00ab\n\nIn den flammenden Reden, die Ben Gurion vor gr\u00f6\u00dferem Publikum hielt, war nichts von der Atmosph\u00e4re zu sp\u00fcren, die bei den ersten Sitzungen der Beratergruppe herrschte. Melodramatisch und voller Pathos erkl\u00e4rte er seinen Zuh\u00f6rern: \u00bbDas ist ein Krieg, der darauf abzielt, die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde zu zerst\u00f6ren und zu eliminieren\u00ab; die Passivit\u00e4t der Pal\u00e4stinenser oder die provokativen zionistischen Aktionen erw\u00e4hnte er mit keinem Wort.\n\nEs ist allerdings anzumerken, dass diese Reden keine reine Rhetorik waren. Die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte erlitten tats\u00e4chlich Verluste bei ihren Versuchen, die Verbindungen zu s\u00e4mtlichen isolierten Siedlungen aufrechtzuerhalten, die die Zionisten mitten in pal\u00e4stinensische Gebiete gepflanzt hatten. Bis Ende Januar waren 400 j\u00fcdische Siedler bei solchen Angriffen ums Leben gekommen \u2013 eine hohe Zahl f\u00fcr eine Gemeinde von 660000 Menschen (aber immer noch weniger als die 1500 Pal\u00e4stinenser, die durch wahllose Bombardierung und Beschie\u00dfung ihrer D\u00f6rfer und Stadtviertel get\u00f6tet wurden). Diese Toten stellte Ben Gurion nun als \u00bbOpfer eines zweiten Holocaust\u00ab hin.\n\nDer Versuch, Pal\u00e4stinenser und Araber im Allgemeinen als Nazis darzustellen, war eine bewusste Public-Relations-Masche, um sicherzustellen, dass j\u00fcdische Soldaten drei Jahre nach dem Holocaust nicht zur\u00fcckschreckten, wenn sie den Befehl erhielten, andere Menschen zu vertreiben, zu t\u00f6ten und zu vernichten. Bereits 1945 hatte Natan Alterman, der Nationaldichter der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde, die bevorstehende Konfrontation mit den Pal\u00e4stinensern mit dem Krieg gegen die Nazis in Europa gleichgesetzt:\n\nWie Ihr, die tapfere englische Nation, mit dem R\u00fccken zur Wand standet, als Europa und Frankreich verdunkelt waren, und gek\u00e4mpft habt, an Str\u00e4nden, in H\u00e4usern und Stra\u00dfen, so werden wir an Str\u00e4nden, in H\u00e4usern und Stra\u00dfen k\u00e4mpfen. Das siegreiche englische Volk gr\u00fc\u00dfe uns in unserer letzten Schlacht.\n\nIn einigen \u00f6ffentlichen Auftritten ging Ben Gurion sogar so weit, die j\u00fcdischen Kriegsanstrengungen als Versuch darzustellen, die Ehre der Vereinten Nationen und ihrer Charta zu verteidigen. Diese Diskrepanz zwischen einer destruktiven und gewaltsamen zionistischen Politik einerseits und \u00f6ffentlichem Friedensgerede andererseits wird an verschiedenen Punkten in der Geschichte dieses Konflikts wiederkehren, aber 1948 war die Falschheit besonders auffallend.\n\nIm Februar 1948 beschloss David Ben Gurion die Beratergruppe zu erweitern und Angeh\u00f6rige zionistischer Organisationen hinzuzuziehen, die f\u00fcr Rekrutierung und R\u00fcstungsk\u00e4ufe zust\u00e4ndig waren. Auch das bringt zum Vorschein, wie eng die ethnische S\u00e4uberung mit den milit\u00e4rischen F\u00e4higkeiten verkn\u00fcpft war. W\u00e4hrend Ben Gurion nach au\u00dfen hin immer noch Untergangsszenarien eines zweiten Holocaust verbreitete, berichtete er der erweiterte Beratergruppe von erstaunlichen Erfolgen bei der Zwangsrekrutierung, die die zionistische F\u00fchrung der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde auferlegt hatte, und bei den get\u00e4tigten R\u00fcstungsk\u00e4ufen, vor allem im Bereich schwerer Waffen und Flugzeuge.\n\nDiese neuen Waffenlieferungen hatten es den Streitkr\u00e4ften vor Ort bis Februar 1948 erm\u00f6glicht, ihre Operationen auszuweiten und effizienter im pal\u00e4stinensischen Hinterland zu operieren. Eine grundlegende Folge der Aufr\u00fcstung war, dass man nun vor allem mit neuen M\u00f6rsern dicht besiedelte D\u00f6rfer und Stadtviertel unter schweren Beschuss nehmen konnte.\n\nDas Selbstvertrauen des Milit\u00e4rs l\u00e4sst sich an der Tatsache ablesen, dass die j\u00fcdische Armee nun in der Lage war, eigene Vernichtungswaffen zu entwickeln. Ben Gurion verfolgte pers\u00f6nlich die Anschaffung einer besonders t\u00f6dlichen Waffe, die bald zum Einsatz kommen sollte, um Felder und H\u00e4user von Pal\u00e4stinensern in Brand zu setzen: der Flammenwerfer. Sasha Goldberg, ein anglo-j\u00fcdischer Chemieprofessor, leitete das Projekt, diese Waffe zu erwerben und herzustellen, zun\u00e4chst in einem Labor in London, sp\u00e4ter in Rehovot s\u00fcdlich von Tel Aviv, wo in den 1950er Jahren das Weizmann-Institut entstand. Die m\u00fcndlich \u00fcberlieferte Geschichte der Nakba ist voller Zeugnisse f\u00fcr die schreckliche Wirkung, die diese Waffe f\u00fcr Menschen und Sachen hatte.\n\nDas Flammenwerferprojekt unterstand einer gr\u00f6\u00dferen Abteilung, die sich mit der Entwicklung biologischer Waffen befasste und unter der Leitung eines Physikochemikers namens Ephraim Katzir stand (er war sp\u00e4ter Pr\u00e4sident Israels und enth\u00fcllte in den 1980er Jahren der Welt versehentlich, dass der j\u00fcdische Staat Atomwaffen besitzt). Die biologische Abteilung, die er gemeinsam mit seinem Bruder Aharon leitete, nahm im Februar ihre Arbeit auf. Ihr Hauptziel war die Entwicklung einer Waffe, die Menschen erblinden lie\u00df. Katzir berichtete Ben Gurion: \u00bbWir experimentieren mit Tieren. Unsere Forscher trugen Gasmasken und entsprechende Schutzkleidung. Gute Resultate. Die Tiere starben nicht (sie wurden nur blind). Wir k\u00f6nnen pro Tag 20 Kilogramm dieses Stoffes produzieren.\u00ab Im Juni schlug Katzir vor, ihn gegen Menschen einzusetzen.\n\nSt\u00e4rkere milit\u00e4rische Schlagkraft war auch notwendig, weil Einheiten der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee inzwischen in einigen D\u00f6rfern Stellung bezogen hatten und es gr\u00f6\u00dferer Anstrengungen bedurfte, sie einzunehmen. In manchen Orten hatte die Ankunft der ALA eher psychologische als materielle Bedeutung. Den Einheiten blieb keine Zeit, aus den Einheimischen K\u00e4mpfer zu machen, au\u00dferdem besa\u00dfen sie nicht die n\u00f6tige Ausr\u00fcstung, um die D\u00f6rfer zu verteidigen. Alles in allem hatte die ALA bis Februar erst wenige D\u00f6rfer erreicht; die meisten Pal\u00e4stinenser hatten also keine Ahnung, wie dramatisch und einschneidend sich ihr Leben bald ver\u00e4ndern sollte. Weder ihre F\u00fchrer noch die pal\u00e4stinensische Presse ahnten, was im Roten Haus am Nordrand von Jaffa hinter verschlossenen T\u00fcren geplant wurde. Erst als es im Februar 1948 zu gr\u00f6\u00dferen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen kam, wurde manchen in bestimmten Teilen des Landes das Ausma\u00df der drohenden Katastrophe allm\u00e4hlich klar.\n\nMitte Februar 1948 trat die Beratergruppe zusammen, um \u00fcber die Auswirkungen der zunehmenden Pr\u00e4senz arabischer Freiwilliger in Pal\u00e4stina zu beraten. Eliyahu Sasson berichtete, bisher seien insgesamt nicht mehr als 3000 Freiwillige der ALA ins Land gekommen (Ben Gurions Tagebuch f\u00fchrt eine noch kleinere Zahl an). Er bezeichnete sie allesamt als \u00bbschlecht ausgebildet\u00ab und f\u00fcgte hinzu, wenn \u00bbwir sie nicht provozieren, werden sie unt\u00e4tig bleiben und die arabischen Staaten werden keine weiteren Freiwilligen schicken\u00ab. Das veranlasste Yigal Allon, sich erneut lautstark f\u00fcr S\u00e4uberungsaktionen gro\u00dfen Stils einzusetzen, aber Yaacov Dori, der designierte Generalstabschef, widersprach ihm und bestand auf einem vorsichtigeren Vorgehen. Da Dori kurz darauf erkrankte, spielte er fernerhin keine sonderliche Rolle mehr. Er wurde durch den kriegerischen Yigael Yadin ersetzt.\n\nAm 9. Februar hatte Yadin bereits seine wahren Absichten erkennen lassen, als er \u00bbtiefe Invasionen\u00ab in pal\u00e4stinensische Gebiete forderte. Als Ziele solcher Invasionen f\u00fchrte er bev\u00f6lkerungsreiche D\u00f6rfer wie Fassuta, Tarbikha und Aylut in Nordgalil\u00e4a an, die vollst\u00e4ndig zerst\u00f6rt werden sollten. Die Beratergruppe lehnte den Plan als zu weitreichend ab, und Ben Gurion schlug vor, ihn vorerst zur\u00fcckzustellen. Yadins Deckname f\u00fcr diesen Plan war _Lamed-Heh_ , da er als Vergeltung f\u00fcr den Angriff auf den Gush-Etzion-Konvoi gedacht war. Ein paar Tage sp\u00e4ter genehmigte die Beratergruppe andere, \u00e4hnliche Pl\u00e4ne \u2013 mit demselben Decknamen \u2013 in l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten Pal\u00e4stinas, bestand aber nach wie vor darauf, dass sie zumindest in einem losen Zusammenhang zu feindseligen arabischen Akten stehen m\u00fcssten. Diese Operationen entsprangen ebenfalls Yigael Yadins Kopf. Sie begannen am 13. Februar 1948 und konzentrierten sich auf mehrere Gebiete. In Jaffa wurden willk\u00fcrlich H\u00e4user ausgesucht und mitsamt ihrer Bewohner in die Luft gejagt, au\u00dferdem gab es Angriffe auf das Dorf Sa'sa und drei weitere Orte in der Umgebung von Qisarya (Caesarea).\n\nDie Februar-Operationen waren von der Beratergruppe sorgf\u00e4ltig geplant und unterschieden sich von den Aktionen, die im Dezember stattgefunden hatten: Sie waren nicht mehr sporadisch, sondern Teil eines ersten Versuchs, die Sicherung ungehinderter j\u00fcdischer Transporte auf Pal\u00e4stinas Hauptstra\u00dfen mit der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung von Ortschaften zu verkn\u00fcpfen. Aber im Gegensatz zu den folgenden Monaten, in denen Operationen Decknamen erhielten und sich auf klar definierte Territorien und Ziele bezogen, waren die Direktiven noch recht vage.\n\nDie ersten Ziele waren drei D\u00f6rfer in der Umgebung der altr\u00f6mischen Stadt Caesarea, deren beeindruckende Geschichte bis zu den Ph\u00f6niziern zur\u00fcckreichte. Gegr\u00fcndet wurde die Stadt als Handelskolonie und von Herodes dem Gro\u00dfen sp\u00e4ter zu Ehren seines Schutzherren Augustus in Caesarea umbenannt. Das gr\u00f6\u00dfte dieser D\u00f6rfer war Qisarya mit 1500 Einwohnern, die innerhalb der antiken Altstadtmauern lebten. Wie in vielen pal\u00e4stinensischen K\u00fcstenorten gab es unter ihnen mehrere j\u00fcdische Familien, die hier Land gekauft hatten und praktisch im Dorf lebten. Die meisten Einwohner des Ortes wohnten in Steinh\u00e4usern Seite an Seite mit Beduinenfamilien, die zum Dorf geh\u00f6rten, aber in Zelten lebten. Die Brunnen des Ortes lieferten genug Wasser f\u00fcr die halb sesshaften Einwohner und die Bauern und erm\u00f6glichten es, ausgedehnte Ackerfl\u00e4chen zu bewirtschaften und eine Vielfalt landwirtschaftlicher Produkte wie Zitrusfr\u00fcchte und Bananen anzubauen. Qisarya war also ein typisches Beispiel f\u00fcr die Einstellung \u00bbleben und leben lassen\u00ab, die in den l\u00e4ndlichen K\u00fcstenregionen Pal\u00e4stinas vorherrschte.\n\nDie Wahl fiel auf diese drei D\u00f6rfer, weil sie leichte Beute waren: Es gab dort keinerlei Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte, weder einheimische noch ausw\u00e4rtige Freiwillige. Am 5. Februar erging der Befehl, diese Orte zu besetzen, zu r\u00e4umen und zu zerst\u00f6ren.\n\nQisarya war das erste Dorf, das am 15. Februar 1948 vollst\u00e4ndig ger\u00e4umt wurde. Die Vertreibung der Einwohner erforderte nur wenige Stunden und erfolgte so systematisch, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen noch am selben Tag vier weitere Orte r\u00e4umen und zerst\u00f6ren konnten, und das alles unter den wachsamen Augen britischer Polizeikr\u00e4fte, die in der N\u00e4he stationiert waren.\n\nDas zweite Dorf war Barrat Qisarya (\u00bbAu\u00dfer-Qaysariyya\u00ab) mit etwa 1000 Einwohnern. Fotos aus den 1930er Jahren zeigen die malerische Lage des Dorfes am Sandstrand, nahe den Ruinen der r\u00f6mischen Stadt. Es wurde im Februar bei einem derart massiven \u00dcberraschungsangriff ausgel\u00f6scht, dass israelischen wie pal\u00e4stinensischen Historikern sein restloses Verschwinden bis heute r\u00e4tselhaft erscheint. Heute bedeckt die j\u00fcdische Rei\u00dfbrettstadt Or Akiva jeden Quadratmeter des zerst\u00f6rten Dorfes. In den 1970er Jahren standen noch einige alte H\u00e4user in der Stadt, wurden aber rasch abgerissen, als pal\u00e4stinensische Forscherteams sie im Rahmen eines Projekts, das pal\u00e4stinensische Erbe in diesem Teil des Landes zu rekonstruieren, dokumentieren wollten.\n\nAuch \u00fcber das in der N\u00e4he gelegene Dorf Khirbat al-Burj gibt es nur noch vage Informationen. Es war kleiner als die beiden anderen Orte, aber seine \u00dcberreste sind f\u00fcr aufmerksame Augen noch erkennbar, wenn man durch das Gebiet \u00f6stlich der alten j\u00fcdischen Siedlung Binyamina (relativ \u00bbalt\u00ab: sie stammt von 1922) f\u00e4hrt. Das gr\u00f6\u00dfte Bauwerk des Ortes war ein osmanisches Rasthaus (Khan), das als Einziges noch heute steht. Eine Hinweistafel erkl\u00e4rt, dass dieser sogenannte Burj fr\u00fcher eine historische Burganlage war \u2013 das Dorf wird mit keinem Wort erw\u00e4hnt. Heute ist das Geb\u00e4ude bei Israelis als Veranstaltungsort f\u00fcr Ausstellungen, Jahrm\u00e4rkte und Familienfeiern beliebt.\n\nNicht weit n\u00f6rdlich von diesen drei Orten liegt ein weiteres Baudenkmal, die Kreuzritterfestung Atlit. Seit dem Mittelalter hatte sie dem Zahn der Zeit und den verschiedenen Armeen beeindruckend getrotzt, die durch diese Region gezogen waren. Neben der Festung lag das Dorf Atlit, das mit der Salzgewinnung an seinen Str\u00e4nden ein einzigartiges Beispiel f\u00fcr eine seltene arabisch-j\u00fcdische Zusammenarbeit im Pal\u00e4stina der Mandatszeit darstellte. Dank seiner Lage wurde hier seit Jahrhunderten Salz aus dem Meer gewonnen; Juden und Pal\u00e4stinenser arbeiteten gemeinsam in den Salzg\u00e4rten s\u00fcdwestlich des Ortes, die hochwertiges Meersalz produzierten. Ein pal\u00e4stinensischer Arbeitgeber, die Atlit Salt Company, hatte 500 Juden ins Dorf geholt, die Seite an Seite mit den 1000 arabischen Einwohnern lebten und arbeiteten. In den 1940er Jahren richtete die Hagana im j\u00fcdischen Teil des Ortes ein Trainingslager f\u00fcr ihre Mitglieder ein, deren einsch\u00fcchternde Pr\u00e4senz die Zahl der Pal\u00e4stinenser bald auf 200 schrumpfen lie\u00df. Kein Wunder, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen im Ausbildungslager angesichts der Operation im nahen Qisarya nicht z\u00f6gerten, ihre pal\u00e4stinensischen Arbeitskollegen aus dem gemeinsamen Dorf zu vertreiben. Heute ist die Festung f\u00fcr die \u00d6ffentlichkeit gesperrt, da sie ein gro\u00dfes Ausbildungszentrum f\u00fcr Eliteeinheiten der israelischen Marine beherbergt.\n\nIm Februar 1948 erreichten j\u00fcdische Truppen auch das Dorf Daliyat al-Rawha auf der Ebene oberhalb des Milq-Tals, das die K\u00fcstenregion mit der Marj Ibn Amir (Jesreel-Ebene) in Nordostpal\u00e4stina verbindet. Im Arabischen bedeutet der Ortsname \u00bbdie duftende Weinrebe\u00ab, ein Beleg f\u00fcr die D\u00fcfte und Bilder, die diesen malerischen Teil des Landes noch heute pr\u00e4gen. Auch in diesem Dorf lebten Juden unter Arabern und besa\u00dfen eigenes Land. Die Initiative f\u00fcr den Angriff ging von Yossef Weitz aus, der die neue Operationsphase nutzen wollte, um das Dorf los zu werden. Er hatte ein Auge auf den \u00fcppigen Boden geworfen, der reichlich Wasser aus ungew\u00f6hnlich ergiebigen nat\u00fcrlichen Quellen erhielt und dem Dorf fruchtbare Felder und Weing\u00e4rten bescherte.\n\nIn der Nacht vom 14. auf den 15. Februar erfolgte der Angriff auf Sa'sa. Heute ist der Ort nicht zu verfehlen. Im Arabischen spricht man den Ortsnamen mit zwei kehligen \u00bbA\u00ab aus, aber auf dem Ortsschild am Eingang des Kibbuz, der auf den Ruinen des pal\u00e4stinensischen Dorfes gebaut wurde, steht \u00bbSasa\u00ab: Die Hebr\u00e4isierung des Namens hat die (f\u00fcr Europ\u00e4er schwierigen) Kehllaute des Arabischen durch das offensichtlich europ\u00e4ischer klingende weiche \u00bbA\u00ab ersetzt. Einige der urspr\u00fcnglichen pal\u00e4stinensischen H\u00e4user sind erhalten geblieben und stehen nun in dem Kibbuz auf dem Weg zum Jabel Jermak (hebr\u00e4isch Har Meron), dem mit 1208 Metern h\u00f6chsten Berg Pal\u00e4stinas. Sa'sa mit seiner herrlichen Lage im einzigen immergr\u00fcnen Teil des Landes und seinen Hausteinh\u00e4usern ist eines der pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer, die h\u00e4ufig in offiziellen israelischen Reisef\u00fchrern auftauchen.\n\nYigal Allon, der Palmach-Kommandeur f\u00fcr den Norden, erteilte den Befehl zum Angriff auf Sa'sa Moshe Kalman, dem stellvertretenden Kommandeur des dritten Bataillons, das die Gr\u00e4ueltaten in Khisas begangen hatte. Allon erkl\u00e4rte, das Dorf m\u00fcsse wegen seiner Lage angegriffen werden. \u00bbWir m\u00fcssen uns beweisen, dass wir die Initiative ergreifen k\u00f6nnen\u00ab, schrieb er Kalman. Der Befehl war eindeutig: \u00bbSie haben 20 H\u00e4user zu sprengen und so viele \u203aK\u00e4mpfer\u2039 [sprich: \u00bbDorfbewohner\u00ab] wie m\u00f6glich zu t\u00f6ten.\u00ab Gegen Mitternacht wurde Sa'sa angegriffen \u2013 s\u00e4mtliche Angriffe im Rahmen des _Lamed_ - _Heh_ -Befehls erfolgten gegen Mitternacht, wie Moshe Kalman sich erinnerte. Nach Berichten der _New York Times_ (vom 16. April 1948) stie\u00df die gro\u00dfe j\u00fcdische Einheit auf keinerlei Widerstand der Einwohner, als sie in das Dorf eindrang und TNT-Ladungen an den H\u00e4usern anbrachte. \u00bbWir liefen einem arabischen W\u00e4chter \u00fcber den Weg\u00ab, berichtete Kalman sp\u00e4ter. \u00bbEr war so \u00fcberrascht, dass er nicht fragte \u203a _min hada?_ \u2039 (wer ist da?), sondern \u203a _eish hada?_ \u2039 (was ist das?). Einer unserer Leute, der Arabisch konnte, antwortete scherzhaft [ _sic_ ]: \u203a _hada esh!_ \u2039 ([arabisch:] das ist [hebr\u00e4isch:] Feuer) und schoss ihm eine Salve in den K\u00f6rper.\u00ab Kalmans Leute nahmen die Hauptstra\u00dfe des Ortes ein und sprengten systematisch ein Haus nach dem anderen, in denen Familien schliefen. Poetisch erinnerte Kalman sich: \u00bbAm Ende riss der Himmel auf\u00ab, nachdem sie ein Drittel des Dorfes in die Luft gejagt hatten. \u00bbWir lie\u00dfen 35 zerst\u00f6rte H\u00e4user und 60 bis 80 Leichen zur\u00fcck\u00ab (darunter viele Kinder). Er lobte die britische Armee, die der Truppe geholfen hatte, zwei \u2013 von umherfliegenden Tr\u00fcmmerteilen \u2013 verwundete Soldaten nach Safad ins Krankenhaus zu bringen.\n\nAm 19. Februar 1948, vier Tage nach dem Angriff auf Sa'sa, kamen die Teilnehmer der langen Tagung erneut zusammen. An diesem Donnerstagvormittag trafen sie sich wieder in Ben Gurions Haus, und der Zionistenf\u00fchrer hielt die Diskussion fast wortw\u00f6rtlich in seinem Tagebuch fest. Bei diesem Treffen ging es darum, die Wirkung der _Lamed-Heh_ -Operationen auf die Pal\u00e4stinenser einzusch\u00e4tzen.\n\nYehoshua Palmon brachte den \u00bbOrientalisten\u00ab-Standpunkt vor: Die Pal\u00e4stinenser waren nach wie vor nicht bereit zu k\u00e4mpfen. Ezra Danin best\u00e4tigte: \u00bbDie Dorfbewohner lassen keinen Kampfeswillen erkennen.\u00ab Zudem beschr\u00e4nkte die Arabische Befreiungsarmee ihre Aktivit\u00e4ten strikt auf die Gebiete, die in der UN-Teilungsresolution dem k\u00fcnftigen pal\u00e4stinensischen Staat zugedacht waren. Ben Gurion war davon nicht beeindruckt. In Gedanken war er bereits anderswo. Er war unzufrieden \u00fcber die begrenzte Reichweite der Operationen: \u00bbEine kleine Reaktion [auf arabische Feindseligkeiten] beeindruckt niemanden. Ein zerst\u00f6rtes Haus \u2013 das ist nichts. Zerst\u00f6re ein ganzes Viertel, dann f\u00e4ngst du an, Eindruck zu machen!\u00ab Ihm gefiel die Sa'sa-Operation, weil sie \u00bbdie Araber zur Flucht veranlasst\u00ab hatte.\n\nDanin meinte, die Operation habe die umliegenden D\u00f6rfer schockiert, was andere Dorfbewohner abhalten werde, sich an K\u00e4mpfen zu beteiligen. Die Schlussfolgerung war, auf jeden einzelnen arabischen Anschlag mit massiver Vergeltung zu reagieren, ohne sonderlich R\u00fccksicht darauf zu nehmen, ob bestimmte D\u00f6rfer oder Araber sich neutral verhielten. Dieser R\u00fcckkoppelungseffekt zwischen Reaktion und weiterer Planung sollte sich bis M\u00e4rz 1948 fortsetzen. Danach war die ethnische S\u00e4uberung nicht l\u00e4nger Teil von Vergeltungsma\u00dfnahmen, sondern wurde in einem klar umrissenen Plan festgelegt, der auf die massenhafte Vertreibung der Pal\u00e4stinenser aus ihrem Heimatland zielte.\n\nBei der Sitzung der Beratergruppe Mitte Februar f\u00fchrte Allon die Lehren aus den _Lamed-Heh_ -Operationen weiter aus: \u00bbWenn wir ganze Viertel oder viele H\u00e4user eines Dorfes zerst\u00f6ren, wie wir es in Sa'sa getan haben, machen wir Eindruck.\u00ab Zu dieser Sitzung waren mehr Teilnehmer als sonst geladen. \u00bbArabienexperten\u00ab aus dem ganzen Land waren anwesend, darunter Giyora Zayd aus Westgalil\u00e4a und David Qaron aus dem Negev. Auf der Sitzung wurde der Wunsch ge\u00e4u\u00dfert, eine Gro\u00dfoffensive vorzubereiten. Alle Anwesenden berichteten ausnahmslos, dass das l\u00e4ndliche Pal\u00e4stina keinerlei Kampf- oder Angriffswillen zeigte und wehrlos war. Ben Gurion erkl\u00e4rte abschlie\u00dfend, er ziehe es vor, vorerst vorsichtiger vorzugehen und abzuwarten, wie die Lage sich entwickele. Inzwischen sei es am besten, \u00bbdie l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete weiter ... durch eine Serie von Offensiven ... zu terrorisieren, damit die gemeldete passive Stimmung ... anh\u00e4lt\u00ab. Diese Passivit\u00e4t verhinderte in manchen Gegenden Aktionen, f\u00fchrte aber anderswo Orten zu vielen weiteren Vorf\u00e4llen.\n\nDer Monat endete mit der Besetzung und R\u00e4umung eines weiteren Ortes im Distrikt Haifa, des Dorfes Qira. Auch hier lebte eine gemischte Bev\u00f6lkerung aus Juden und Arabern, und auch hier besiegelte wie in Daliyat al-Rawha im Grunde die Anwesenheit j\u00fcdischer Siedler das Schicksal des Dorfes. Wieder war es Yossef Weitz, der die Armeekommandeure dr\u00e4ngte, die Operation im Dorf nicht allzu lange hinauszuz\u00f6gern. \u00bbSehen Sie zu, dass Sie sie jetzt loswerden\u00ab, schlug er vor. Qira lag dicht an dem Nachbardorf Qamun, und die j\u00fcdischen Siedler hatten ihre H\u00e4user strategisch g\u00fcnstig zwischen beiden Orten gebaut.\n\nQira liegt nicht weit von meinem jetzigen Wohnort und hei\u00dft heute Yoqneam. Holl\u00e4ndische Juden hatten hier 1935 etwas Land gekauft und \u00bbintegrierten\u00ab die beiden ger\u00e4umten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer 1948 in ihre Siedlung. Auch der nahe Kibbuz Hazorea \u00fcbernahm einen Teil des Landes. Yoqneam ist ein reizvolles Fleckchen, weil es einen der letzten sauberen Fl\u00fcsse im Marj-Ibn-Amir-Gebiet besitzt. Im Fr\u00fchling rauscht das Wasser durch eine herrliche Schlucht ins Tal wie fr\u00fcher, als es noch an den Natursteinh\u00e4usern des Dorfes vorbeifloss. Die Einwohner von Qira nannten ihn Muqata, die Israelis nennen ihn \u00bbFriedensfluss\u00ab. Wie so viele malerische Orte in diesem Erholungs- und Tourismusgebiet sind auch hier die Ruinen eines Dorfes verborgen, das bis 1948 existierte. Zu meiner Schande brauchte ich Jahre, um es herauszufinden.\n\nQira und Qamun waren nicht die einzigen Orte, an denen Weitz seine Vertreibungsimpulse auslassen konnte. Er brannte darauf, aktiv zu werden, wo immer er konnte. In seinem Tagebuch \u00fcberlegte er im Januar, kurz nachdem man ihn in die Beratergruppe aufgenommen hatte, wie man die \u00bbVergeltungspolitik\u00ab nutzen k\u00f6nnte, um pal\u00e4stinensische P\u00e4chter von L\u00e4ndereien zu entfernen, die Juden gekauft hatten: \u00bbIst es nicht an der Zeit, sie loszuwerden? Warum sollten wir weiter diesen Stachel in unserem Fleisch behalten?\u00ab In einem anderen Eintrag vom 20. Januar empfahl er, mit diesen P\u00e4chtern nach \u00bbunserem urspr\u00fcnglichen Plan\u00ab zu verfahren, also nach den Vorstellungen, die er in den 1930er Jahren zur Umsiedlung der Pal\u00e4stinenser vorgebracht hatte.\n\nBenny Morris listet eine Reihe von Operationen auf, die Weitz im Februar und M\u00e4rz anordnete und zu denen die \u00bbpolitische F\u00fchrung\u00ab \u2013 wie Morris sie besch\u00f6nigend nennt \u2013 keine Genehmigung erteilt habe. Das ist unm\u00f6glich. Die zentrale Hagana-F\u00fchrung autorisierte s\u00e4mtliche Vertreibungsaktionen; es stimmt zwar, dass sie vor dem 10. M\u00e4rz 1948 nicht immer im Voraus dar\u00fcber Bescheid wissen wollte, aber nachtr\u00e4glich erteilte sie immer ihre Genehmigung. Weitz erhielt nie eine R\u00fcge f\u00fcr die Vertreibungen, f\u00fcr die er verantwortlich war: in Qamun und Qira, Arab al-Ghawarina im Naman-Tal, Qumya, Mansurat al-Khayt, Husayniyya, Ulmaniyya, Kirad al-Ghannama und Ubaydiyya \u2013 alle diese D\u00f6rfer hatte er entweder wegen der Qualit\u00e4t ihres Ackerlandes ausgesucht oder weil dort oder in der N\u00e4he j\u00fcdische Siedler lebten.\n\nM\u00e4rz 1948: Letzte Abstimmungen der Blaupause\n\nIn der zweiten Februarh\u00e4lfte 1948 hatte die Beratergruppe erstmals \u00fcber einen Entwurf zu Plan Dalet diskutiert. Laut Ben Gurions Tagebuch war das am Sonntag, dem 29. Februar; ein israelischer Milit\u00e4rhistoriker gibt als Datum allerdings den 14. Februar an. Plan Dalet wurde in den ersten M\u00e4rztagen fertig gestellt. Gest\u00fctzt auf Erinnerungen von Armeegeneralen an diese Zeit behauptet die israelische Geschichtsschreibung, der M\u00e4rz 1948 sei der schwierigste Monat in der Geschichte des Krieges gewesen. Diese Einsch\u00e4tzung bezieht sich allerdings nur auf einen Aspekt des sich entfaltenden Konflikts: auf die Angriffe der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee auf j\u00fcdische Konvois zu den isolierten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen, die sich Anfang M\u00e4rz f\u00fcr kurze Zeit als relativ effektiv erwiesen. Zudem versuchten einige ALA-Offiziere damals, fortgesetzte j\u00fcdische Offensiven in gemischten St\u00e4dten abzuwehren oder zu vergelten, indem sie j\u00fcdische Viertel mit einer Serie von Klein\u00fcberf\u00e4llen terrorisierten. Zwei solcher Angriffe vermittelten der \u00d6ffentlichkeit den (falschen) Eindruck, die ALA sei vielleicht doch imstande, einen gewissen Widerstand gegen eine j\u00fcdische \u00dcbernahme zu leisten.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich begann der M\u00e4rz 1948 mit dieser letzten, kurzlebigen Milit\u00e4ranstrengung der Pal\u00e4stinenser, ihre Bev\u00f6lkerung zu sch\u00fctzen. Die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte waren noch nicht gut genug organisiert, um sofort und erfolgreich auf jeden Gegenangriff reagieren zu k\u00f6nnen, was die Beunruhigung in einigen Teilen der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde erkl\u00e4rt. Aber die Beratergruppe verlor nicht einen Moment den Blick f\u00fcr die Realit\u00e4t. Als sie Anfang M\u00e4rz wieder zusammenkam, sprach sie nicht einmal \u00fcber den ALA-Gegenangriff und hielt die Gesamtsituation offenbar auch nicht f\u00fcr sonderlich beunruhigend. Unter Ben Gurions Leitung befasste sie sich vielmehr mit der Erstellung eines endg\u00fcltigen Masterplans.\n\nEinige Mitglieder der Beratergruppe schlugen vor, die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen als effektivstes Mittel zum Schutz der Verbindungswege zu isolierten Siedlungen fortzusetzen. Ihre Hauptsorge galt der Stra\u00dfe von Tel Aviv nach Jerusalem, aber Ben Gurion hatte bereits Umfassenderes im Sinn. Aus der Zeit von Ende November 1947 bis Anfang M\u00e4rz 1948 hatte er den Schluss gezogen, dass trotz aller Bem\u00fchungen von oben nach wie vor eine kompetente F\u00fchrung vor Ort fehlte. Zudem hatte er den Eindruck, dass die drei Pl\u00e4ne, die die Hagana bisher f\u00fcr die \u00dcbernahme des Mandatsgebiets entwickelt hatte \u2013 einen 1937 und zwei weitere 1946 \u2013 einer Aktualisierung bedurften. Daher ordnete er eine Revision dieser Pl\u00e4ne an, von denen die beiden j\u00fcngeren die Codenamen Plan B und Plan C trugen.\n\nEs liegen uns keine Aufzeichnungen dar\u00fcber vor, was Ben Gurion dem Team, das bei der regul\u00e4ren Mittwochnachmittagssitzung am 10. M\u00e4rz 1948 die Beratergruppe bildete, \u00fcber ethnische S\u00e4uberungen sagte, aber wir haben den Plan, den sie autorisierten und der nach ihren letzten Abstimmungen vom Hagana-Oberkommando gebilligt und in Form milit\u00e4rischer Befehle an die Truppen vor Ort weitergeleitet wurde.\n\nDer offizielle Name von Plan Dalet war Yehoshua-Plan. Yehushua Globerman wurde 1905 in Wei\u00dfrussland geboren und sa\u00df in den 1920er Jahren wegen antikommunistischer Aktivit\u00e4ten in einem sowjetischen Gef\u00e4ngnis, wurde aber nach drei Jahren aus der Haft entlassen, nachdem Maxim Gorki, ein Freund seiner Eltern, sich f\u00fcr ihn eingesetzt hatte. Globerman war Kommandeur der Hagana in verschiedenen Teilen Pal\u00e4stinas und wurde im Dezember 1947 von Unbekannten ermordet, die ihn w\u00e4hrend der Fahrt in seinem Wagen erschossen. Er war als einer der zuk\u00fcnftigen Generalstabschefs der israelischen Armee vorgesehen, aber sein vorzeitiger Tod sorgte daf\u00fcr, dass sein Name nicht in Verbindung mit milit\u00e4rischen Erfolgen, sondern mit dem zionistischen Masterplan f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas in Erinnerung geblieben ist. Bei seinen Zeitgenossen genoss er so hohes Ansehen, dass man ihn nach der Gr\u00fcndung des j\u00fcdischen Staates posthum zum General ernannte.\n\nEinige Tage nachdem Globerman get\u00f6tet wurde, entwarf die Geheimdienstabteilung der Hagana die Blaupause f\u00fcr die kommenden Monate unter dem Decknamen Plan Dalet. Sie enthielt eindeutige Angaben zu den geografischen Parametern des k\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staates (die von Ben Gurion angestrebten 87 Prozent) und zum Schicksal der einen Million Pal\u00e4stinenser, die in diesem Gebiet lebten:\n\nDiese Operationen lassen sich folgenderma\u00dfen durchf\u00fchren: entweder durch Zerst\u00f6rung von D\u00f6rfern (indem man sie in Brand setzt, sprengt und die Tr\u00fcmmer vermint) und insbesondere von Wohngebieten, die auf Dauer schwer zu kontrollieren sind, oder durch Durchsuchungs- und Kontrolloperationen nach folgenden Richtlinien: Umstellen und Durchk\u00e4mmen der D\u00f6rfer. Im Fall von Widerstand sind die bewaffneten Kr\u00e4fte auszuschalten und die Einwohner \u00fcber die Landesgrenzen zu vertreiben.\n\nD\u00f6rfer sollten vollst\u00e4ndig ger\u00e4umt werden, weil sie entweder an strategisch wichtigen Stellen lagen oder von ihnen Widerstand in irgendeiner Form zu erwarten war. Diese Befehle wurden erteilt, als bereits klar war, dass die Besetzung immer einen gewissen Widerstand hervorrufen w\u00fcrde und daher kein Dorf immun w\u00e4re, entweder aufgrund seiner Lage oder der Tatsache, dass es sich nicht ohne weiteres besetzen lie\u00df. Das war also der Masterplan f\u00fcr die Zwangsr\u00e4umung s\u00e4mtlicher D\u00f6rfer im l\u00e4ndlichen Pal\u00e4stina. \u00c4hnliche Anweisungen mit weitgehend gleichem Wortlaut gab es f\u00fcr Aktionen gegen Pal\u00e4stinas St\u00e4dte.\n\nDie Befehle an die Einheiten vor Ort waren genauer. Das Land wurde entsprechend der Anzahl der Brigaden in Zonen aufgeteilt, wobei die urspr\u00fcnglichen vier Brigaden der Hagana in zw\u00f6lf umgewandelt wurden, um die Umsetzung des Plans zu erleichtern. Jeder Brigadekommandeur erhielt eine Liste der D\u00f6rfer oder Stadtviertel, die zu besetzen, zu zerst\u00f6ren und von ihren Einwohnern zu r\u00e4umen waren, mit genauen Daten. Manche der Kommandeure waren \u00fcbereifrig in der Ausf\u00fchrung ihrer Befehle und f\u00fcgten im Schwung ihrer Begeisterung zus\u00e4tzliche Orte hinzu. Dagegen erwiesen sich andere Einsatzbefehle als zu hochgesteckt und lie\u00dfen sich nicht innerhalb des erwarteten Zeitplans ausf\u00fchren. So wurden mehrere D\u00f6rfer an der K\u00fcste, die planm\u00e4\u00dfig im Mai besetzt werden sollten, erst im Juli zerst\u00f6rt. Und den D\u00f6rfern im Gebiet des Wadi Ara \u2013 eines Tals, das die K\u00fcste bei Hadera mit der Marj Ibn Amir (Emeq Izrael, Jesreel-Ebene) und Afula (heute durch die Route 65) verbindet \u2013 gelang es w\u00e4hrend des gesamten Krieges, wiederholte j\u00fcdische Angriffe zu \u00fcberstehen. Aber das waren Ausnahmen: Die Regel waren 531 D\u00f6rfer sowie elf St\u00e4dte und Stadtviertel, die auf unmittelbare Befehle der Beratergruppe von M\u00e4rz 1948 zerst\u00f6rt und deren Einwohner vertrieben wurden. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt waren bereits 30 D\u00f6rfer verschwunden.\n\nEinige Tage, nachdem Plan D abgetippt war, wurde er an die Kommandeure der zw\u00f6lf Brigaden verteilt, die die Hagana nun umfasste. Zu der Liste, die jeder Kommandeur erhielt, geh\u00f6rte eine detaillierte Beschreibung der D\u00f6rfer in seinem Einsatzgebiet und ihres bevorstehenden Schicksals: Besetzung, Zerst\u00f6rung und Vertreibung. Die israelischen Dokumente aus den IDF-Archiven, die Ende der 1990er Jahre freigegeben wurden, belegen eindeutig, dass Plan Dalet \u2013 entgegen der Behauptungen von Historikern wie Benny Morris \u2013 an die Brigadekommandeure nicht in vagen Leitlinien, sondern in klar umrissenen Einsatzbefehlen weitergegeben wurde.\n\nAnders als der allgemeine Entwurf, der an die politischen F\u00fchrer geschickt wurde, enthielt die Liste der D\u00f6rfer, die die Kommandeure bekamen, keine Details, wie die Zerst\u00f6rung und Vertreibung durchzuf\u00fchren war. Es gab keine spezifischen Angaben, dass D\u00f6rfer sich zum Beispiel durch eine bedingungslose Kapitulation retten k\u00f6nnten, wie es das allgemeine Dokument versprach. Und noch ein Unterschied bestand zwischen dem Entwurf, der an die Politiker weitergereicht wurde, und dem, den die Kommandeure erhielten: In dem offiziellen Entwurf hie\u00df es, der Plan werde erst nach Beendigung des Mandats aktiviert; die Offiziere vor Ort erhielten aber Befehl, innerhalb weniger Tage nach seiner Annahme mit der Ausf\u00fchrung anzufangen. Dieses Auseinanderklaffen ist typisch f\u00fcr die Beziehung, die in Israel bis heute zwischen Armee und Politikern existiert \u2013 recht h\u00e4ufig gibt die Armee den Politikern Fehlinformationen \u00fcber ihre wahren Intentionen: So hielten es Moshe Dayan 1956, Ariel Sharon 1982 und Shaul Mofaz 2000.\n\nAber eines hatten die politische Version von Plan Dalet und die Milit\u00e4rdirektiven gemeinsam: das Gesamtziel des Plans. Mit anderen Worten: Schon bevor die Einsatzbefehle vor Ort eintrafen, wussten die Truppen, was von ihnen erwartet wurde. Die geachtete und couragierte israelische B\u00fcrgerrechtlerin Shulamit Aloni, die damals Offizier war, erinnerte sich, dass spezielle Politbeauftragte herauskamen und die Truppen aktiv anstachelten, indem sie die Pal\u00e4stinenser d\u00e4monisierten und den Holocaust als Bezugspunkt f\u00fcr die bevorstehenden Operationen anf\u00fchrten, die oft am Tag nach der Indoktrinierung stattfanden.\n\nNachdem die Beratergruppe Plan Dalet genehmigt hatte, beorderte Stabschef Yigael Yadin s\u00e4mtliche Geheimdienstoffiziere der Hagana in ein Geb\u00e4ude an der Zamenhof Straat in Tel Aviv, das die Zentrale des \u00f6ffentlichen j\u00fcdischen Gesundheitsdienstes Kupat Holim beherbergte (und bis heute diese Funktion gleich gegen\u00fcber von einem beliebten indischen Restaurant erf\u00fcllt). Hunderte Offiziere f\u00fcllten die Empfangshalle, in der sonst Patienten sa\u00dfen.\n\nYadin sagte ihnen nichts vom Plan Dalet: Die Befehle waren in derselben Woche an ihre Brigadekommandeure gegangen. Aber er vermittelte ihnen einen allgemeinen \u00dcberblick, der bei ihnen keinerlei Zweifel an der F\u00e4higkeit der Truppen lassen sollte, den Plan auszuf\u00fchren. Die Geheimdienstoffiziere waren in gewisser Weise auch Politruk (Politkommissare), und Yadin war klar, dass er die Kluft zwischen den \u00f6ffentlichen Erkl\u00e4rungen der F\u00fchrung zu einem drohenden \u00bbzweiten Holocaust\u00ab und der Tatsache erkl\u00e4ren musste, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen sich bei der geplanten Entv\u00f6lkerung des Territoriums, das sie in ihren j\u00fcdischen Staat umwandeln wollten, keiner echten Herausforderung gegen\u00fcbersahen. Dramatisch wie immer er\u00f6ffnete Yadin seinen Zuh\u00f6rern: Da sie Befehle zur Besetzung, Eroberung und Vertreibung einer Bev\u00f6lkerung erhalten w\u00fcrden, verdienten sie eine Erkl\u00e4rung, wie sie das leisten k\u00f6nnten, obwohl sie sich doch, wie sie in den Zeitungen lasen und von ihren Politikern h\u00f6rten, selbst der \u00bbVernichtungsgefahr\u00ab ausgesetzt s\u00e4hen. Dann erkl\u00e4rte der Offizier, dessen gro\u00dfe, schlanke Gestalt allen Israelis bald vertraut sein sollte, seinem Publikum stolz: \u00bbHeute haben wir alle Waffen, die wir brauchen. Sie sind bereits auf Schiffen, sobald die Briten das Land verlassen, bringen wir die Waffen herein, und die ganze Situation an der Front wird sich \u00e4ndern.\u00ab\n\nWenn die letzten M\u00e4rzwochen 1948 nach Yigael Yadins Darstellung die h\u00e4rteste Zeit des gesamten Krieges waren, l\u00e4sst sich also daraus umgekehrt schlussfolgern, dass die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina sich in keinerlei Gefahr befand, vernichtet zu werden: Sie sah sich vielmehr gewissen Hindernissen auf dem Weg zur Vollendung ihres ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsplans gegen\u00fcber. Diese Schwierigkeiten bestanden im relativen Mangel an Waffen und in den isolierten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen im designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet. Besonders anf\u00e4llig waren offenbar die wenigen Siedlungen im Westjordanland und im Nordwestteil des Negev (Negba, Yad Mordechai, Nizanim und Gat). Diese vier sollten weiterhin isoliert bleiben, auch als die \u00e4gyptischen Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina vordrangen und sie f\u00fcr kurze Zeit einnahmen. Auch einige Siedlungen in Obergalil\u00e4a waren nicht leicht zu erreichen oder zu verteidigen, da sie von zahlreichen pal\u00e4stinensischen Orten umgeben waren, die das Gl\u00fcck hatten, von mehreren hundert Freiwilligen der ALA besch\u00fctzt zu werden. Au\u00dferdem kam es auf der Stra\u00dfe nach Jerusalem zu ausreichend schweren Angriffen pal\u00e4stinensischer Heckensch\u00fctzen, dass die j\u00fcdischen Teile der Stadt sich in diesem Monat im Belagerungszustand f\u00fchlten.\n\nDie offizielle israelische Geschichtsschreibung schildert den folgenden Monat, den April 1948, als Wendepunkt. Nach dieser Version ging eine isolierte, bedrohte j\u00fcdische Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina aus der Defensive in die Offensive, als sie beinahe schon besiegt war. In Wirklichkeit sah die Lage v\u00f6llig anders aus: Das milit\u00e4rische, politische und wirtschaftliche Kr\u00e4fteverh\u00e4ltnis zwischen den beiden Bev\u00f6lkerungsteilen war insgesamt so, dass die Mehrheit der Juden nicht nur in keinerlei Gefahr war, sondern dass ihre Armee von Anfang Dezember 1947 bis Ende M\u00e4rz 1948 dar\u00fcber hinaus die erste Stufe der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas hatte abschlie\u00dfen k\u00f6nnen, noch bevor der Masterplan in Kraft getreten war. Wenn es im April eine Wende gab, dann war es der \u00dcbergang von sporadischen Angriffen auf die pal\u00e4stinensische Zivilbev\u00f6lkerung zu der systematischen ethnischen S\u00e4uberung gro\u00dfen Stils, die nun folgte.\nKAPITEL 5\n\nDie Blaupause der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung: Plan Dalet\n\n_Die Serben waren daran interessiert, eine ethnisch reine Republika Srpska f\u00fcr die Serben zu schaffen, aber gro\u00dfe muslimische Minderheiten machten es den Serben vor allem in den St\u00e4dten schwer, homogene ethnische Entit\u00e4ten abzustecken. Folglich begann die Armee der Republica Srpska unter der F\u00fchrung General Ratko Mladi\u0107 eine Politik der \u00bbethnischen S\u00e4uberung\u00ab gegen Muslime in den Gebieten, die sie als serbisch ansahen._\n\n\u00bbWar and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia\u00ab (www.globalsecurity.org\/military\/world\/war\/yugo-hist4.htm)\n\nVerwundert stellten die Herausgeber von Ben Gurions Tagebuch fest, dass der F\u00fchrer der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina der milit\u00e4rischen Seite der Ereignisse zwischen dem 1. April und dem 15. Mai 1948 offenbar wenig Beachtung schenkte.\n\nStattdessen besch\u00e4ftigte er sich anscheinend wesentlich eingehender mit heimischer zionistischer Politik und mit organisatorischen Fragen wie der Umwandlung der Diasporagremien in Organe des neuen Staates Israel. In seinem Tagebuch ist jedenfalls eindeutig nichts von einer drohenden Katastrophe oder einem \u00bbzweiten Holocaust\u00ab zu sp\u00fcren, die er bei \u00f6ffentlichen Auftritten voller Pathos heraufbeschwor.\n\nIn seinem inneren Zirkel sprach er eine v\u00f6llig andere Sprache. Seinen Parteikollegen in der Mapai listete er Anfang April stolz die Namen der arabischen D\u00f6rfer auf, die j\u00fcdische Truppen kurz zuvor besetzt hatten. Bei anderer Gelegenheit wies er am 6. April sozialistisch orientierte Mitglieder der Histradut-F\u00fchrung zurecht, die fragten, ob es klug sei, Bauern anstatt ihrer Grundbesitzer, der Effendis, anzugreifen. Ben Gurion erkl\u00e4rte einem ihrer f\u00fchrenden K\u00f6pfe: \u00bbIch bin nicht der Ansicht, dass wir es mit Effendis und nicht mit Bauern zu tun haben: Unsere Feinde sind die arabischen Bauern!\u00ab\n\nSein Tagebuch steht tats\u00e4chlich in krassem Gegensatz zu der Angst, die er auf \u00f6ffentlichen Versammlungen bei seinem Publikum verbreitete und folglich im kollektiven israelischen Ged\u00e4chtnis verankerte. Es vermittelt vielmehr den Eindruck, als sei ihm damals bereits klar gewesen, dass er Pal\u00e4stina in der Hand hatte. Allerdings war er nicht \u00fcbertrieben zuversichtlich und beteiligte sich nicht an den Feiern am 15. Mai 1948, da ihm bewusst war, welche enorme Aufgabe vor ihm lag: Pal\u00e4stina ethnisch zu s\u00e4ubern und sicherzustellen, dass arabische Bestrebungen die j\u00fcdische \u00dcbernahme nicht verhinderten. Wie die Beratergruppe war er besorgt \u00fcber den Ausgang der Entwicklungen an Orten, wo ein offensichtliches Ungleichgewicht zwischen isolierten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen und einer potenziellen arabischen Armee bestand \u2013 wie es in abgelegenen Teilen Galil\u00e4as und des Negev sowie in einigen Teilen Jerusalems der Fall war. Dennoch war Ben Gurion und seinen engsten Mitarbeitern durchaus klar, dass diese lokalen Nachteile nichts am Gesamtbild \u00e4ndern konnten: an der F\u00e4higkeit der j\u00fcdischen Truppen, viele Gebiete, die der UN-Teilungsplan dem j\u00fcdischen Staat zusprach, noch vor dem Abzug der Briten einzunehmen. Und \u00bbeinnehmen\u00ab bedeutete nur eins: die massive Vertreibung der dort lebenden Pal\u00e4stinenser aus ihren H\u00e4usern, Gesch\u00e4ften und von ihrem Grund und Boden in den St\u00e4dten wie auch auf dem Land.\n\nBen Gurion mag zwar nicht \u00f6ffentlich mit den j\u00fcdischen Massen gejubelt haben, die am Tag der offiziellen Beendigung des britischen Mandats auf den Stra\u00dfen tanzten, aber er war sich durchaus bewusst, dass sich die milit\u00e4rische St\u00e4rke der j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte im Land bereits gezeigt hatte. Als Plan Dalet in Kraft trat, verf\u00fcgte die Hagana schon \u00fcber 50000 Soldaten, von denen die H\u00e4lfte im Zweiten Weltkrieg von der britischen Armee ausgebildet worden war. Die Zeit war reif, Plan Dalet anlaufen zu lassen.\n\nOperation Nachshon: \nDie erste Plan-Dalet-Operation\n\nDie nachtr\u00e4glich von den britischen Mandatsbeh\u00f6rden gebilligte zionistische Strategie, isolierte Siedlungen mitten in dicht besiedelte arabische Gebiete zu bauen, erwies sich in Spannungszeiten als Belastung. Die Versorgung dieser entlegenen Au\u00dfenposten mit Nachschub und Truppen lie\u00df sich nicht immer gew\u00e4hrleisten, und als das Land erst einmal in Flammen stand, war die westliche Zufahrtsstra\u00dfe nach Jerusalem, die durch zahlreiche pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer f\u00fchrte, besonders schwer zu sichern, was in der kleinen j\u00fcdischen Bev\u00f6lkerung der Stadt den Eindruck eines Belagerungszustands weckte. Auch die zionistische F\u00fchrung machte sich Sorgen um die Juden in Jerusalem, allerdings aus einem anderen Grund: Es waren \u00fcberwiegend orthodoxe Juden und Mizrahi-Gemeinden, deren Engagement f\u00fcr den Zionismus und seine Bestrebungen recht d\u00fcrftig oder sogar fragw\u00fcrdig war. Daher w\u00e4hlte sie als erstes Gebiet, in dem Plan Dalet umgesetzt werden sollte, die l\u00e4ndlichen Westh\u00e4nge der Jerusalemer Berge aus, die auf halber Strecke an der Stra\u00dfe nach Tel Aviv lagen. Die Operation _Nachshon_ sollte als Modell f\u00fcr k\u00fcnftige Aktionen dienen: Die pl\u00f6tzlichen Massenvertreibungen, mit denen sie arbeitete, erwiesen sich als effektivstes Mittel, um isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu halten oder Blockaden feindlich bedrohter Stra\u00dfen, wie der Verbindung nach Jerusalem, zu beseitigen.\n\nJede der Operation zugeteilte Brigade erhielt Anweisung, in Bereitschaft zu gehen f\u00fcr Stufe D, _Mazav Dalet_ , sich also auf die Ausf\u00fchrung der Plan-Dalet-Befehle vorzubereiten: \u00bbGehen Sie in Stufe D f\u00fcr eine operative Ausf\u00fchrung von Plan Dalet\u00ab, hie\u00df es im ersten Satz des Einsatzbefehls an jede Einheit. Und weiter: \u00bbWelche D\u00f6rfer besetzt, ger\u00e4umt oder zerst\u00f6rt werden, wird nach Konsultation mit den Beratern in arabischen Angelegenheiten und den Nachrichtenoffizieren entschieden.\u00ab Nach dem Endergebnis dieses Stadiums von April bis Mai 1948 zu urteilen, ergab diese Konsultation, dass kein einziges Dorf verschont bleiben sollte. W\u00e4hrend der offizielle Plan Dalet den D\u00f6rfern die M\u00f6glichkeit einr\u00e4umte, sich zu ergeben, sahen die Einsatzbefehle nicht vor, ein Dorf aus irgendeinem Grund auszunehmen. Damit war die Blaupause in den milit\u00e4rischen Befehl umgesetzt, mit der Zerst\u00f6rung von D\u00f6rfern zu beginnen. Die Terminvorgaben variierten nach Einsatzgebieten: Die Alexandroni-Brigade, die den K\u00fcstenstreifen mit zig D\u00f6rfern st\u00fcrmen und nur zwei \u00fcbrig lassen sollte, erhielt ihren Einsatzbefehl gegen Ende April; die Anweisung zur S\u00e4uberung Ostgalil\u00e4as erreichte das Hauptquartier der Golani-Brigade am 6. Mai 1948, und bereits am n\u00e4chsten Tag r\u00e4umte sie das erste Dorf in ihrem \u00bbGebiet\u00ab, Shajara.\n\nDie Palmach-Einheiten erhielten ihre Befehle f\u00fcr die Operation Nachshon bereits am 1. April 1948. Am Abend zuvor war die Beratergruppe in Ben Gurions Haus zusammengekommen, um die Direktiven an die Einheiten fertig zu stellen. Ihre Befehle waren eindeutig: \u00bbHauptziel der Operation ist die Zerst\u00f6rung arabischer D\u00f6rfer ... [und] die Vertreibung der Einwohner, damit sie zu einer wirtschaftlichen Belastung f\u00fcr die allgemeinen arabischen Streitkr\u00e4fte werden.\u00ab\n\nAuch in anderer Hinsicht war die Operation Nachshon ein Novum. Es war der erste Einsatz, bei dem die verschiedenen j\u00fcdischen Milit\u00e4rorganisationen bestrebt waren, gemeinsam als eine Armee vorzugehen \u2013 und damit die Basis f\u00fcr die k\u00fcnftigen israelischen Verteidigungsstreitkr\u00e4fte (Israeli Defence Force, IDF) zu schaffen. Und es war die erste Operation, die ostj\u00fcdische Veteranen, die nat\u00fcrlich die Milit\u00e4rszene dominierten, und andere ethnische Gruppen einbezog wie Neuzuwanderer aus der arabischen Welt und aus dem Post-Holocaust-Europa.\n\nDer Kommandeur eines Bataillons, das an der Operation teilnahm, Uri Ben-Ari, schrieb in seinen Memoiren, die \u00bbVerschmelzung der Diasporagemeinden\u00ab sei eines der wesentlichen Ziele von Operation Nachshon gewesen. Ben-Ari war ein junger deutscher Jude, der einige Jahre zuvor nach Pal\u00e4stina gekommen war. Seine Einheit traf die letzten Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr die Operation an der Mittelmeerk\u00fcste in der N\u00e4he von Hadera. Er erinnerte sich, dass er sich mit russischen Generalen verglich, die im Zweiten Weltkrieg gegen die Nazis k\u00e4mpften. Die \u00bbNazis\u00ab waren in seinem Fall zahlreiche wehrlose pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer in der N\u00e4he der Stra\u00dfe von Jaffa nach Jerusalem und die paramilit\u00e4rischen Gruppen von Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, die ihnen zu Hilfe gekommen waren. Al-Husaynis Einheiten hatten Vergeltung f\u00fcr fr\u00fchere j\u00fcdische Angriffe ge\u00fcbt, indem sie auf den Stra\u00dfen wahllos auf j\u00fcdische Verkehrsmittel geschossen und dabei Passagiere verwundet und get\u00f6tet hatten. Aber die Dorfbewohner selbst versuchten, wie \u00fcberall in Pal\u00e4stina, weiter ein normales Leben zu f\u00fchren, ohne zu ahnen, dass Ben-Ari und seine Kameraden sie d\u00e4monisierten. Innerhalb weniger Tage sollten die meisten von ihnen f\u00fcr immer aus den H\u00e4usern und von den Feldern vertrieben werden, die sie und ihre Vorfahren seit Jahrhunderten bewohnt und bestellt hatten. Die paramilit\u00e4rischen pal\u00e4stinensischen Gruppen unter dem Kommando Abd al-Qadir al-Husaynis leisteten mehr Widerstand, als Ben-Aris Bataillon erwartet hatte, weshalb die Operation Nachshon anfangs nicht verlief wie geplant. Aber am 9. April war die Kampagne vorbei.\n\nAn diesem Tag fiel das erste von vielen D\u00f6rfern in der Umgebung Jerusalems in j\u00fcdische H\u00e4nde, trotz seines viel versprechenden Namens: Qastal (das Kastell). Es besa\u00df zwar alte Befestigungsanlagen, die es aber nicht vor den \u00fcberlegenen j\u00fcdischen Truppen zu sch\u00fctzen vermochten. Qastal lag auf dem letzten westlichen H\u00fcgel vor dem Anstieg nach Jerusalem. Das Denkmal, das Israel der Hagana an dieser Stelle errichtete, erw\u00e4hnt nichts davon, dass sich hier einmal ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf befand. Die Gedenktafel f\u00fcr diesen Kampf ist ein typisches Beispiel daf\u00fcr, wie tief die Sprache von Plan Dalet in der popul\u00e4ren israelischen Geschichtsschreibung von heute verankert ist. Wie in Plan Dalet taucht Qastal auch auf dieser Plakette nicht als Dorf, sondern als \u00bbfeindliche Stellung\u00ab auf: Pal\u00e4stinensische Dorfbewohner werden entmenschlicht, um sie zu \u00bblegitimen Zielen\u00ab der Vernichtung und Vertreibung zu machen. In ganz Israel sind viele neue Siedlungen und Nationalparks in das kollektive Ged\u00e4chtnis des Landes eingegangen, ohne dass es auch nur den geringsten Hinweis auf die pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer g\u00e4be, die fr\u00fcher hier standen, selbst wenn \u00dcberreste wie ein einzelnes Haus oder eine Moschee noch sichtlich davon zeugen, dass hier bis 1948 Menschen lebten.\n\nAm 9. April 1948 wurde Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni bei der Verteidigung Qastals im Kampf get\u00f6tet. Sein Tod demoralisierte seine Truppen so stark, dass alle anderen D\u00f6rfer im Gebiet Gro\u00dfjerusalem bald in die H\u00e4nde der j\u00fcdischen Truppen fielen. Sie wurden nacheinander umstellt, angegriffen und besetzt, die Einwohner vertrieben und die H\u00e4user zerst\u00f6rt. In manchen Orten ging die Vertreibung mit Massakern einher, das ber\u00fcchtigtste darunter ist das Massaker in Deir Yassin, das die j\u00fcdischen Truppen an dem Tag begingen, als Qastal fiel.\n\nDeir Yassin\n\nIn Deir Yassin zeigte sich deutlich die Systematik, die sich hinter Plan Dalet verbarg. Das freundliche Hirtendorf hatte mit der Hagana in Jerusalem einen Nichtangriffspakt geschlossen, war aber dazu verurteilt, ausradiert zu werden, weil es innerhalb der Gebiete lag, die in Plan Dalet f\u00fcr eine S\u00e4uberung vorgesehen waren. Wegen des Abkommens, das die Hagana zuvor mit dem Dorf getroffen hatte, beschloss sie, die Truppen der Irgun und der Stern-Gruppe hinzuschicken, um offiziell jede Verantwortung von sich weisen zu k\u00f6nnen. Bei den sp\u00e4teren S\u00e4uberungsaktionen \u00bbbefreundeter\u00ab D\u00f6rfer hielt man nicht einmal mehr diese List f\u00fcr notwendig.\n\nAm 9. April 1948 besetzten j\u00fcdische Truppen das Dorf Deir Yassin. Es lag 800 Meter \u00fcber dem Meeresspiegel auf einem H\u00fcgel westlich von Jerusalem, nahe des j\u00fcdischen Stadtteils Givat Shaul. Die ehemalige Dorfschule beherbergt heute eine psychiatrische Klinik f\u00fcr das westliche j\u00fcdische Viertel, das sich auf dem Gebiet des zerst\u00f6rten Dorfes ausgebreitet hat.\n\nAls die j\u00fcdischen Soldaten in das Dorf eindrangen, nahmen sie die H\u00e4user mit Maschinenpistolen unter Dauerfeuer und t\u00f6teten viele Einwohner. Anschlie\u00dfend trieben sie die \u00fcbrigen Einwohner an einem Ort zusammen, ermordeten sie, sch\u00e4ndeten ihre Leichen und vergewaltigten eine Reihe von Frauen, bevor sie sie t\u00f6teten.\n\nDer damals zw\u00f6lfj\u00e4hrige Fahim Zaydan erinnerte sich, wie seine Familie vor seinen Augen ermordet wurde:\n\nSie holten uns nacheinander heraus, erschossen einen alten Mann, und als eine seiner T\u00f6chter schrie, erschossen sie sie ebenfalls. Dann riefen sie meinen Bruder Muhammad und erschossen ihn vor unseren Augen, und als meine Mutter sich schreiend \u00fcber ihn beugte \u2013 sie hatte noch meine kleine Schwester Hudra im Arm, die sie gerade stillte \u2013, erschossen sie sie auch.\n\nAuf Zaydan wurde ebenfalls geschossen: Er stand in einer Reihe von Kindern, die die j\u00fcdischen Soldaten an einer Wand aufgestellt hatten, um \u00bbnur zum Spa\u00df\u00ab auf sie zu feuern, bevor sie abzogen. Er hatte Gl\u00fcck, dass er seine Verletzungen \u00fcberlebte.\n\nNeuere Forschungen haben die anerkannte Zahl der Todesopfer, die das Massaker in Deir Yassin forderte, von 170 auf 93 gesenkt. Selbstverst\u00e4ndlich wurden au\u00dfer den Opfern des eigentlichen Massakers noch Dutzende weitere im Kampf get\u00f6tet, die daher nicht in die offizielle Liste der Opfer aufgenommen wurden. Da die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte aber jedes pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf als feindliche Milit\u00e4rstellung ansahen, war der Unterschied, Menschen zu massakrieren oder \u00bbim Kampf\u00ab zu t\u00f6ten, nicht sonderlich gro\u00df. Allein schon die Tatsache, dass sich unter den Opfern des Blutbads in Deir Yassin 30 Babys befanden, zeigt, wie irrrelevant diese ganzen \u00bbquantitativen\u00ab \u00dcbungen sind \u2013 die die Israelis auch im April 2002 beim Massaker in Jenin wiederholten. Damals verk\u00fcndete die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung stolz hohe Opferzahlen, um Deir Yassin zum Epizentrum der Katastrophe zu machen \u2013 eine Warnung an alle Pal\u00e4stinenser, dass sie ein \u00e4hnliches Schicksal erwartete, wenn sie sich weigern sollten, ihre H\u00e4user zu verlassen und die Flucht zu ergreifen.\n\nAls n\u00e4chstes kamen vier Nachbard\u00f6rfer an die Reihe: Qalunya, Saris, Beit Surik und Biddu. In jedem brauchte die Hagana nur etwa eine Stunde, um die H\u00e4user zu sprengen und die Bewohner zu vertreiben. Interessanterweise (oder ironischerweise, wenn man so will) behaupteten Hagana-Offiziere, sie h\u00e4tten M\u00fche gehabt, ihre Untergebenen nach jeder Besetzung an wilden Pl\u00fcnderungen zu hindern. Ben-Ari, der die Pioniereinheit beim Sprengen der H\u00e4user beaufsichtigte, schilderte in seinen Memoiren, wie er allein die Pl\u00fcnderung dieser D\u00f6rfer verhindert habe, aber diese Behauptung scheint, gelinde gesagt, \u00fcbertrieben, wenn man bedenkt, dass die Bauern fortliefen, ohne etwas mitnehmen zu k\u00f6nnen, w\u00e4hrend ihre Habe als Kriegsandenken ihren Weg in die Wohnzimmer und Bauernh\u00f6fe von Soldaten und Offizieren fand.\n\nZwei D\u00f6rfer in diesem Gebiet blieben verschont: Abu Ghawsh und Nabi Samuil. Das lag an dem relativ guten Verh\u00e4ltnis, das ihre Muchtars zu den \u00f6rtlichen Kommandeuren der Stern-Gruppe entwickelt hatten und das sie ironischerweise vor der Zerst\u00f6rung und Vertreibung bewahrte: Als die Hagana sie verw\u00fcsten wollte, kam die extremistischere Stern-Gruppe den D\u00f6rfern zu Hilfe. Das war allerdings eine seltene Ausnahme, w\u00e4hrend Hunderte D\u00f6rfer das gleiche Schicksal erlitten wie Qalunya und Qastal.\n\nDer Urbizid in Pal\u00e4stina\n\nWelches Selbstvertrauen die j\u00fcdische Milit\u00e4rf\u00fchrung Anfang April in ihre F\u00e4higkeit besa\u00df, die von den Vereinten Nationen dem j\u00fcdischen Staat zugesprochenen Gebiete nicht nur zu \u00fcbernehmen, sondern auch ethnisch zu s\u00e4ubern, l\u00e4sst sich daran ermessen, dass sie sich unmittelbar nach der Operation Nachshon den gr\u00f6\u00dferen St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas zuwandte. Diese wurden im Laufe desselben Monats systematisch angegriffen, w\u00e4hrend UN-Vertreter und britische Beh\u00f6rden tatenlos zuschauten.\n\nDie Offensive gegen die urbanen Zentren begann mit Tiberias. Sobald die gro\u00dfe pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung der Stadt von den Massakern in Deir Yassin und drei Tage sp\u00e4ter (12. April) in Nasr al-Din in der Nachbarschaft von Khirbat erfuhr, ergriffen viele die Flucht. In Angst und Schrecken versetzte die Menschen auch der t\u00e4gliche schwere Beschuss, mit dem die j\u00fcdischen Truppen von den umliegenden Bergen aus diese historische ehemalige Hauptstadt am See von Galil\u00e4a (See Genezareth) belegten, wo 6000 Juden und 5000 Araber wie ihre Vorfahren seit Jahrhunderten friedlich koexistiert hatten. Aufgrund der britischen Blockadepolitik hatte die Arabische Befreiungsarmee nur einen Trupp von etwa 30 Freiwilligen in die Stadt schicken k\u00f6nnen. Nichts hatten sie den Hagana-Truppen entgegenzusetzen, die von den H\u00fcgeln Sprengstofff\u00e4sser hinunterrollten und \u00fcber Lautsprecher schrecklichen L\u00e4rm verbreiteten, um die Bev\u00f6lkerung zu ver\u00e4ngstigen \u2013 eine fr\u00fche Version der sp\u00e4teren \u00dcberschallfl\u00fcge 1983 \u00fcber Beirut und 2005 in Gaza, die Menschenrechtsorganisationen als Verbrechen gebrandmarkt haben. Tiberias fiel am 18. April.\n\nBeim Angriff auf Tiberias spielten die Briten eine fragw\u00fcrdige Rolle. Anfangs boten sie an, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohner zu besch\u00fctzen, dr\u00e4ngten sie aber schon bald, mit den j\u00fcdischen Truppen \u00fcber eine allgemeine Evakuierung der Stadt zu verhandeln. K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Jordanien war \u00bbpraktischer\u00ab: Er schickte 30 Lastwagen, die beim Transport der Frauen und Kinder helfen sollten. In seinen Memoiren erkl\u00e4rte er, er sei \u00fcberzeugt gewesen, dass ein weiteres Deir Yassin gedroht habe. Sp\u00e4ter gestanden britische Mandatsbeamte, sie h\u00e4tten \u00e4hnliche Bef\u00fcrchtungen gehabt, aber Dokumente, wonach die Briten starken Druck auf die F\u00fchrer der pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinde aus\u00fcbten, die Stadt zu verlassen, lassen keine gro\u00dfe Sorge um ein bevorstehendes Massaker erkennen. Manche sagen, die Briten h\u00e4tten damit ein Massaker an den arabischen Einwohnern von Tiberias verhindert, andere behaupten, sie h\u00e4tten mit den Vertreibern kollaboriert. In den folgenden Kapiteln des Urbizids in Pal\u00e4stina, als Haifa und Jaffa besetzt wurden, spielten die Briten eine wesentlich eindeutigere und negativere Rolle.\n\nDie Entarabisierung Haifas\n\nIn Haifa billigte und begr\u00fc\u00dfte die Beratergruppe, wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, Operationen nachtr\u00e4glich, auch wenn sie sie nicht unbedingt initiiert hatte. Die fr\u00fchzeitige Terrorisierung der arabischen Bev\u00f6lkerung im vorangegangenen Dezember hatte viele Angeh\u00f6rige der pal\u00e4stinensischen Oberschicht veranlasst, Haifa zu verlassen und in ihre H\u00e4user im Libanon und in \u00c4gypten zu ziehen, bis in der Stadt wieder Ruhe eingekehrt w\u00e4re. Es l\u00e4sst sich schwer sch\u00e4tzen, wie viele Pal\u00e4stinenser in diese Kategorie fallen: Die meisten Historiker veranschlagen ihre Zahl auf 15000 bis 20000.\n\nAm 12. Januar 1948 schickte Farid Sa'ad, der Leiter der Arab Bank in Haifa und Mitglied des \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees, ein verzweifeltes Telegramm an Dr. Husayn Khalidi, den Sekret\u00e4r des Arabischen Oberkomitees: \u00bbEs ist gut, dass die Juden die Wahrheit nicht kennen.\u00ab Die \u00bbWahrheit\u00ab war, dass die urbane Elite in Pal\u00e4stina nach einem Monat mit schwerem j\u00fcdischem Beschuss und Angriffen zusammengebrochen war. Aber die Juden wussten genau, was vorging. Der Beratergruppe war durchaus klar, dass die Reichen und Wohlhabenden das Land bereits im Dezember verlassen hatten, dass die arabischen Waffen nicht eintrafen und die arabischen Regierungen kaum mehr taten, als ihre flammende Kriegsrhetorik in alle Richtungen zu verbreiten, um ihre Unt\u00e4tigkeit und mangelnde Bereitschaft zu einer Intervention im Namen der Pal\u00e4stinenser zu kaschieren.\n\nDa die Wohlhabenden Haifa verlassen hatten, blieben 55000 bis 60000 Pal\u00e4stinenser in der Stadt f\u00fchrungslos zur\u00fcck und waren angesichts der relativ kleinen Zahl bewaffneter arabischer Freiwilliger den j\u00fcdischen Truppen im April 1948 auf Gedeih und Verderb ausgeliefert \u2013 und das trotz der Pr\u00e4senz britischer Truppen in der Stadt, die theoretisch f\u00fcr Sicherheit und Wohlergehen der Einheimischen verantwortlich waren.\n\nDiese Phase der j\u00fcdischen Operation in Haifa erhielt den omin\u00f6sen Namen _Misparayim_ , \u00bbSchere\u00ab, was zugleich auf eine Zangenbewegung wie auch auf das Abschneiden der Stadt von ihrem pal\u00e4stinensischen Hinterland hindeutete. Der UN-Teilungsplan hatte Haifa ebenso wie Tiberias dem j\u00fcdischen Staat zugesprochen: Den einzigen gr\u00f6\u00dferen Hafen des Landes j\u00fcdischer Kontrolle zu unterstellen war ein weiterer Ausdruck f\u00fcr den unfairen Handel, den der UN-Friedensvorschlag den Pal\u00e4stinensern anbot. Die Juden wollten zwar den Hafen der Stadt, nicht aber die 75000 Pal\u00e4stinenser, die dort lebten, und im April 1948 erreichten sie ihr Ziel.\n\nAls Haupthafen Pal\u00e4stinas war Haifa auch die letzte Station beim Abzug der Briten. Man hatte erwartet, dass sie bis August im Land bleiben w\u00fcrden, aber im Februar 1948 beschlossen sie, ihren Abzug auf Mai vorzuverlegen. Folglich waren ihre Truppen in gro\u00dfer Zahl pr\u00e4sent und besa\u00dfen nach wie vor die legale und \u2013 so lie\u00dfe sich vertreten \u2013 moralische Autorit\u00e4t, Recht und Ordnung in der Stadt durchzusetzen. Wie viele britische Politiker sp\u00e4ter zugaben, ist ihr Verhalten eines der besch\u00e4mendsten Kapitel in der Nahostgeschichte des British Empire. Die j\u00fcdische Terrorkampagne, die im Dezember begann, umfasste schweren Artilleriebeschuss, Heckensch\u00fctzenfeuer, B\u00e4che aus brennendem \u00d6l und Benzin, die sich die Bergh\u00e4nge hinunter in die Ortschaften ergossen, und detonierende Sprengstofff\u00e4sser; der Terror setzte sich \u00fcber die ersten Monate des Jahres 1948 fort, wurde aber Anfang April intensiviert. Am 18. April, dem Tag, an dem die Pal\u00e4stinenser von Tiberias in die Flucht getrieben wurden, rief Generalmajor Hugh Stockwell, der in Haifa stationierte britische Kommandeur des Nordsektors, die j\u00fcdischen Kommunalvertreter in sein B\u00fcro und teilte ihnen mit, dass die britischen Streitkr\u00e4fte in zwei Tagen von den Stellungen abgezogen w\u00fcrden, an denen sie als Puffer zwischen den beiden Gemeinden gedient hatten. Dieser \u00bbPuffer\u00ab war das einzige, was j\u00fcdische Truppen daran hinderte, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Stadtgebiete, wo noch immer mehr als 50000 Menschen lebten, direkt anzugreifen und einzunehmen. Nun war der Weg frei f\u00fcr die Entarabisierung Haifas.\n\nDiese Aufgabe wurde der Carmeli-Brigade \u00fcbertragen, einer der Spitzeneinheiten der j\u00fcdischen Armee (es gab Brigaden \u00bbgeringerer Qualit\u00e4t\u00ab wie die Qiryati-Brigade, die aus arabischen Juden bestand und nur zu Pl\u00fcnderungen oder weniger reizvollen \u00bbMissionen\u00ab eingesetzt wurde; die Einsch\u00e4tzung, dass die Qiryati-Brigade eine \u00bbgeringere menschliche Qualit\u00e4t\u00ab besa\u00df, findet sich in den israelischen Dokumenten). Den 2000 Leuten der Carmeli-Brigade stand eine schlecht ausger\u00fcstete Truppe von 500 \u00f6rtlichen und \u00fcberwiegend libanesischen Freiwilligen mit minderwertigen Waffen und begrenzter Munition gegen\u00fcber, die den Panzerfahrzeugen und Granatwerfern der j\u00fcdischen Seite sicher nichts entgegenzusetzen hatten.\n\nDer Abzug der britischen Barriere bedeutete, dass die Operation _Misparayim_ in die Operation _Bi'ur Hametz_ (\u00bbVerbrennen des Ges\u00e4uerten\u00ab) \u00fcbergehen konnte. Der hebr\u00e4ische Ausdruck steht f\u00fcr eine vollst\u00e4ndige S\u00e4uberung und bezieht sich auf die religi\u00f6se j\u00fcdische Praxis, am Vorabend des Pessachfestes das Haus von s\u00e4mtlichen Brot- und Mehlresten zu reinigen, da sie w\u00e4hrend der Feiertage verboten sind. Grausam passend begann die S\u00e4uberung Haifas von den Pal\u00e4stinensern, die das Mehl und Brot der Stadt ausmachten, am 21. April, dem Vorabend des Pessachfestes.\n\nStockwell, der britische Kommandeur, wusste von dem bevorstehenden j\u00fcdischen Angriff und bat am selben Tag die \u00bbpal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung\u00ab der Stadt zu einem Gespr\u00e4ch. Er traf sich mit vier ersch\u00f6pften M\u00e4nnern, die in dieser Stunde zu F\u00fchrern der arabischen Gemeinde wurden, obwohl sie durch ihre offizielle Position in keiner Weise auf den entscheidenden historischen Moment vorbereitet waren, der sich ihnen an diesem Morgen in Stockwells B\u00fcro er\u00f6ffnete. Die vorhergehende Korrespondenz zwischen ihnen und Stockwell zeigt, dass sie ihm als H\u00fcter von Recht und Ordnung in der Stadt vertrauten. Nun riet der britische Offizier ihnen, es sei besser f\u00fcr ihre Leute, die Stadt zu verlassen, in der sie und der gr\u00f6\u00dfte Teil ihrer Familien gelebt und gearbeitet hatten, seit Haifa Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts als moderne Stadt Bedeutung erlangt hatte. W\u00e4hrend sie Stockwell zuh\u00f6rten, schwand allm\u00e4hlich ihr Vertrauen in ihn und ihnen wurde klar, dass sie ihre Gemeinde nicht w\u00fcrden besch\u00fctzen k\u00f6nnen; also bereiteten sie sich auf das Schlimmste vor: Da die Briten sie nicht sch\u00fctzen w\u00fcrden, waren sie dazu verdammt, sich vertreiben zu lassen. Sie erkl\u00e4rten Stockwell, dass sie die Stadt organisiert verlassen wollten. Aber die Carmeli-Brigade sorgte daf\u00fcr, dass die R\u00e4umung unter Chaos und Gemetzel erfolgte.\n\nSchon auf dem Weg zu ihrem Treffen mit dem britischen Kommandeur hatten die vier M\u00e4nner geh\u00f6rt, wie die Juden die pal\u00e4stinensischen Frauen und Kinder \u00fcber Lautsprecher dr\u00e4ngten, zu gehen, bevor es zu sp\u00e4t sei. In anderen Teilen der Stadt schallten aus Lautsprechern genau gegenteilige Durchsagen des durch und durch anst\u00e4ndigen j\u00fcdischen B\u00fcrgermeisters der Stadt, Shabtai Levi, der die Menschen eindringlich bat zu bleiben und versprach, dass ihnen nichts geschehen w\u00fcrde. Aber nicht Levi, sondern Mordechai Maklef, der Operationschef der Carmeli-Brigade, hatte das Sagen. Maklef leitete die S\u00e4uberungsaktion und gab seiner Truppe klare, einfache Befehle: \u00bbT\u00f6tet jeden Araber, den ihr trefft, setzt alles Brennbare in Brand und sprengt die T\u00fcren auf.\u00ab Sp\u00e4ter wurde er Stabschef der israelischen Armee.\n\nAls sie diese Befehle prompt auf dem 1,5 Quadratkilometer gro\u00dfen Stadtgebiet von Haifa umsetzten, auf dem noch immer Tausende wehrloser Pal\u00e4stinenser lebten, verbreiteten sie so viel Angst und Schrecken, dass die Menschen massenhaft die Flucht ergriffen, ohne etwas mitzunehmen oder auch nur zu wissen, was sie taten. In Panik str\u00f6mten sie zum Hafen, wo sie ein Schiff oder Boot zu finden hofften, das sie aus der Stadt bringen w\u00fcrde. Sobald sie gefl\u00fcchtet waren, st\u00fcrmten und pl\u00fcnderten j\u00fcdische Truppen ihre H\u00e4user.\n\nEin paar Tage sp\u00e4ter besuchte Golda Meir, die damals bereits der zionistischen F\u00fchrung angeh\u00f6rte, Haifa und konnte anfangs ihr Entsetzen nur m\u00fchsam verbergen, als sie in H\u00e4user kam, wo noch das Essen auf dem Tisch stand, Kinder ihre Spielsachen und B\u00fccher auf dem Boden hatten liegen lassen und das Leben von einem Augenblick auf den n\u00e4chsten zum Stillstand gekommen war. Meirs Familie war nach Pogromen aus Russland in die Vereinigten Staaten geflohen, von dort war sie nach Pal\u00e4stina gekommen; was sie nun in Haifa sah, erinnerte sie an die schlimmsten Geschichten, die ihre Familie ihr \u00fcber die fr\u00fchere russische Brutalit\u00e4t gegen Juden erz\u00e4hlt hatte. Aber das hinterlie\u00df offenbar keinen bleibenden Eindruck bei ihr und \u00e4nderte nichts an der Entschlossenheit ihrer Kollegen, die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas fortzusetzen.\n\nIn den fr\u00fchen Morgenstunden des 22. April str\u00f6mten die Menschen zum Hafen. Da die Stra\u00dfen in diesem Teil der Stadt bereits voller Fl\u00fcchtlinge waren, bem\u00fchten sich die selbsternannten F\u00fchrer der arabischen Gemeinde, etwas Ordnung in das Chaos zu bringen. Lautsprecherdurchsagen forderten die Leute auf, sich auf dem alten Markt am Hafen zu sammeln und dort Schutz zu suchen, bis eine geordnete Evakuierung auf dem Seeweg organisiert werden k\u00f6nne. \u00bbDie Juden haben die Stanton Road besetzt und sind unterwegs\u00ab, pl\u00e4rrte es aus den Lautsprechern.\n\nDie Kriegschronik der Carmeli-Brigade, die ihre Kriegstaten nachzeichnet, l\u00e4sst kaum Reue \u00fcber die folgenden Ereignisse erkennen. Die Brigadeoffiziere, die wussten, dass man den Menschen geraten hatte, sich in Hafenn\u00e4he zu sammeln, befahlen ihren Leuten, auf den H\u00e4ngen oberhalb des Marktes und des Hafens \u2013 wo heute das Rothschild Hospital steht \u2013 Granatwerfer in Stellung zu bringen und die wachsende Menschenmenge unter Beschuss zu nehmen. Damit wollten sie sicherstellen, dass die Leute es sich nicht noch einmal anders \u00fcberlegten und nur in eine Richtung fl\u00fcchten konnten. Sobald die Pal\u00e4stinenser sich auf dem Markt gesammelt hatten \u2013 ein architektonisches Juwel aus osmanischer Zeit mit wei\u00dfen Vord\u00e4chern, das nach der Gr\u00fcndung des Staates Israel bis zur Unkenntlichkeit zerst\u00f6rt wurde \u2013, waren sie ein leichtes Ziel f\u00fcr die j\u00fcdischen Heckensch\u00fctzen.\n\nHaifas Markt lag keine hundert Meter vom damaligen Haupttor zum Hafen entfernt. Als der Granatbeschuss anfing, fl\u00fcchteten die Pal\u00e4stinenser in Panik nat\u00fcrlich in diese Richtung. Die Menge brach sich Bahn in den Hafen und dr\u00e4ngte die Polizisten beiseite, die das Tor bewachten. Unmengen von Menschen st\u00fcrmten die Boote, die dort vert\u00e4ut lagen, und fl\u00fcchteten aus der Stadt. Was dann geschah, schilderten einige \u00dcberlebende in ihren entsetzlichen Erinnerungen, die k\u00fcrzlich ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurden. Einer von ihnen berichtete:\n\nM\u00e4nner trampelten \u00fcber ihre Freunde, Frauen \u00fcber ihre eigenen Kinder. Die Schiffe im Hafen waren schnell voll von lebendiger Fracht. Sie waren furchtbar \u00fcberf\u00fcllt. Viele kenterten und sanken mit allen Passagieren.\n\nEs spielten sich so entsetzliche Szenen ab, dass die Berichte, die London erreichten, die britische Regierung zum Handeln veranlasste, da einigen Politikern wohl zum ersten Mal das Ausma\u00df der Katastrophe klar wurde, das ihre Unt\u00e4tigkeit in Pal\u00e4stina bewirkte. Der britische Au\u00dfenminister, Ernest Bevin, war emp\u00f6rt \u00fcber Stockwells Verhalten, aber Feldmarschall Montgomery, der Generalstabschef des British Empire und somit der Vorgesetzte Stockwells, verteidigte ihn. In einem letzten Schreiben, das B\u00e4nde spricht, wandten sich die pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrer Haifas an Stockwell:\n\nWir sind besorgt und zutiefst bek\u00fcmmert \u00fcber das mangelnde Mitgef\u00fchl seitens der britischen Beh\u00f6rden, den Verwundeten Hilfe zu leisten, obwohl sie darum ersucht wurden.\n\nSafad\n\nAls Haifa fiel, waren in Pal\u00e4stina nur noch wenige St\u00e4dte frei, unter ihnen Akko (Acre), Nazareth und Safad (Zefat). Der Kampf um Safad begann Mitte April und dauerte bis zum 1. Mai. Das lag nicht an hartn\u00e4ckigem Widerstand der Pal\u00e4stinenser oder der ALA-Freiwilligen, auch wenn sie sich hier st\u00e4rker zur Wehr setzten als andernorts. Vielmehr richtete sich die j\u00fcdische Offensive aus taktischen Erw\u00e4gungen zun\u00e4chst auf das l\u00e4ndliche Hinterland von Safad und erst anschlie\u00dfend auf die Stadt selbst.\n\nIn Safad lebten 9500 Araber und 2400 Juden, die \u00fcberwiegend ultraorthodox waren und keinerlei Interesse am Zionismus, geschweige denn am Kampf gegen ihre arabischen Nachbarn hatten. Das und die Tatsache, dass die j\u00fcdische Einnahme des Ortes sich relativ allm\u00e4hlich entwickelte, mag den elf Mitgliedern des \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees die Illusion vermittelt haben, es w\u00fcrde ihnen besser ergehen als anderen St\u00e4dten. Das Komitee war ein recht repr\u00e4sentatives Gremium aus \u00f6rtlichen Notabeln, Ulama (religi\u00f6sen W\u00fcrdentr\u00e4gern), Kaufleuten, Grundbesitzern und Exaktivisten der Revolte von 1936, in der Safad ein wichtiges Zentrum dargestellt hatte. Zu diesem falschen Gef\u00fchl der Sicherheit trug auch die relativ starke Pr\u00e4senz arabischer Freiwilliger in Safad bei, deren Gesamtzahl sich auf \u00fcber 400 belief, auch wenn nur die H\u00e4lfte von ihnen mit Gewehren ausger\u00fcstet war. Anfang Januar hatte es bereits erste Scharm\u00fctzel in der Stadt gegeben, als einige Hagana-Mitglieder bei einem aggressiven Aufkl\u00e4rungseinsatz in die pal\u00e4stinensischen Viertel und den Markt eingedrungen waren. Ein charismatischer syrischer Offizier namens Ihasn Qam Ulmaz hielt die Stellung gegen wiederholte Angriffe der Hagana-Sturmtruppe Palmach.\n\nZun\u00e4chst waren die Palmach-Angriffe nur sporadisch und ineffektiv, da ihre Einheiten ihre Aktionen vor allem gegen das l\u00e4ndliche Umland der Stadt richteten. Sobald sie aber die D\u00f6rfer in der Umgebung Safads eingenommen hatten (dazu mehr weiter unten in diesem Kapitel), konnten sie sich am 29. April 1948 voll und ganz auf die Stadt konzentrieren. Ausgerechnet in dem Moment, als die Einwohner von Safad den f\u00e4higen Ulmaz am n\u00f6tigsten brauchten, verloren sie ihn. Der neue Kommandeur der Freiwilligenarmee in Galil\u00e4a, Adib Shishakly (der in den 1950er Jahren zu einem der Herrscher Syriens aufstieg) ersetzte ihn durch einen inkompetenten ALA-Offizier. Es ist allerdings zweifelhaft, ob Ulmaz sich angesichts des ungleichen Kr\u00e4fteverh\u00e4ltnisses besser geschlagen h\u00e4tte: 1000 gut ausgebildeten Palmach-Soldaten standen 400 arabische Freiwillige gegen\u00fcber \u2013 ein lokales Ungleichgewicht unter vielen, die den Mythos widerlegen, 1948 habe ein j\u00fcdischer David einem arabischen Goliath gegen\u00fcbergestanden.\n\nDie Palmach-Truppen vertrieben die meisten arabischen Einwohner aus der Stadt und erlaubten nur 100 alten Leuten zu bleiben, allerdings nicht lange. Am 7. Juni notierte Ben Gurion trocken in seinem Tagebuch: \u00bbAbraham Hanuki vom [Kibbuz] Ayelet Hashahar sagte mir, da nur noch 100 alte Leute in Safad verblieben waren, seien sie in den Libanon vertrieben worden.\u00ab\n\nDie Geisterstadt Jerusalem\n\nDer Urbizid ging nicht an Jerusalem vor\u00fcber, das sich sehr bald von der \u00bbEwigen Stadt\u00ab in eine \u00bbGeisterstadt\u00ab verwandelte, wie Salim Tamari es k\u00fcrzlich in seinem Buch nannte. Im April 1948 nahmen j\u00fcdische Truppen die westlichen arabischen Stadtviertel mit M\u00f6rsern unter Beschuss, griffen sie an und besetzten sie. Einige der wohlhabenderen pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohner dieser besseren Wohngegenden hatten die Stadt bereits Wochen zuvor verlassen. Die \u00fcbrigen wurden aus ihren H\u00e4usern vertrieben, die noch heute von der architektonischen Sch\u00f6nheit der Viertel zeugen, die die pal\u00e4stinensische Oberschicht Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts vor den Mauern der Altstadt zu bauen begonnen hatte. Einige dieser Meisterwerke sind in den letzten Jahren verschwunden: Die Verquickung von Immobilienboom, exzentrischem architektonischem Ehrgeiz und der Gier von Bauunternehmern verwandelten diese vornehmen Wohnviertel in Stra\u00dfenz\u00fcge voller monstr\u00f6ser Villen und extravaganter Pal\u00e4ste reicher amerikanischer Juden, die es im Alter scharenweise in die Stadt zieht.\n\nDie britischen Truppen waren noch in Pal\u00e4stina, als diese Stadtteile ger\u00e4umt und besetzt wurden, aber sie blieben zur\u00fcckhaltend und griffen nicht ein. Nur in Shaykh Jarrah \u2013 dem ersten pal\u00e4stinensischen Viertel, das au\u00dferhalb der Altstadtmauern erbaut wurde und wo die Familien der f\u00fchrenden Notabeln wie die Husaynis, die Nashashibis und die Khalidis wohnten \u2013 beschloss ein \u00f6rtlicher britischer Kommandeur, einzuschreiten.\n\nDie j\u00fcdischen Truppen hatten im April 1948 klare Befehle: \u00bbDas Viertel besetzen und alle H\u00e4user zerst\u00f6ren.\u00ab Der Angriff begann am 24. April 1948, wurde aber von den Briten gestoppt, bevor das Viertel vollst\u00e4ndig ger\u00e4umt werden konnte. \u00dcber die Vorg\u00e4nge in Shaykh Jarrah liegen beredte Zeugnisse vom Sekret\u00e4r des Arabischen Oberkomitees, Dr. Husayn Khalidi, vor, der dort wohnte: Viele seiner verzweifelten Telegramme an den Mufti wurden vom israelischen Geheimdienst abgefangen und befinden sich in den israelischen Archiven. Nach Khalidis Berichten retteten die Truppen des britischen Kommandeurs das Viertel mit Ausnahme der 20 H\u00e4user, die die Hagana in die Luft jagen konnte. Der britische Konfrontationskurs hier zeigt, dass das Schicksal vieler Pal\u00e4stinenser v\u00f6llig anders ausgesehen h\u00e4tte, wenn britische Truppen auch an anderen Orten eingegriffen h\u00e4tten, wozu sie sowohl nach der Mandatscharta als auch nach der UN-Teilungsresolution verpflichtet waren.\n\nUnt\u00e4tigkeit der Briten war jedoch die Regel, wie Khalidis eindringliche Appelle in Hinblick auf die restlichen Stadtteile Jerusalems, besonders im Westen der Stadt, belegen. Diese Gebiete lagen ab dem 1. Januar immer wieder unter M\u00f6rserbeschuss, und anders als in Shaykh Jarrah spielten die Briten hier eine wahrhaft teuflische Rolle, als sie die wenigen pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohner, die Waffen besa\u00dfen, mit der Zusage entwaffneten, die Bev\u00f6lkerung vor j\u00fcdischen Angriffen zu sch\u00fctzen, dieses Versprechen aber sofort brachen.\n\nIn einem seiner Telegramme, das Dr. Khalidi Anfang Januar an al-Hajj Amin in Kairo schickte, berichtete er, nahezu t\u00e4glich demonstriere eine w\u00fctende Menschenmenge vor seinem Haus und fordere F\u00fchrung und Hilfe. \u00c4rzte aus der Menge h\u00e4tten Khalidi gesagt, die Krankenh\u00e4user seien \u00fcberf\u00fcllt mit Verletzten und ihnen gingen die Leichent\u00fccher f\u00fcr die Toten aus. Es herrsche v\u00f6llige Anarchie und die Menschen seien in Panik.\n\nAber es sollte noch schlimmer kommen. Ein paar Tage nach dem fehlgeschlagenen Angriff auf Shaykh Jarrah wurden die pal\u00e4stinensischen Stadtteile im Norden und Westen Jerusalems unter Dauerbeschuss der gleichen 76-mm-Granaten genommen, die auch in Haifa zum Einsatz gekommen waren. Nur Shuf 'at hielt stand und weigerte sich zu kapitulieren. Qatamon fiel in den letzten Apriltagen. Itzhak Levy, der Chef des Hagana-Geheimdienstes in Jerusalem, erinnerte sich: \u00bbW\u00e4hrend die S\u00e4uberung von Qatamon noch im Gang war, fingen Pl\u00fcnderung und Diebstahl an. Soldaten und Einwohner beteiligten sich daran. Sie brachen in die H\u00e4user ein und holten M\u00f6bel, Kleider, Elektroger\u00e4te und Lebensmittel heraus.\u00ab\n\nMit dem Eintritt der jordanischen Arabischen Legion in die K\u00e4mpfe \u00e4nderte sich das Bild, und die S\u00e4uberungsaktionen kamen Mitte Mai 1948 zum Stillstand. Schon vorher hatten sich einige Jordanier als Freiwillige an den K\u00e4mpfen beteiligt und mit ihrem Beitrag geholfen, den j\u00fcdischen Vormarsch zu verlangsamen, besonders bei der Einnahme von Qatamon, bei der es im Kloster San Simon zu heftigen K\u00e4mpfen mit j\u00fcdischen Truppen kam. Aber ihre \u2013 nach Schilderung von Levy und seinen Freunden \u2013 heldenhaften Versuche, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Stadtviertel im Westen zu verteidigen, scheiterten. Alles in allem wurden acht pal\u00e4stinensische Viertel und 39 D\u00f6rfer im Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem ethnisch ges\u00e4ubert und ihre Bev\u00f6lkerung in den Ostteil der Stadt vertrieben. Die D\u00f6rfer sind heute alle verschwunden, aber einige der sch\u00f6nsten H\u00e4user Jerusalems stehen noch und sind von j\u00fcdischen Familien bewohnt, die sie unmittelbar nach ihrer R\u00e4umung \u00fcbernahmen \u2013 stumme Zeugen des tragischen Schicksals, das ihre fr\u00fcheren Besitzer ereilte.\n\nAkko und Baysan\n\nDer Urbizid setzte sich Anfang Mai mit der Besetzung Akkos (Acre) an der K\u00fcste und Baysans (Bet She'an) im Osten fort. Akko bewies erneut, dass die Stadt nicht nur Napoleon ihre Eroberung schwer machen konnte: Obwohl sie v\u00f6llig \u00fcberf\u00fcllt war vom gewaltigen Fl\u00fcchtlingsstrom aus der Nachbarstadt Haifa, gelang es den j\u00fcdischen Truppen nicht, die Kreuzfahrerstadt mit t\u00e4glichem schwerem M\u00f6rserbeschuss in die Knie zu zwingen. Als Achillesverse erwies sich jedoch ihre anf\u00e4llige Wasserversorgung, die von den 10 Kilometer n\u00f6rdlich gelegenen Kabri-Quellen \u00fcber ein fast 200 Jahre altes Aqu\u00e4dukt f\u00fchrte. Offenbar wurde das Wasser w\u00e4hrend der Belagerung mit Typhuserregern infiziert. \u00d6rtliche Vertreter des Internationalen Roten Kreuzes, die diese Meldung an ihre Zentrale weitergaben, lie\u00dfen wenig Raum f\u00fcr Zweifel, wen sie in Verdacht hatten: die Hagana. Die Rote-Kreuz-Berichte schildern eine pl\u00f6tzliche Typhusepidemie und deuten selbst in ihren vorsichtigen Formulierungen eine Vergiftung von au\u00dfen als einzige Erkl\u00e4rung f\u00fcr diesen Ausbruch an.\n\nAm 6. Mai 1948 fand eine Dringlichkeitssitzung in Akkos Libanesischem Hospital statt, das dem Roten Kreuz geh\u00f6rte. Der Leiter des britischen Gesundheitsdienstes, Brigadekommandeur Beveridge, Oberst Bonnet von der britischen Armee, Dr. Maclean vom Gesundheitsdienst und der Rote-Kreuz-Delegierte in Pal\u00e4stina, de Meuron, kamen mit Vertretern der Stadt zusammen, um \u00fcber die 70 Todesopfer zu sprechen, die diese Epidemie bereits gefordert hatte. Sie kamen zu dem Schluss, dass die Infektion eindeutig vom Wasser herr\u00fchre, nicht von der \u00dcberbev\u00f6lkerung oder von unhygienischen Verh\u00e4ltnissen, wie die Hagana behauptete. Aufschlussreich war, dass sich auch 55 britische Soldaten infiziert hatten, die man daraufhin in das Krankenhaus von Port Said in \u00c4gypten verlegte. \u00bbSo etwas ist in Pal\u00e4stina noch nie vorgekommen\u00ab, erkl\u00e4rte Brigadekommandeur Beveridge dem Rot-Kreuz-Vertreter de Meuron. Sobald das Aqu\u00e4dukt als Infektionsquelle identifiziert war, stellte man die Wasserversorgung auf artesische Brunnen und Wasser von der landwirtschaftlichen Station n\u00f6rdlich von Akko um. Die Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die sich bereits in Lagern n\u00f6rdlich der Stadt befanden, wurden ebenfalls untersucht, um eine Ausbreitung der Epidemie zu verhindern.\n\nDie Typhusepidemie und der anhaltende Granatbeschuss schw\u00e4chten die Moral der Bev\u00f6lkerung schlie\u00dflich so weit, dass sie den Durchsagen Folge leistete, die sie \u00fcber Lautsprecher aufriefen: \u00bbErgebt euch oder begeht Selbstmord. Wir werden euch bis zum letzten Mann vernichten.\u00ab Nach Berichten eines franz\u00f6sischen UN-Beobachters, Leutnant Petite, kam es nach dem Fall der Stadt zu umfangreichen, systematischen Pl\u00fcnderungen durch die j\u00fcdische Armee, bei denen M\u00f6bel, Kleidung und alles mitgenommen wurde, was f\u00fcr neue j\u00fcdische Einwanderer n\u00fctzlich sein und die R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge erschweren konnte.\n\nEin \u00e4hnlicher Versuch, die Wasserversorgung in Gaza zu vergiften, wurde am 27. Mai verhindert. Die \u00c4gypter fassten zwei Juden, David Horin und David Mizrachi, bei dem Versuch, die Brunnen von Gaza mit Typhus- und Ruhrerregern zu verseuchen. General Yadin meldete den Vorfall Ben Gurion, der ihn kommentarlos in sein Tagebuch eintrug. Die beiden T\u00e4ter wurden sp\u00e4ter von den \u00c4gyptern hingerichtet, ohne dass Israel offiziell protestiert h\u00e4tte.\n\nIn den 1940er Jahren hatte Ben Gurion eine Abteilung geschaffen, die an der Entwicklung israelischer biologischer Waffen arbeitete und euphemistisch Wissenschaftscorps der Hagana hie\u00df. Neben den bereits erw\u00e4hnten Br\u00fcdern Katzir geh\u00f6rte ihr Ernest David Bergman an. Im Mai 1948 wurde Ephraim Katzir zum Direktor dieser Abteilung ernannt, die nun den Namen \u00bbHEMED\u00ab erhielt (die Abk\u00fcrzung f\u00fcr Hayl Mada, Wissenschaftscorps, bedeutet gleichzeitig s\u00fc\u00df). Es leistete zwar keine wesentlichen Beitr\u00e4ge zu den K\u00e4mpfen von 1948, aber bereits seine fr\u00fchen Arbeiten lie\u00dfen die unkonventionellen Bestrebungen erkennen, die der Staat Israel in Zukunft verfolgen sollte.\n\nEtwa gleichzeitig mit der Besetzung Akkos nahm die Golani-Brigade mit der Operation Gideon die Stadt Baysan ein. Wie in Safad besetzte sie zun\u00e4chst mehrere D\u00f6rfer in der n\u00e4heren Umgebung und r\u00fcckte dann auf die Stadt vor. Nachdem die j\u00fcdischen Truppen Haifa, Tiberias und Safad erfolgreich eingenommen hatten, waren sie selbstbewusst und h\u00f6chst effektiv. Da sie bereits Erfahrungen in Massenvertreibungen besa\u00dfen, versuchten sie in Baysan eine z\u00fcgige R\u00e4umung zu erzwingen, indem sie der Bev\u00f6lkerung ein Ultimatum stellten, ihre H\u00e4user innerhalb von zehn Stunden zu verlassen. Das Ultimatum wurde den \u00bbStadtnotabeln\u00ab \u00fcbermittelt, n\u00e4mlich einer Fraktion des \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees. Diese Notabeln lehnten es ab, versuchten in aller Eile Lebensmittelvorr\u00e4te f\u00fcr eine lange Belagerung anzulegen und organisierten einige Waffen, vor allem zwei von Freiwilligen mitgebrachte Kanonen, um den drohenden Angriff abzuwehren. Nahum Spigel, der Kommandeur der Golani-Brigade, wollte in einer schnellen Offensive auch einige Kriegsgefangene machen, um sie gegen j\u00fcdische Gefangene auszutauschen, die die jordanischen Truppen vorher bei ihrem erfolgreichen Angriff auf das j\u00fcdische Viertel der Jerusalemer Altstadt und auf die zionistische Siedlung Gush Etzion gemacht hatten. Tats\u00e4chlich hatte die Arabische Legion die Gush-Etzion-Siedler aus den H\u00e4nden aufgebrachter pal\u00e4stinensischer Freisch\u00e4rler gerettet, die die abgelegene j\u00fcdische Kolonie und ihren Hilfskonvoi \u00fcberfallen hatten. (Heute ist Gush Etzion eine gro\u00dfe j\u00fcdische Siedlung im Westjordanland.) Diese Siedler und die Einwohner des alten j\u00fcdischen Viertels von Jerusalem geh\u00f6rten zu den wenigen j\u00fcdischen Kriegsgefangenen in diesem Krieg. Sie wurden ordentlich behandelt und kurze Zeit sp\u00e4ter freigelassen, im Gegensatz zu den Tausenden Pal\u00e4stinensern, die nun v\u00f6lkerrechtlich B\u00fcrger des Staates Israel waren, aber nach ihrer Gefangennahme in Verschl\u00e4gen eingepfercht wurden.\n\nNach tagelangem Artilleriebeschuss und Bombardements aus der Luft beschloss das Ortskomitee von Baysan zu kapitulieren. Es bestand aus dem Kadi, dem \u00f6rtlichen Imam, dem Ortsvorsteher und dem reichsten Kaufmann der Stadt. Sie trafen sich mit Palti Sela und seinen Kollegen, um \u00fcber die Kapitulationsbedingungen zu verhandeln (vor dem Treffen baten sie um Erlaubnis, nach Nablus zu fahren, um die Kapitulation zu besprechen, aber sie wurde ihnen verweigert). Am 11. Mai ging die Stadt in j\u00fcdische Hand \u00fcber. Palti Sela erinnerte sich besonders an die beiden j\u00e4mmerlichen alten Artilleriegesch\u00fctze, die Baysan hatten sch\u00fctzen sollen: zwei franz\u00f6sische Flugabwehrkanonen aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg; ihre Antiquiertheit war bezeichnend f\u00fcr den Zustand der Waffen, die die Pal\u00e4stinenser und die Freiwilligen kurz vor dem Einmarsch der regul\u00e4ren arabischen Armeen nach Pal\u00e4stina besa\u00dfen.\n\nGleich danach konnten Palti Sela und seine Kollegen die \u00bbgeordnete Ausweisung\u00ab der Einwohner beaufsichtigen. Manche wurden nach Nazareth gebracht \u2013 das im Mai noch eine freie pal\u00e4stinensische Stadt war, wenn auch nicht mehr lange \u2013, manche nach Jenin, aber die Mehrheit trieb man ans andere Ufer des nahen Jordan. Augenzeugen erinnerten sich an Scharen von Menschen aus Baysan, die besonders panisch und eingesch\u00fcchtert in Richtung Jordan und von dort in provisorische Lager im Inland hasteten. Aber als die j\u00fcdischen Truppen sp\u00e4ter mit anderen Operationen besch\u00e4ftigt waren, gelang einer ganzen Reihe von ihnen die R\u00fcckkehr; da Baysan nah dem Westjordanland und am Jordan liegt, war es relativ leicht, sich unbemerkt zur\u00fcckzuschleichen. Sie schafften es, bis Mitte Juni in der Stadt zu bleiben, doch dann lud die israelische Armee sie mit Waffengewalt auf Lastwagen und schaffte sie wieder \u00fcber den Fluss.\n\nJaffa\n\nAls letzte Stadt wurde Jaffa am 13. Mai 1948, zwei Tage vor Beendigung des Mandats, eingenommen. Wie in vielen St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas reichte ihre Geschichte zur\u00fcck bis in die Bronzezeit und umfasste ein imposantes r\u00f6misches und byzantinisches Erbe. Der muslimische Feldherr Umar Ibn al-'Aas hatte die Stadt 632 erobert und ihr ihren arabischen Charakter verliehen. Im Bezirk Gro\u00dfjaffa gab es 24 D\u00f6rfer und 17 Moscheen; heute existiert nur noch eine Moschee, aber kein einziges dieser D\u00f6rfer.\n\nAm 13. Mai griffen Irgun- und Hagana-Truppen mit 5000 Mann die Stadt an, w\u00e4hrend arabische Freiwillige unter der F\u00fchrung von Michael al-Issa, einem einheimischen Christen, sie verteidigten. Zu ihnen geh\u00f6rten eine ungew\u00f6hnliche Einheit von 50 Muslimen aus Bosnien sowie Mitglieder der zweiten Generation von Templern, deutschen Siedlern, die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts als Missionare gekommen waren und nun ihre Kolonien zu verteidigen versuchten (andere Templer in Galil\u00e4a ergaben sich kampflos und wurden aus ihren zwei h\u00fcbschen Siedlungen westlich von Nazareth, Waldheim und Beit Lehem, vertrieben).\n\nAlles in allem besa\u00df Jaffa die st\u00e4rksten Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte, \u00fcber die Pal\u00e4stinenser in irgendeinem Ort des Landes verf\u00fcgten: insgesamt 1500 Freiwillige standen 5000 j\u00fcdischen Soldaten gegen\u00fcber. Drei Wochen hielten sie der Belagerung und dem Angriff stand, der Mitte April begann und Mitte Mai endete. Als Jaffa fiel, wurden die gesamten 50000 Einwohner mit britischer \u00bbVermittlung\u00ab vertrieben, was bedeutete, dass ihre Flucht sich weniger chaotisch gestaltete als in Haifa. Dennoch kam es zu Szenen, die an die grauenhaften Vorf\u00e4lle im Nordhafen von Haifa erinnerten: Menschen wurden buchst\u00e4blich ins Meer gesto\u00dfen, als die Menge sich an Bord der viel zu kleinen Fischerboote dr\u00e4ngte, die sie nach Gaza bringen sollten, w\u00e4hrend j\u00fcdische Truppen \u00fcber ihre K\u00f6pfe hinweg schossen, um ihre Vertreibung zu beschleunigen.\n\nMit dem Fall Jaffas hatten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen alle gr\u00f6\u00dferen St\u00e4dte und Gemeinden Pal\u00e4stinas besetzt, ger\u00e4umt und entv\u00f6lkert. Die \u00fcberwiegende Mehrheit ihrer Einwohner \u2013 aller Schichten, Religionszugeh\u00f6rigkeiten und Berufe \u2013 sahen ihre Heimatst\u00e4dte nie wieder; die st\u00e4rker Politisierten unter ihnen sollten jedoch eine pr\u00e4gende Rolle beim Wiederaufleben der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nationalbewegung in Form der PLO spielen und in erster Linie ihr R\u00fcckkehrrecht einfordern.\n\nWeitere ethnische S\u00e4uberungen\n\nEnde M\u00e4rz 1948 hatten die j\u00fcdischen Operationen das l\u00e4ndliche Hinterland von Jaffa und Tel Aviv bereits gro\u00dfenteils zerst\u00f6rt. Offenbar gab es eine Arbeitsteilung zwischen Hagana und Irgun. W\u00e4hrend die Hagana planm\u00e4\u00dfig und geordnet von einem Ort zum n\u00e4chsten vorr\u00fcckte, lie\u00df man bei der Irgun sporadische Aktionen gegen D\u00f6rfer zu, die nicht auf der Liste standen. So kam die Irgun am 30. Mai nach Shaykh Muwannis (heute Munis) und vertrieb die Einwohner gewaltsam. Heute befindet sich \u00fcber den Ruinen dieses Dorfes der elegante Campus der Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv, und eines der wenigen verbliebenen H\u00e4user des Ortes beherbergt den Fakult\u00e4tsclub.\n\nH\u00e4tte es zwischen Hagana und Irgun nicht dieses stillschweigende Einverst\u00e4ndnis gegeben, w\u00e4re Shaykh Muwannis vielleicht verschont geblieben. Die Dorfvertreter hatten sich ernstlich bem\u00fcht, ein gutes Verh\u00e4ltnis zur Hagana zu pflegen, um ihre Vertreibung zu verhindern, aber die \u00bbArabisten\u00ab, die das Nichtangriffsabkommen mit ihnen geschlossen hatten, waren an dem Tag nirgendwo aufzutreiben, als die Irgun auftauchte und das gesamte Dorf r\u00e4umte.\n\nIm April waren die Operationen in den l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten enger mit dem Urbizid verkn\u00fcpft. D\u00f6rfer in der n\u00e4heren Umgebung von St\u00e4dten wurden eingenommen und die Einwohner vertrieben, wobei es manchmal im Rahmen einer Terrorkampagne zu Massakern kam, um den Boden f\u00fcr eine erfolgreiche Einnahme der St\u00e4dte zu bereiten.\n\nDie Beratergruppe kam am Mittwoch, dem 7. April 1948, wieder zusammen und beschloss, s\u00e4mtliche D\u00f6rfer an den Stra\u00dfen von Tel Aviv nach Haifa, von Jenin nach Haifa und von Jerusalem nach Jaffa zu zerst\u00f6ren und die Einwohner zu vertreiben. Au\u00dfer einer verschwindend kleinen Zahl von D\u00f6rfern blieben letzten Endes keine Ortschaften verschont.\n\nNachdem die Irgun Shaykh Muwannis ausradiert hatte, besetzte die Hagana im gleichen Gebiet sechs D\u00f6rfer innerhalb einer Woche: als erstes Khirbat Azzun am 2. April, gefolgt von Khirbat Lid, Arab al-Fuqara, Arab al-Nufay'at und Damira, die alle bis zum 10. April und Cherqis am 15. April ger\u00e4umt waren. Bis Ende April wurden noch drei weitere D\u00f6rfer im Umland von Jaffa und Tel Aviv eingenommen und zerst\u00f6rt: Khirbat al-Manshiyya, Biyar 'Adas und der gro\u00dfe Ort Miska.\n\nAlles das geschah, bevor auch nur ein einziger regul\u00e4rer arabischer Soldat Pal\u00e4stina betreten hatte. Von nun an entwickelten sich die Ereignisse so rasant, dass zeitgen\u00f6ssische wie auch sp\u00e4tere Historiker M\u00fche hatten, zu folgen. Zwischen dem 30. M\u00e4rz und dem 15. Mai wurden 200 Ortschaften besetzt und ihre Einwohner vertrieben. Diese Tatsache ist noch einmal hervorzuheben, da sie den israelischen Mythos ersch\u00fcttert, die \u00bbAraber\u00ab seien gefl\u00fcchtet, nachdem die \u00bbarabische Invasion\u00ab begonnen habe. Die Angriffe auf beinahe die H\u00e4lfte der arabischen D\u00f6rfer waren bereits erfolgt, als die arabischen Regierungen schlie\u00dflich widerstrebend, wie wir wissen, beschlossen, ihre Truppen zu entsenden. Weitere 90 D\u00f6rfer sollten zwischen dem 15. Mai und dem 11. Juni ausradiert werden, als die erste der beiden Waffenruhen in Kraft trat.\n\nAugenzeugen auf j\u00fcdischer Seite erinnerten sich, dass sie im April durchg\u00e4ngig den Eindruck hatten, die Armee k\u00f6nne mehr anstreben. In einem Interview, das Palti Sela k\u00fcrzlich beamteten Historikern gab und das sich in den Hagana-Archiven in Tel Aviv befindet, beschreibt er in schillernden Farben diese Atmosph\u00e4re fanatischen Eifers. Palti Sela geh\u00f6rte den j\u00fcdischen Truppen an, die Baysan besetzt und ger\u00e4umt hatten und den Befehl erhielten, die gro\u00dfen Beduinenst\u00e4mme zu vertreiben, die seit Jahrhunderten saisonal in diesem Gebiet lebten. Sp\u00e4ter erkl\u00e4rte er:\n\nNachdem wir das Gebiet von den Beduinenst\u00e4mmen ges\u00e4ubert hatten, schw\u00e4rten im Furunkel Baysan immer noch zwei D\u00f6rfer, Faruna und Samariyya. Sie hatten anscheinend keine Angst und bestellten weiter ihre Felder und benutzten die Stra\u00dfen.\n\nEines der vielen D\u00f6rfer, die bei diesen Angriffen im Osten des Landes eingenommen wurden, war Sirin. Seine Geschichte steht beispielhaft f\u00fcr das Schicksal unz\u00e4hliger Orte, die j\u00fcdische Truppen im Gebiet Marj Ibn Amir und im Baysan-Tal entv\u00f6lkerten, wo man heute vergeblich nach Spuren des pal\u00e4stinensischen Lebens sucht, das einst hier bl\u00fchte.\n\nDas Dorf Sirin\n\nSirin wurde am 12. Mai 1948 besetzt. Es lag in der N\u00e4he von Baysan auf Jiftiliq-L\u00e4ndereien: Historisch geh\u00f6rten diese Landg\u00fcter, auch \u00bbMudawar\u00ab-Land genannt, nominell dem osmanischen Sultan, wurden aber von pal\u00e4stinensischen Bauern bestellt. Das florierende Dorf Sirin war rund um das Grab (Maqam) eines muslimischen Heiligen namens Shaykh Ibn Sirin gewachsen. Raue Landschaft und unertr\u00e4glich hei\u00dfe Sommer pr\u00e4gen diesen teil Pal\u00e4stinas. Dennoch \u00e4hnelte die Siedlung, die um das Grabmal und die drei Kilometer entfernten Quellen entstanden war, D\u00f6rfern, die wesentlich g\u00fcnstigeres Klima und einen unersch\u00f6pflichen Trinkwasservorrat besa\u00dfen. Mit dem Wasser, das Tiere von den Brunnen heranschafften, verwandelten die flei\u00dfigen Bauern die wilde Gegend in einen kleinen Garten Eden. Der Ort war abgeschieden, da er nicht mit dem Wagen zu erreichen war, aber Fremden, die hierher kamen, fiel vor allem die besondere Bauweise der H\u00e4user auf: Sie waren aus schwarzem Vulkangestein und Lehm gebaut und mit einem Geflecht aus Holz und Bambus gedeckt.\n\nSirin galt als gutes Beispiel f\u00fcr das Kollektivsystem der Landbearbeitung, an dem die Dorfbewohner seit osmanischer Zeit festhielten und das sowohl die Kapitalisierung der heimischen Landwirtschaft als auch das zionistische Streben nach Land \u00fcberdauert hatte. Das Dorf besa\u00df drei \u00fcppige Bustans (Obstg\u00e4rten) und Olivenhaine, die sich \u00fcber 9000 (von insgesamt 17000) Dunam Ackerfl\u00e4che erstreckten. Das Land war Eigentum der gesamten Dorfgemeinschaft, und jede Familie erhielt je nach Gr\u00f6\u00dfe einen Anteil an Feldern und Ernteertr\u00e4gen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem besa\u00df Sirin gute Beziehungen. Der Hauptfamilie, den Zu'bi, hatte die Jewish Agency Immunit\u00e4t zugesichert, weil sie zu einem kollaborativen Clan geh\u00f6rte. Der Muchtar, Mubarak al-Haj al-Zu'bi, war ein gebildeter junger Mann mit guten Verbindungen zu den Oppositionsparteien und ein Freund des j\u00fcdischen B\u00fcrgermeisters von Haifa, Shabtai Levi, den er aus der Zeit kannte, als beide f\u00fcr Baron Rothschilds Gesellschaft gearbeitet hatten. Er war sicher, dass den 700 Einwohnern seines Dorfes das Schicksal der umliegenden Ortschaften erspart bleiben w\u00fcrde. Aber es gab noch einen anderen Clan im Dorf, den Hamulla Abu al-Hija, der st\u00e4rker dem Ex-Mufti al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni und seiner Nationalpartei verbunden war. Laut Dorfdossier der Hagana von 1943 entschied die Anwesenheit dieses Clans \u00fcber das Schicksal des Dorfes. In dem Dossier hie\u00df es, in Sirin h\u00e4tten sich zehn Angeh\u00f6rige der Familie Abu al-Hija an der Revolte von 1939 beteiligt, \u00bbkeiner von ihnen wurde verhaftet oder get\u00f6tet und sie behielten ihre zehn Gewehre\u00ab.\n\nVon Zeit zu Zeit hatte das Dorf unter der Animosit\u00e4t zwischen den beiden Hauptclans zu leiden, aber wie \u00fcberall in Pal\u00e4stina besserte sich die Lage nach der \u00bbGro\u00dfen Revolte\u00ab, und gegen Ende der Mandatszeit hatte die Gemeinde die Kluft \u00fcberwunden, die sie in den rebellischen 1930er Jahren gespalten hatte.\n\nSirins Muchtar hoffte, dass die Immunit\u00e4t des Dorfes auch durch die Anwesenheit eines kleinen christlichen Clans gesichert w\u00e4re, der exzellente Beziehungen zu den \u00fcbrigen Einwohnern hatte. Einer von ihnen war der Dorflehrer, der in seiner Schule mit 40 Kindern die n\u00e4chste Generation ohne Vorurteile und politische oder famili\u00e4re Einseitigkeit unterrichtete. Sein bester Freund war Shaykh Muhammad al-Mustafa, der Imam der \u00f6rtlichen Moschee und H\u00fcter der christlichen Kirche und des Klosters im Dorf.\n\nInnerhalb weniger Stunden wurde dieser Mikrokosmos religi\u00f6ser Koexistenz und Harmonie verw\u00fcstet. Die Einwohner des Dorfes leisteten keinen Widerstand. Die j\u00fcdischen Truppen trieben die Muslims \u2013 beider Clans \u2013 und die Christen zusammen und befahlen ihnen, sich auf den Weg auf die andere Seite des Jordans zu machen. Dann zerst\u00f6rten sie die Moschee, die Kirche, das Kloster und s\u00e4mtliche H\u00e4user. Es dauerte nicht lange, bis alle B\u00e4ume in den Obstg\u00e4rten verwelkt und verdorrt waren.\n\nHeute umgibt eine Kaktushecke die Tr\u00fcmmer von Sirin. Juden gelang es nie, an den Erfolg der pal\u00e4stinensischen Dorfbewohner anzukn\u00fcpfen und den kargen Boden des Tals zu bewirtschaften, aber die nahen Quellen gibt es immer noch \u2013 ein gespenstischer Anblick, da niemand sie mehr nutzt.\n\nDie Arabische Befreiungsarmee in der Ebene Marj Ibn Amir\n\nWestlich von Sirin in der Marj Ibn Amir (Jesreel-Ebene) bem\u00fchte Fawzi al-Qawqji sich nach Kr\u00e4ften, die j\u00fcdische Eroberung einzud\u00e4mmen, und griff mehrmals erfolglos Mishmar Ha-Emek, den gr\u00f6\u00dften j\u00fcdischen Kibbuz der Region, an. Beim Beschuss des Kibbuz mit der einzigen Kanone, die ihm zur Verf\u00fcgung stand, t\u00f6tete ein Treffer drei Kinder. Diese schreckliche Trag\u00f6die ist der einzige feindliche Zwischenfall, der in den offiziellen israelischen Geschichtsb\u00fcchern jemals f\u00fcr diese Region erw\u00e4hnt ist.\n\nDie umliegenden D\u00f6rfer trugen nicht viel zu den Bem\u00fchungen der ALA bei, gute Nachrichten von der Front an die Arabische Liga zu melden, die sie entsandt hatte. Viele dieser Orte hatten Nichtangriffspakte mit den Kibbuzim der Umgebung geschlossen. Aber als der ALA-Angriff auf Mishmar Ha-Emek Rachegef\u00fchle bei den Kibbuzniks sch\u00fcrte, waren die D\u00f6rfer nicht mehr immun gegen die wachsende Aggression im Tal. Die Kibbuzniks dr\u00e4ngten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen, die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen fortzusetzen, die sie im Osten der Region begonnen hatten. Viele Kibbuzim in diesem Teil Galil\u00e4as geh\u00f6rten der zionistischen sozialistischen Partei Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir, deren Mitglieder zum Teil eine menschlichere Haltung zu vertreten suchten. Als sich im Juli einige prominente Mapam-Mitglieder bei Ben Gurion \u00fcber eine, ihrer Ansicht nach, \u00bbunn\u00f6tige\u00ab Ausweitung der S\u00e4uberungsoperation beklagten, erinnerte er die skrupelhaften Kibbuzniks kurzerhand daran, dass sie selbst erfreut reagiert hatten, als im April die erste Phase in dieser Region eingeleitet wurde. F\u00fcr einen zionistischen Juden kam 1948 nur eins in Frage: die Entarabisierung Pal\u00e4stinas voll und ganz zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nAl-Qawqjis Angriff auf den Kibbuz Mishmar Ha-Emek am 4. April war eine direkte Reaktion auf die j\u00fcdischen Massenvertreibungen, die um den 15. M\u00e4rz begonnen hatten. Die ersten D\u00f6rfer, die an diesem Tag ausradiert wurden, waren Ghubayya al-Tahta und Ghubayya al-Fawqa mit jeweils \u00fcber 1000 Einwohnern. Am selben Tag kam das kleinere Dorf Khirbat al-Ras an die Reihe. Auch hier verlief die Besetzung nach dem bekannten Muster ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen: Vertreibung der Einwohner und Zerst\u00f6rung ihrer H\u00e4user.\n\nNach dem Zwischenfall in Mishmar Ha-Emek traf es noch gr\u00f6\u00dfere Orte: Abu Shusha, Kafrayn, Abu Zurayq, Mansi und Naghnaghiyya. Die Stra\u00dfen \u00f6stlich von Jenin f\u00fcllten sich mit Tausenden von Pal\u00e4stinensern, die die j\u00fcdischen Truppen unweit der Gegend, in der die Bastion des zionistischen Sozialismus ihre Kibbuzim hatte, vertrieben. Der kleine Weiler Wadi Ara mit 250 Einwohnern war der letzte, der im April zerst\u00f6rt wurde.\n\nAuch hier hatte die Irgun ihren Anteil an der fortgesetzten Verw\u00fcstung des l\u00e4ndlichen Pal\u00e4stina. Noch w\u00e4hrend die britischen Mandatstruppen dort waren, vollendeten sie den rachs\u00fcchtigen Angriff auf die verbliebenen D\u00f6rfer in der Marj Ibn Amir: Sabbarin, Sindiyana, Barieka, Khubbeiza und Umm al-Sauf. Manche Einwohner dieser D\u00f6rfer flohen unter schwerem M\u00f6rserfeuer der angreifenden Truppen, andere schwenkten zum Zeichen ihrer Kapitulation wei\u00dfe Fahnen und wurden auf der Stelle fortgeschafft. In Sabbarin, wo die Irgun-Trupps auf einen gewissen bewaffneten Widerstand stie\u00dfen, pferchten sie zur Strafe Frauen, alte M\u00e4nner und Kinder f\u00fcr mehrere Tage hinter Stacheldraht ein \u2013 ganz \u00e4hnlich den K\u00e4figen, in denen heute Pal\u00e4stinenser stundenlang an Kontrollstellen im Westjordanland festgehalten werden, wenn sie nicht die richtigen Papiere vorweisen k\u00f6nnen. Die j\u00fcdischen Truppen exekutierten an Ort und Stelle sieben junge Pal\u00e4stinenser, bei denen Waffen gefunden wurden, und vertrieben die \u00fcbrigen Einwohner nach Umm al-Fahm, das damals noch nicht in j\u00fcdischer Hand war.\n\nJede Phase oder Operation in den verschiedenen Regionen brachte neue Verhaltensmuster hervor, die sp\u00e4ter von den \u00fcbrigen Truppen \u00fcbernommen wurden. Ein paar Tage nach der Besetzung von Kafrayn und der Vertreibung der Einwohner trainierte die Armee an dem nun menschenleeren Dorf ihre F\u00e4higkeiten und machte es dem Erdboden gleich. Solche Man\u00f6ver fanden auch nach Ende des Krieges von 1948 bis weit in die 1950er Jahre immer wieder statt.\n\nDie Operation im Hinterland von Safad war bereits weniger von Wut als von effizienter Planung motiviert und hatte den unheilvollen Decknamen _Matateh_ , \u00bbBesen\u00ab, erhalten. Sie begann mit der R\u00e4umung der D\u00f6rfer an der Landstra\u00dfe von Tiberias nach Safad. Als erstes verschwand der Ort Ghuwayr. Nach dem Fall von Tiberias war dem Muchtar sofort klar, was seinem Dorf bevorstand, da es am dichtesten an der Stadt lag. Er bat Adib Shishakly, den Kommandeur der ALA-Freiwilligen, um Hilfe und schlug vor, Waffen an die Einwohner zu verteilen, aber Shishakly lehnte ab. Die Nachricht demoralisierte die Bev\u00f6lkerung des Ortes, und Frauen und Kinder machten sich auf die Flucht nach Rama, das auf der anderen Seite des galil\u00e4ischen Berglands an der Stra\u00dfe nach Akko lag. Der Muchtar rekrutierte 50 Bauern, die, bewaffnet mit ihren _hartooush_ (alten Jagdgewehren aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg), den j\u00fcdischen Angriff erwarteten. Am 22. April schickten die Juden, wie sie es sich zur Gewohnheit machen sollten, zun\u00e4chst eine Abordnung mit dem Vorschlag, die M\u00e4nner kampflos kollektiv zu evakuieren. In diesem Fall handelte es sich jedoch um eine ungew\u00f6hnliche Delegation: Sie bestand aus Leuten, die bis dahin freundschaftliche Verbindungen zum Dorf gepflegt hatten, und sp\u00e4ter erinnerten sich die Pal\u00e4stinenser, die bei dem Gespr\u00e4ch anwesend waren, noch an ihren bedauernden Ton, als sie ihnen erkl\u00e4rten, dass s\u00e4mtliche D\u00f6rfer an der Stra\u00dfe von Tiberias nach Safad ger\u00e4umt werden sollten. Der Muchtar verriet nicht, dass das Dorf bereits so gut wie menschenleer war, und schwor, die Einwohner w\u00fcrden \u00bbihre H\u00e4user verteidigen\u00ab.\n\nNach der raschen Besetzung des Ortes trat ein weiteres Verhaltensmuster zutage. Ein j\u00fcdischer Soldat ging auf das Dach eines Hauses und fragte, ob unter den gefangen genommenen M\u00e4nnern Drusen seien. \u00bbWenn ja, k\u00f6nnen sie bleiben\u00ab, rief er. \u00bbDie \u00fcbrigen m\u00fcssen in den Libanon.\u00ab Aber selbst diese M\u00f6glichkeit stand nicht allen offen, da die Besatzer beschlossen, die Einwohner zu selektieren, bevor sie ihnen \u00bberlaubten\u00ab, in den Libanon zu gehen. Eine solche Selektion wurde bei folgenden Vertreibungen zur g\u00e4ngigen Praxis, die sich tief in die kollektive Erinnerung der Pal\u00e4stinenser an die Jahre der Nakba eingebrannt hat und sie bis heute verfolgt. Junge M\u00e4nner im Alter von 10 bis 30 Jahren wurden ausgesondert und in Gefangenenlager geschickt. In Ghuwayr wurden 40 M\u00e4nner von ihren Familien getrennt und mussten anderthalb Jahre hinter Stacheldrahtverhauen schmachten.\n\nNach Ghuwayr kamen h\u00e4ufig UN-Beobachter, um zu pr\u00fcfen, wie die Teilungsresolution umgesetzt wurde. Sie wurden Zeugen der Vertreibungen. Vertreter westlicher Medien, darunter ein Reporter der _New York Times_ , schrieben nach wie vor Artikel \u00fcber einzelne D\u00f6rfer, auch wenn das \u00f6ffentliche Interesse an ihrem Schicksal zu dieser Zeit bereits abnahm; aber westliche Leser erhielten nie ein vollst\u00e4ndiges Bild \u00fcber die Ereignisse. Au\u00dferdem wagte anscheinend keiner der Auslandskorrespondenten, das Vorgehen der j\u00fcdischen Nation kaum drei Jahre nach dem Holocaust offen zu kritisieren.\n\nIn Haifa und Umgebung gewann die ethnische S\u00e4uberung an Tempo und k\u00fcndete mit ihrer t\u00f6dlichen Geschwindigkeit die kommenden Zerst\u00f6rungen an. In rascher Folge wurden aus 15 D\u00f6rfern die Einwohner vertrieben \u2013 in manchen lebten weniger als 300 Menschen, in anderen um die 5000. Abu Shusha, Abu Zurayq, Arab al-Fuqara, Arab al-Nufay'at, Arab Zahrat al-Dumayri, Balad al-Shaykh, Damun, Khirbat al-Kasayir, Khirbat al-Manshiyya, Rihaniyya, Khirbat al-Sarkas, Khirbat Sa'sa, Wa'rat al-Sarris und Yajur verschwanden in einem Bezirk voller britischer Soldaten, UN-Emiss\u00e4re und Auslandsreporter von der Landkarte Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nAber Vertreibung und Flucht reichten nicht, um die Dorfbewohner zu retten. Viele von ihnen wurden von den marxistischen Kibbuzniks der Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir gejagt, die ihre H\u00e4user schnell und effizient pl\u00fcnderten und sprengten. Aus dieser Zeit gibt es Aufzeichnungen, dass besorgte zionistische Politiker solche Vorf\u00e4lle verbal verurteilten \u2013 solche Dokumente lieferten \u00bbneuen Historikern\u00ab in Israel Materialien \u00fcber Gr\u00e4ueltaten, \u00fcber die sie in anderen Archivquellen nichts gefunden hatten. Heute lesen sich diese Beschwerden eher wie ein Versuch \u00bbsensibler\u00ab j\u00fcdischer Politiker und Soldaten, ihr Gewissen zu beruhigen. Sie sind Teil eines israelischen Ethos, das sich am besten mit dem Motto \u00bbschie\u00dfe und weine\u00ab beschreiben l\u00e4sst: Unter diesem Titel brachten israelische Soldaten kollektiv ihre angebliche moralische Reue zum Ausdruck, nachdem sie im Junikrieg an einer ethnischen S\u00e4uberung kleinen Ausma\u00dfes beteiligt waren.\n\nDiese besorgten Soldaten und Offiziere luden der popul\u00e4re israelische Schriftsteller Amoz Oz und seine Freunde sp\u00e4ter zu einem \u00bbLossprechungsritus\u00ab in das Rote Haus ein, bevor es abgerissen wurde. Damals, 1948, drei Jahre nach dem Holocaust, dienten \u00e4hnliche \u00f6ffentliche Bekundungen dazu, das geplagte Gewissen j\u00fcdischer Soldaten zu entlasten, die an Gr\u00e4ueltaten und Kriegsverbrechen gegen eine weitgehend wehrlose Zivilbev\u00f6lkerung beteiligt waren.\n\nLaut zu wehklagen, w\u00e4hrend man Unschuldige t\u00f6tete und vertrieb, war eine Taktik, mit den moralischen Aspekten von Plan D umzugehen. Die andere war, die Pal\u00e4stinenser zu entmenschlichen, die nach den Zusagen der Jewish Agency an die Vereinten Nationen vollwertige B\u00fcrger des Staates Israel werden sollten. Stattdessen wurden sie vertrieben, inhaftiert oder get\u00f6tet: \u00bbUnsere Armee marschiert voran und erobert arabische D\u00f6rfer und ihre Einwohner fl\u00fcchten wie M\u00e4use\u00ab, schrieb Yossef Weitz.\n\nDas Spektrum des milit\u00e4rischen Vorgehens war im April noch recht breit. Anders als in sp\u00e4teren Monaten, als gro\u00dfe Gebiete ethnisch ges\u00e4ubert werden sollten, blieben im April noch manche D\u00f6rfer verschont, andere erlitten ein schlimmeres Schicksal als Vertreibung, n\u00e4mlich Massaker. Die milit\u00e4rischen Befehle spiegelten diese Bandbreite wider, wenn sie zwischen zwei Vorgehensweisen unterschieden, die gegen pal\u00e4stinensische Ortschaften anzuwenden waren: S\u00e4uberung ( _le-taher_ ) und Schikanen ( _le-hatrid_ ). Schikanen wurden nie n\u00e4her spezifiziert. Sie bestanden aus willk\u00fcrlichem Granatbeschuss von D\u00f6rfern, St\u00e4dten und Stadtvierteln und aus wahllosem Feuer auf zivilen Verkehr. Am 14. April schrieb Ben Gurion an Sharett: \u00bbVon Tag zu Tag weiten wir unsere Besetzung aus. Wir besetzen neue Orte und haben gerade erst angefangen.\u00ab\n\nIn manchen D\u00f6rfern, die dicht an St\u00e4dten lagen, verfolgten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen eine Politik der Massaker, um die Flucht der Bev\u00f6lkerung aus den nahen Orten und Stadtgebieten zu beschleunigen. Das war der Fall in Nasr al-Din bei Tiberias, in Ayn al-Zaytun bei Safad und Tirat Haifa bei Haifa. In diesen drei D\u00f6rfern wurden Gruppen von \u00bbM\u00e4nnern im Alter zwischen 10 und 50\u00ab, wie es im Hagana-Jargon hie\u00df, exekutiert, um die Bev\u00f6lkerung des Dorfes und der nahen St\u00e4dte einzusch\u00fcchtern und zu terrorisieren.\n\n\u00dcber das Massaker in Nasr al-Din haben Historiker noch kein vollst\u00e4ndiges Bild rekonstruiert, aber die beiden anderen Massaker sind gut dokumentiert, das bekannteste ist das in Ayn al-Zaytun.\n\nAyn al-Zaytun\n\nDas Massaker von Ayn al-Zaytun ist weithin bekannt, weil es die Grundlage f\u00fcr den einzigen epischen Roman \u00fcber die pal\u00e4stinensische Katastrophe lieferte, der bisher vorliegt: _Das Tor zur Sonne_ von Elias Khoury. Auch ein halb fiktiver israelischer Roman \u00fcber diese Zeit zeichnet die Ereignisse in dem Dorf nach, Netiva Ben-Yehudas _Between the Knots_. _Das Tor zur Sonne_ wurde in einer franz\u00f6sisch-\u00e4gyptischen Koproduktion verfilmt. Die Filmszenen decken sich weitgehend mit Ben-Yehudas Schilderungen in _Between the Knots_ , die sich gro\u00dfenteils auf Berichte in den Milit\u00e4rarchiven und auf m\u00fcndliche Erinnerungen st\u00fctzen. Der Film gibt auch die Sch\u00f6nheit des Dorfes wirklichkeitsgetreu wieder, das in einem tiefen Tal zwischen den hohen Bergen Galil\u00e4as an der Stra\u00dfe zwischen Mayrun und Safad lag, von einem Bach durchflossen und von Thermalseen umgeben.\n\nDie strategische Lage des Ortes, knapp zwei Kilometer westlich von Safad, machte ihn zum idealen Ziel einer Besetzung. \u00d6rtliche j\u00fcdische Siedler waren ebenfalls daran interessiert; sie hatten begonnen, in der Umgebung Land zu kaufen, und hatten gegen Ende der Mandatszeit ein prek\u00e4res Verh\u00e4ltnis zu den Dorfbewohnern. Die Operation Matateh bot der Hagana-Eliteeinheit, der Palmach, nicht nur Gelegenheit, das Dorf am 2. Mai 1948 im Rahmen von Plan Dalet zu r\u00e4umen, sondern auch \u00bbalte Rechnungen\u00ab zu begleichen, n\u00e4mlich sich f\u00fcr die Feindseligkeit zu r\u00e4chen, mit der die pal\u00e4stinensische Dorfbev\u00f6lkerung die Siedler aufgenommen hatte.\n\nMit der F\u00fchrung der Operation betraute man Moshe Kalman, der bereits erfolgreich die Angriffe auf Khisas, Sa'sa und Husayniyya in der Region geleitet hatte. Seine Truppen stie\u00dfen auf wenig Widerstand, da die im Ort stationierten syrischen Freiwilligen \u00fcberst\u00fcrzt abzogen, als das Dorf bei Morgengrauen unter Beschuss genommen wurde: Schwerem M\u00f6rserfeuer folgten Handgranaten. Kalmans Truppe st\u00fcrmte das Dorf gegen Mittag. Frauen, Kinder, alte Leute und ein paar junge M\u00e4nner, die das Dorf nicht mit den syrischen Freiwilligen verlassen hatten, kamen mit wei\u00dfen Fahnen aus ihren Verstecken. Sofort trieb man sie im Dorfzentrum zusammen.\n\nDer Film stellt nun die routinem\u00e4\u00dfigen Durchsuchungen und Verhaftungen \u2013 in diesem Fall Durchsuchungen und Hinrichtungen \u2013 dar, wie die Sonderkommandos des Hagana-Geheimdienstes sie durchf\u00fchrten. Zuerst holten sie einen maskierten Informanten, damit er sich die auf dem Dorfplatz aufgereihten M\u00e4nner genau anschaute und alle identifizierte, deren Namen auf einer vorbereiteten Liste auftauchten, die die Geheimdienstleute mitgebracht hatten. Die selektierten M\u00e4nner wurden an einen anderen Ort gebracht und erschossen. Wenn andere M\u00e4nner rebellierten oder protestierten, wurden sie ebenfalls get\u00f6tet. Bei einem Zwischenfall, den der Film hervorragend wiedergibt, erkl\u00e4rte einer der M\u00e4nner aus dem Dorf, Yusuf Ahmad Hajjar, den Soldaten, die ihn gefangen genommen hatten, dass er sich ebenso wie die anderen ergeben habe und daher erwarte \u00bbmenschlich behandelt zu werden\u00ab. Der Palmach-Kommandeur schlug ihm ins Gesicht und befahl ihm, zur Strafe 37 Jugendliche auszuw\u00e4hlen. W\u00e4hrend man die \u00fcbrigen Einwohner des Ortes in den Lagerraum der \u00f6rtlichen Moschee sperrte, wurden die Jugendlichen mit auf dem R\u00fccken gefesselten H\u00e4nden erschossen.\n\nHans Lebrecht wirft in seinem Buch ebenfalls ein Schlaglicht auf die Gr\u00e4ueltaten: \u00bbEnde Mai wurde ich vom Kommando meiner Einheit der israelischen Armee beauftragt, die Quelle des \u203averlassenen Dorfes\u2039 Ain Zeitun zur Wasserversorgung eines Milit\u00e4rlagers einzufassen und eine provisorische Pumpstation zu errichten. Das Dorf war v\u00f6llig zerst\u00f6rt. In den Ruinen lagen noch zahlreiche Tote. Besonders viele Leichen von Frauen und Kindern fanden wir in der unmittelbaren Umgebung der Ruine der \u00f6rtlichen Moschee. Bevor ich an die Erf\u00fcllung meiner Aufgabe gehen konnte, setzte ich eine Anordnung des Kommandeurs der Einheit durch, die schon aufgequollenen, zum Teil von Hunden angefressenen Leichen zu verbrennen und aus hygienischen und humanen Gr\u00fcnden bestatten zu lassen.\u00ab\n\n\u00c4hnlich anschauliche Schilderungen sind auch in den Milit\u00e4rberichten der Hagana zu finden, aber wie viele Einwohner von Ayn al-Zaytun tats\u00e4chlich hingerichtet wurden, ist schwer zu sagen. Laut Milit\u00e4rdokumenten wurden alles in allem, einschlie\u00dflich der Exekutionen, 70 Menschen erschossen; andere Quellen nennen eine wesentlich h\u00f6here Zahl. Netiva Ben-Yehuda geh\u00f6rte der Palmach an und war im Dorf, als die Hinrichtungen stattfanden, aber sie zog es vor, die Geschichte in Romanform zu erz\u00e4hlen. Ihr Buch schildert allerdings erschreckend detailliert, wie die M\u00e4nner des Dorfes mit gefesselten H\u00e4nden erschossen wurden, und spricht von mehreren Hundert Hingerichteten:\n\nAber Yehonathan br\u00fcllte weiter, und pl\u00f6tzlich kehrte er Meirke den R\u00fccken und ging w\u00fctend weg, wobei er st\u00e4ndig weiter lamentierte: \u00bbEr ist v\u00f6llig verr\u00fcckt! Hunderte Menschen liegen gefesselt da! Geh und bring sie um! Geh und leg Hunderte Menschen um! Nur ein Verr\u00fcckter t\u00f6tet Menschen, die so gefesselt sind, und nur ein Verr\u00fcckter verschwendet die ganze Munition auf sie! ...\u00ab Ich wei\u00df nicht, was sie dachten, wer kommen w\u00fcrde, um sie zu inspizieren, aber ich merke, dass es dringend ist, pl\u00f6tzlich m\u00fcssen wir die Knoten um H\u00e4nde und Beine dieser Kriegsgefangenen l\u00f6sen, und dann merkte ich, dass sie alle tot waren, \u00bbProblem gel\u00f6st\u00ab.\n\nNach dieser Darstellung war das Massaker, wie wir es auch von vielen anderen Massenhinrichtungen wissen, nicht nur eine \u00bbStrafaktion\u00ab f\u00fcr \u00bbImpertinenz\u00ab, sondern wurde auch ver\u00fcbt, weil die Hagana noch keine Kriegsgefangenenlager f\u00fcr die gro\u00dfe Zahl der gefangenen Pal\u00e4stinenser hatte. Aber selbst nachdem solche Lager geschaffen waren, kam es zu Massakern, wenn gro\u00dfe Gruppen der Dorfbev\u00f6lkerung gefangen genommen wurden wie in Tantura und Dawaymeh nach dem 15. Mai 1948.\n\nM\u00fcndliche Zeugenberichte, die Elias Khoury das Material f\u00fcr _Das Tor zur Sonne_ lieferten, unterst\u00fctzen den Eindruck, dass das Archivmaterial nicht die vollst\u00e4ndige Geschichte erz\u00e4hlt: Es enth\u00e4lt nur sp\u00e4rliche Angaben zu den verwendeten Methoden und ist irref\u00fchrend, was die Zahl der Menschen angeht, die an jenem verh\u00e4ngnisvollen Tag im Mai 1948 get\u00f6tet wurden.\n\nWie bereits ausgef\u00fchrt, diente das Vorgehen in jedem Dorf als Pr\u00e4zedenzfall, der in ein Muster einfloss und zum Vorbild wurde, um dann systematische Vertreibungen zu erleichtern. In Ayn al-Zaytun brachte man die Einwohner an den Rand des Dorfes, wo j\u00fcdische Truppen dann \u00fcber ihre K\u00f6pfe hinweg schossen, w\u00e4hrend sie ihnen befahlen zu fl\u00fcchten. Zur \u00fcblichen Routine geh\u00f6rte es, den Menschen ihre gesamte Habe abzunehmen, bevor man sie aus ihrer Heimat vertrieb.\n\nSp\u00e4ter besetzte die Palmach auch das Nachbardorf Biriyya und befahl, wie in Ayn al-Zaytun s\u00e4mtliche H\u00e4user niederzubrennen, um die Araber von Safad zu demoralisieren. In dieser Gegend blieben nur zwei D\u00f6rfer \u00fcbrig. Nun sah sich die Hagana vor eine komplizierte Aufgabe gestellt: die Marj-Ibn-Amir-Region und die weiten Ebenen zu homogenisieren oder vielmehr zu \u00bbjudaisieren\u00ab, die sich zwischen diesem Tal und dem Jordan nach Osten bis in das besetzte Baysan und nach Norden bis in die damals noch freie Stadt Nazareth erstreckten.\n\nAbschluss der Mission im Osten\n\nEs war Yigael Yadin, der im April eine entschlossenere Anstrengung forderte, dieses weite Gebiet zu entv\u00f6lkern. Offenbar hatte er die Truppen im Verdacht, dass sie nicht gen\u00fcgend Enthusiasmus aufbr\u00e4chten, und schrieb einige Einheiten in den Kibbuzim der Umgebung direkt an, um zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, ob sie die D\u00f6rfer, die sie laut Befehl eliminieren sollten, tats\u00e4chlich besetzt und zerst\u00f6rt hatten.\n\nDas Z\u00f6gern der Soldaten lag jedoch nicht an einem Mangel an Motivation oder Eifer. Vielmehr schr\u00e4nkten die Geheimdienstoffiziere die Operationen ein. In einem Teil des Gebiets, vor allem im Umland von Nazareth bis hinunter nach Afula, gab es gro\u00dfe Clans, die seit Jahren mit ihnen kooperiert \u2013 sprich: \u00bbkollaboriert\u00ab \u2013 hatten. Sollten sie etwa ebenfalls vertrieben werden?\n\n\u00d6rtliche Geheimdienstoffiziere wie Palti Sela waren vor allem besorgt um das Schicksal eines riesigen Clans: der Zu'bis. Palti Sela wollte sie verschonen. In einem Interview erkl\u00e4rte er 2002, er sei sich nicht sicher gewesen, wie sie in der Hektik der Operation die richtigen Leute h\u00e4tten selektieren sollen. Wie er sich erinnerte, hing alles davon ab, den Unterschied zwischen ihnen und anderen zu erkennen: \u00bbDie Zu'bis unterschieden sich im \u00c4u\u00dferen immer von den anderen Dorfbewohnern. Die M\u00e4nner, nicht die Frauen. Bei den Frauen konnte man den Unterschied nicht erkennen, auch nicht bei den alten M\u00e4nnern.\u00ab Jedenfalls tat es ihm sp\u00e4ter leid, dass er sich \u00fcberhaupt diese M\u00fche gemacht hatte, da die Zu'bis sich letztlich doch nicht als sonderlich kooperativ erwiesen und nach 1948 ihre pal\u00e4stinensische Identit\u00e4t betonten. \u00bbHeute sind sie \u203aCholera\u2039\u00ab (ein umgangssprachlicher hebr\u00e4ischer Ausdruck f\u00fcr Abschaum), erkl\u00e4rte er seinem Interviewer, \u00bbspuckten in den Teller, der sie f\u00fctterte.\u00ab\n\nSchlie\u00dflich entschied man sich, D\u00f6rfer mit einem hohen Bev\u00f6lkerungsanteil aus dem Zu'biyya-Clan zu verschonen. Die \u00bbschwierigste\u00ab Entscheidung betraf das Dorf Sirin, wo nur wenige Angeh\u00f6rige dieses Clans lebten; letztlich wurden s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner von dort vertrieben. Palti Sela schrieb einen Brief an die Familienoberh\u00e4upter: \u00bbObwohl Sie zu den sieben D\u00f6rfern geh\u00f6ren, denen erlaubt wurde zu bleiben, k\u00f6nnen wir Sie nicht besch\u00fctzen. Ich schlage vor, dass Sie nach Jordanien gehen\u00ab, was sie denn auch taten.\n\nNoch jahrelang konnten andere Kibbuzniks ihm nicht verzeihen, dass er ein Dorf \u00bbgerettet\u00ab hatte: Zarain. \u00bbHinter meinem R\u00fccken nannten die Leute mich einen Verr\u00e4ter, aber ich bin stolz darauf\u00ab, erkl\u00e4rte er seinem Interviewer Jahre sp\u00e4ter.\n\nEiner \u00fcberlegenen Macht erlegen\n\nEiner der Hauptindikatoren, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen 1948 die Oberhand hatten und die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde in Pal\u00e4stina insgesamt weit von einem Schicksal der Ausrottung und Vernichtung entfernt war, das der offizielle zionistische Mythos uns ausmalt, war der Entschluss mehrerer ethnischer Minderheiten im Land, das pal\u00e4stinensische Lager zu verlassen und sich den j\u00fcdischen Truppen anzuschlie\u00dfen.\n\nDie erste und wichtigste dieser Gruppen waren die Drusen, eine Sekte, die sich als muslimisch betrachtet, obwohl der orthodoxe Islam sie nicht als solches anerkennt. Die Drusen entstanden als Ableger der Ismailiten, die wiederum eine Abspaltung der Schiiten sind. Von besonderer Bedeutung sind in diesem Kontext die Drusen, die sich der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee angeschlossen hatten, als sie ins Land gekommen war. Anfang April 1948 desertierten 500 aus der ALA, um sich den j\u00fcdischen Truppen anzuschlie\u00dfen. Wie das vor sich ging, geh\u00f6rt zu den merkw\u00fcrdigeren Kapiteln im Krieg von 1948. Zuerst baten die Deserteure die j\u00fcdischen Kommandeure in Galil\u00e4a, sie vor ihrem Seitenwechsel in ein Scheingefecht zu verwickeln und gefangen zu nehmen, erst anschlie\u00dfend w\u00fcrden sie dem Zionismus die Treue schw\u00f6ren. Das Scheingefecht fand nahe der Stadt Shafa'Amr zwischen den D\u00f6rfern Khirbat al-Kasayir und Hawsha statt \u2013 die beide sp\u00e4ter zerst\u00f6rt wurden; anschlie\u00dfend unterzeichneten die Drusen einen pomp\u00f6s klingenden \u00bbBlutpakt\u00ab.\n\nKhirbat al-Kasayir und Hawsha waren die ersten D\u00f6rfer, die j\u00fcdische Truppen innerhalb des Gebiets angriffen, das der UN-Teilungsplan einem pal\u00e4stinensischen Staat zugesprochen hatte. Diese Angriffe warfen ein Schlaglicht auf die Entschlossenheit der zionistischen Bewegung, noch vor Ablauf des Mandats einen m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas zu besetzen.\n\nEine der tragischeren Folgen dieses Seitenwechsels war, dass die drusischen Truppen zum Hauptvehikel der Juden bei der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Galil\u00e4as wurden. Ihre Allianz mit der zionistischen Bewegung entfremdete die Drusen nachhaltig von den \u00fcbrigen Pal\u00e4stinensern. Erst in j\u00fcngster Zeit ist bei der j\u00fcngeren Generation offenbar eine anf\u00e4ngliche Rebellion gegen diese Isolation festzustellen, die aber auch zu sp\u00fcren bekommt, wie schwierig das in einer patriarchalischen Gesellschaft ist, in der die \u00c4ltesten und die geistlichen F\u00fchrer das Sagen haben.\n\nEine andere Sekte, die Tscherkessen, die mehrere D\u00f6rfer im Norden des Landes bewohnten, beschlossen ebenfalls, sich mit der starken j\u00fcdischen Milit\u00e4rpr\u00e4senz zu verb\u00fcnden; 350 von ihnen traten im April in die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte ein. Diese Mischung aus Drusen und Tscherkessen sollte die Keimzelle der zuk\u00fcnftigen Grenzpolizei Israels bilden, der Milit\u00e4reinheit, die bis 1967 haupts\u00e4chlich polizeiliche Aufgaben in den arabischen Gebieten Israels \u00fcbernahm und nach 1967 die israelische Besatzung im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen praktisch durchsetzte.\n\nArabische Reaktionen\n\nAls die j\u00fcdischen Truppen im Dezember 1947 die ersten D\u00f6rfer besetzten und zerst\u00f6rten, sah es so aus, als ob Galil\u00e4a das einzige Gebiet w\u00e4re, in dem sich diese Angriffe mit Hilfe von Fawzi al-Qawqji stoppen lie\u00dfen. Er befehligte eine Armee von 2000 Mann und beeindruckte die \u00f6rtliche Bev\u00f6lkerung mit einer Reihe von Angriffen gegen isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen (wie es auch andere Einheiten taten, die \u00fcber das heutige Westjordanland kamen). Aber letztlich blieben es erfolglose Versuche, die nie eine sonderliche Verschiebung des Kr\u00e4fteverh\u00e4ltnisses bewirkten. Die Strategie, die al-Qawqji verfolgte, schr\u00e4nkte ihn in seinen M\u00f6glichkeiten ein: Er unterteilte seine Truppe in kleine Einheiten und stationierte sie in m\u00f6glichst vielen St\u00e4dten, Gemeinden und D\u00f6rfern, wo sie dann unzureichende Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte bildeten.\n\nDie Pr\u00e4senz einer solchen Freiwilligenarmee h\u00e4tte die Lage noch weiter verschlimmern und Pal\u00e4stina in eine direkte Konfrontation dr\u00e4ngen k\u00f6nnen, aber das geschah nicht. Im Gegenteil, nachdem al-Qawqji einige isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen und Hilfskonvois angegriffen hatte, strebte er ab Januar eine Waffenruhe an, und bem\u00fchte sich den gesamten Februar und M\u00e4rz hindurch weiter darum. Da ihm klar war, dass die Juden milit\u00e4risch in jeder Hinsicht \u00fcberlegen waren, versuchte er direkt mit der Beratergruppe zu verhandeln, in der er einige Mitglieder noch aus den 1930er Jahren kannte. Ende M\u00e4rz traf er Yehoshua Palmon, offenbar mit Einwilligung des transjordanischen K\u00f6nigs Abdullah. Er bot Palmon einen Nichtangriffspakt an, der die j\u00fcdischen Truppen auf das designierte j\u00fcdische Staatsgebiet beschr\u00e4nkt und letztlich Verhandlungen \u00fcber ein in Kantone aufgeteiltes Pal\u00e4stina erm\u00f6glicht h\u00e4tte. Es bedarf keiner Erw\u00e4hnung, dass sein Vorschlag auf Ablehnung stie\u00df. Dennoch startete er nie eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Offensive und war dazu auch nicht in der Lage, bis die j\u00fcdischen Truppen in die Gebiete vordrangen, die dem arabischen Staat von den Vereinten Nationen zugedacht waren.\n\nAl-Qawqji bot nicht nur einen Waffenstillstand an, er schlug zudem vor, die Zukunft der j\u00fcdischen Pr\u00e4senz in Pal\u00e4stina erneut zur Er\u00f6rterung vor die Arabische Liga zu bringen. Aber man hatte Palmon weniger als Verhandlungspartner, denn als Spion zu den Gespr\u00e4chen geschickt: Ihm fiel die schlechte Ausr\u00fcstung und der mangelnde Kampfeswillen der ALA auf. Das war die wichtigste Information, die die Beratergruppe h\u00f6ren wollte.\n\nGleichzeitig mit al-Qawqji trafen Freiwillige der Muslimischen Bruderschaft aus \u00c4gypten in der s\u00fcdlichen K\u00fcstenebene ein. Sie waren voller Enthusiasmus, aber als Soldaten oder Truppe v\u00f6llig ineffektiv, wie sich bald herausstellte, als die D\u00f6rfer, die sie verteidigen sollten, in rascher Folge besetzt, ger\u00e4umt und zerst\u00f6rt wurden.\n\nIm Januar 1948 erreichte die Kriegsrhetorik in der arabischen Welt einen neuen H\u00f6hepunkt. Aber im Gro\u00dfen und Ganzen unternahmen die arabischen Staaten nicht mehr, als \u00fcber die Notwendigkeit zur Rettung Pal\u00e4stinas zu reden, w\u00e4hrend zur gleichen Zeit sowohl die \u00f6rtlichen Medien und Tageszeitungen wie _Filastin_ als auch die Auslandspresse, vor allem die _New York Times_ , regelm\u00e4\u00dfig \u00fcber j\u00fcdische Angriffe auf pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer und Stadtviertel berichteten.\n\nDer Generalsekret\u00e4r der Arabischen Liga, der \u00e4gyptische Politiker Azzam Pasha, hoffte damals, dass die Vereinten Nationen erneut intervenieren und den arabischen Staaten eine direkte Konfrontation in Pal\u00e4stina ersparen w\u00fcrden. Aber der Staatenbund war ratlos. Die Vereinten Nationen hatten sich interessanterweise nie gefragt, wie sie sich verhalten sollten, wenn die Pal\u00e4stinenser den Teilungsplan ablehnten. Diese Frage hatten die UN offen gelassen; ihre Vertreter hatten sich lediglich \u00fcber die guten Verbindungen von L\u00e4ndern wie Gro\u00dfbritannien und Frankreich erkundigt, ob arabische Nachbarstaaten Gebiete annektieren k\u00f6nnten, die den Pal\u00e4stinensern zugedacht waren, und waren im Grunde zufrieden, als sie erfuhren, dass einer dieser Nachbarn, Jordanien, bereits mit den Juden \u00fcber eine m\u00f6gliche \u00dcbernahme des \u00bbarabischen\u00ab Teils Pal\u00e4stinas verhandelte. Letzten Endes erlangten die Jordanier tats\u00e4chlich die Kontrolle \u00fcber dieses Gebiet, das unter der Bezeichnung \u00bbWest Bank\u00ab (Westjordanland) bekannt wurde und das sie weitgehend annektierten, ohne einen Schuss abzufeuern. Die anderen arabischen F\u00fchrer waren noch nicht bereit, sich auf dieses Spiel einzulassen, und hielten weiter an der rhetorischen Versicherung fest, ihre Intervention solle den Pal\u00e4stinensern helfen, Pal\u00e4stina zu befreien oder zumindest Teile davon zu retten.\n\nDie arabische Entscheidung \u00fcber das Ausma\u00df ihrer Intervention und Unterst\u00fctzung war unmittelbar von den Entwicklungen in Pal\u00e4stina beeinflusst. Und dort beobachteten sie \u2013 die Politiker mit wachsender Ver\u00e4rgerung, die Intellektuellen und Journalisten mit Entsetzen \u2013, wie sich vor ihren Augen ein Vertreibungsprozess zu entfalten begann. Sie hatten gen\u00fcgend Vertreter in der Region, um \u00fcber die Intention und Reichweite der j\u00fcdischen Operationen voll im Bild zu sein. Nur wenige hegten in diesem fr\u00fchen Stadium, Anfang 1948, noch Zweifel daran, dass dem pal\u00e4stinensischen Volk eine Katastrophe drohte. Aber sie verz\u00f6gerten und verschoben die unvermeidliche Intervention, so lange sie konnten, und wollten sie dann lieber fr\u00fcher als sp\u00e4ter beenden: Ihnen war nicht nur v\u00f6llig klar, dass die Pal\u00e4stinenser besiegt waren, sondern auch, dass ihre Armeen den \u00fcberlegenen j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4ften nichts entgegenzusetzen hatten. Sie schickten Truppen in einen Krieg, von dem sie wussten, dass sie kaum oder gar keine Chancen hatten, ihn zu gewinnen.\n\nViele der arabischen F\u00fchrer standen der drohenden Katastrophe in Pal\u00e4stina zynisch gegen\u00fcber, einige wenige waren ehrlich besorgt. Aber selbst sie brauchten Zeit, um weniger die Lage in Pal\u00e4stina als vielmehr die m\u00f6glichen Folgen einzusch\u00e4tzen, die ein Engagement f\u00fcr ihre prek\u00e4re Position im Inland haben k\u00f6nnte. \u00c4gypten und Irak befanden sich in den Endstadien ihrer eigenen Freiheitskriege, und Syrien und Libanon waren junge Staaten, die gerade erst ihre Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit erlangt hatten. Erst als die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte ihre Aktionen intensivierten und ihre wahren Absichten v\u00f6llig offensichtlich wurden, verst\u00e4ndigten sich die arabischen Staaten auf eine Art koordinierter Reaktion. Um nicht in einen Sog zu geraten, der ihre ohnehin unsichere Stellung in ihren eigenen Gesellschaften untergraben k\u00f6nnte, \u00fcbertrugen sie die Entscheidung dem Rat der Arabischen Liga, der, wie gesagt, aus den Au\u00dfenministern der arabischen Staaten bestand. Dieses Gremium der Nahostregion war ineffektiv, da die Mitgliedstaaten seine Beschl\u00fcsse ablehnen, beliebig missdeuten oder, wenn sie angenommen wurden, nur teilweise umsetzen konnten. Der Rat debattierte noch, als die Lage in den l\u00e4ndlichen und st\u00e4dtischen Gebieten Pal\u00e4stinas schon so schreckliche Ausma\u00dfe angenommen hatte, dass sie nicht mehr ignoriet werden konnte; er beschloss erst Ende April 1948, Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina zu entsenden. Mittlerweile waren bereits eine Million Pal\u00e4stinenser vertrieben, 200 D\u00f6rfer zerst\u00f6rt und unz\u00e4hlige St\u00e4dte ger\u00e4umt.\n\nIn mancherlei Hinsicht war es al-Qawqjis Niederlage in der Marj Ibn Amir, die die arabischen F\u00fchrer von der Notwendigkeit \u00fcberzeugte, regul\u00e4re Truppen zu entsenden. Al-Qawqji war es in der einzigen arabischen Offensive vor Mai 1948 nach zehnt\u00e4gigen K\u00e4mpfen, die am 4. April begannen, nicht gelungen, den Kibbuz Mishmar Ha-Emeq zu besetzen.\n\nBevor am 30. April die endg\u00fcltige Entscheidung f\u00fcr eine Truppenentsendung fiel, kamen aus den arabischen Staaten unterschiedliche Reaktionen. Der Rat der Arabischen Liga ersuchte alle, Waffen und Freiwillige zu stellen, aber nicht alle kamen dieser Bitte nach. Saudi Arabien und \u00c4gypten sagten geringe Finanzhilfen zu, Libanon versprach eine begrenzte Zahl an Gewehren, und anscheinend war nur Syrien zu regelrechten milit\u00e4rischen Vorbereitungen bereit und \u00fcberredete auch seinen irakischen Nachbarn, Freiwillige auszubilden und nach Pal\u00e4stina zu schicken.\n\nAn Freiwilligen herrschte kein Mangel. Viele in den umliegenden arabischen L\u00e4ndern gingen auf die Stra\u00dfe und demonstrierten gegen die Unt\u00e4tigkeit ihrer Regierungen; Tausende junger M\u00e4nner waren bereit, f\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser ihr Leben zu opfern. \u00dcber diese starke Gef\u00fchlswelle ist viel geschrieben worden, aber sie bleibt ein R\u00e4tsel \u2013 sie als Panarabismus einzustufen wird dem Ph\u00e4nomen kaum gerecht. Die vielleicht beste Erkl\u00e4rung ist, dass Pal\u00e4stina und Algerien zu Vorbildern f\u00fcr einen entschlossenen, mutigen Kampf gegen den Kolonialismus wurden, eine Konfrontation, die bei jungen Arabern im Nahen Osten leidenschaftliche Nationalgef\u00fchle sch\u00fcrte, w\u00e4hrend in der \u00fcbrigen arabischen Welt die nationale Befreiung durch langwierige diplomatische Verhandlungen zustande kam, die immer weit weniger Gef\u00fchle wecken. Aber es sei hier noch einmal betont, dass auch das nur teilweise die Bereitschaft bei jungen M\u00e4nnern aus Bagdad oder Damaskus zu erkl\u00e4ren vermag, alles zur\u00fcckzulassen f\u00fcr einen Kampf, den sie als heilige, aber keineswegs religi\u00f6se Mission gesehen haben m\u00fcssen.\n\nDer Au\u00dfenseiter in diesem System war K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Transjordanien. Er nutzte die neue Situation, um seine Verhandlungen mit der Jewish Agency \u00fcber eine Pal\u00e4stinavereinbarung f\u00fcr die Nachmandatszeit zu intensivieren. Seine Armee hatte zwar Einheiten in Pal\u00e4stina stationiert, und manche von ihnen waren hier und da auch bereit, den Dorfbewohnern beim Schutz ihrer H\u00e4user und Felder zu helfen, wurden aber weitgehend von ihren Kommandeuren zur\u00fcckgehalten. Fawzi al-Qawqjis Tagebuch l\u00e4sst erkennen, dass der ALA-Kommandeur zunehmend frustriert war \u00fcber die mangelnde Bereitschaft der in Pal\u00e4stina stationierten jordanischen Einheiten, mit seinen Truppen zu kooperieren.\n\nW\u00e4hrend der j\u00fcdischen Operationen von Januar bis Mai 1948, bei denen etwa 250000 Pal\u00e4stinenser gewaltsam aus ihrer Heimat vertrieben wurden, schaute die Arabische Legion unt\u00e4tig zu. Tats\u00e4chlich hatten Jordanier und Juden im Januar ihre ungeschriebene Vereinbarung zementiert. Anfang Februar 1948 war der jordanische Premierminister nach London geflogen, um \u00fcber das Geheimabkommen Bericht zu erstatten, das Jordanien mit der j\u00fcdischen F\u00fchrung \u00fcber die Aufteilung Pal\u00e4stinas nach Ablauf des Mandats geschlossen hatte: Die Jordanier sollten den Gro\u00dfteil der Gebiete annektieren, die in der Teilungsresolution den Arabern zugedacht waren, und w\u00fcrden sich als Gegenleistung nicht an Milit\u00e4roperationen gegen den j\u00fcdischen Staat beteiligen. Die Briten gaben diesem Plan ihren Segen. Jordaniens Arabische Legion war die bestausgebildete Armee der ganzen arabischen Welt und den j\u00fcdischen Truppen ebenb\u00fcrtig, auf manchen Gebieten sogar \u00fcberlegen. Aber der K\u00f6nig und sein britischer Generalstabschef, John Glubb Pasha, schr\u00e4nkten ihren Aktionsradius auf das Territorium ein, das ihrer Ansicht nach Jordanien zustand: Ostjerusalem und die Gebiete, die man heute Westjordanland nennt.\n\nAm 2. Mai 1948 fand die letzte Begegnung statt, die \u00fcber die eingeschr\u00e4nkte Rolle entschied, die die Arabische Legion bei der Rettung Pal\u00e4stinas spielen sollte. Ein hoher j\u00fcdischer Offizier, Shlomo Shamir, traf sich mit zwei hohen Offizieren der Legion, die, wie die meisten von ihnen, Briten waren: Oberst Goldie und Major Crocker. Die jordanischen G\u00e4ste \u00fcberbrachten eine Botschaft ihres K\u00f6nigs, in der er erkl\u00e4rte, er erkenne den j\u00fcdischen Staat an, frage sich aber, ob die Juden \u00bbganz Pal\u00e4stina einnehmen wollen\u00ab. Shamir antwortete freim\u00fctig: \u00bbDas k\u00f6nnten wir, wenn wir wollten; aber das ist eine politische Frage.\u00ab Die Offiziere legten dar, wo Jordaniens gr\u00f6\u00dfte Bef\u00fcrchtungen lagen: Ihnen war aufgefallen, dass die j\u00fcdischen Truppen Gebiete besetzten und s\u00e4uberten, die wie Jaffa im UN-designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet lagen. Shamir rechtfertigte die Jaffa-Operation als notwendig, um die Stra\u00dfe nach Jerusalem zu sichern. Shamir machte den Emiss\u00e4ren Jordaniens klar, soweit es die Zionisten betr\u00e4fe, sei der UN-designierte arabische Staat auf das Westjordanland geschrumpft, das die Israelis den Jordaniern zu \u00bb\u00fcberlassen\u00ab bereit seien.\n\nDas Gespr\u00e4ch endete mit einem vergeblichen Versuch der jordanischen Offiziere, eine Einigung \u00fcber die Zukunft Jerusalems zu erzielen. Wenn die Jewish Agency bereit sei, Pal\u00e4stina mit Jordanien zu teilen, weshalb solle man dann nicht in Jerusalem auf die gleiche Weise verfahren? Als treuer Gew\u00e4hrsmann Ben Gurions lehnte Shamir das Angebot ab. Er wusste, dass der zionistische F\u00fchrer \u00fcberzeugt war, seine Armee sei stark genug, um die ganze Stadt einzunehmen. Wie ein Tagebucheintrag vom 11. Mai 1948 zeigt, war Ben Gurion sich im Klaren, dass die Arabische Legion erbittert um Jerusalem und, wenn n\u00f6tig, um ihren Gesamtanteil am Pal\u00e4stina der Nachmandatszeit, also um das Westjordanland, k\u00e4mpfen w\u00fcrde. Das best\u00e4tigte sich zwei Tage sp\u00e4ter (13. Mai), als Golda Meir in Amman K\u00f6nig Abdullah traf und der K\u00f6nig angespannter denn je wirkte angesichts des doppelten Spiels, das er in seinem Bestreben um eine Spitzenstellung spielte: Einerseits versprach er den Mitgliedern der Arabischen Liga, die F\u00fchrung im Milit\u00e4reinsatz der arabischen Staaten in Pal\u00e4stina zu \u00fcbernehmen, andererseits bem\u00fchte er sich um ein Abkommen mit dem j\u00fcdischen Staat.\n\nLetzten Endes sollte sich die Vereinbarung mit der j\u00fcdischen F\u00fchrung als entscheidend f\u00fcr den Kurs erweisen, den er einschlug. Abdullah tat, was er konnte, um den Eindruck zu erwecken, dass er ernsthaft an den gesamtarabischen Bestrebungen gegen den j\u00fcdischen Staat teilnahm, in der Praxis verfolgte er aber das Hauptziel, sich das israelische Einverst\u00e4ndnis f\u00fcr die jordanische Annexion des Westjordanlands zu sichern.\n\nSir Alec Kirkbridge war der britische Repr\u00e4sentant in Amman, eine Position, die das Amt des Botschafters und des High Commissioner umfasste. Am 13. Mai 1948 schrieb Kirkbridge an den britischen Au\u00dfenminister Ernest Bevin:\n\nEs gibt Verhandlungen zwischen der Arabischen Legion und der Hagana, die von britischen Offizieren der Arabischen Legion gef\u00fchrt werden. Erkl\u00e4rtes Ziel dieser streng geheimen Verhandlungen ist, die Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas festzulegen, die von den beiden Streitkr\u00e4ften besetzt werden sollen.\n\nBevin antwortete:\n\nEs widerstrebt mir, etwas zu unternehmen, was den Erfolg dieser Verhandlungen gef\u00e4hrden k\u00f6nnte, die offenbar darauf abzielen, Feindseligkeiten zwischen Arabern und Juden zu vermeiden. Die Umsetzung dieses Abkommens h\u00e4ngt von den britischen Offizieren der Legion ab. Daher sollten wir die Legion-Offiziere nicht [aus Pal\u00e4stina] abziehen.\n\nAber Ben Gurion ging nie davon aus, dass die Jordanier sich an die begrenzte Rolle halten w\u00fcrden, die er ihnen zugedacht hatte; das erh\u00e4rtet den Eindruck, dass er \u00fcberzeugt war, der neue Staat verf\u00fcge \u00fcber ausreichende Milit\u00e4rst\u00e4rke, um es erfolgreich selbst mit der Arabischen Legion aufnehmen und gleichzeitig die ethnische S\u00e4uberung fortsetzen zu k\u00f6nnen.\n\nLetztlich musste die Arabische Legion trotz der jordanischen Geheimabsprachen mit Israel um ihre Annektierungen k\u00e4mpfen. Zun\u00e4chst konnten die Jordanier die Gebiete, die sie haben wollten, einnehmen, ohne auch nur einen Schuss abzufeuern, aber einige Wochen nach Beendigung des Mandats versuchte die israelische Armee, ihnen Teile davon wieder abzuringen. Offenbar bedauerte David Ben Gurion seinen Entschluss, den Krieg nicht zu nutzen, um das j\u00fcdische Staatsgebiet noch \u00fcber die angestrebten 87 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas hinaus auszudehnen. Die allgemeine arabische Schw\u00e4che bot der zionistischen Bewegung offenbar eine zu gute Gelegenheit, um sie auszulassen. Allerdings untersch\u00e4tzte er die jordanische Entschlossenheit. Die Teile Pal\u00e4stinas, die K\u00f6nig Abdullah eisern als seine ansah, verteidigte die Arabische Legion erfolgreich bis zum Ende des Krieges. Mit anderen Worten: Die jordanische Besetzung des Westjordanlands kam anfangs Dank einer vorherigen Vereinbarung mit den Juden zustande, aber danach blieb sie in haschemitischer Hand, weil die Jordanier sie hartn\u00e4ckig verteidigten und die irakischen Truppen ihnen halfen, israelische Angriffe abzuwehren. Diese Episode l\u00e4sst sich noch aus einem anderen Blickwinkel betrachten: Indem die Jordanier das Westjordanland besetzten, bewahrten sie 250000 Pal\u00e4stinenser vor der Vertreibung, allerdings nur bis Israel sie 1967 besetzte und einer neuen, wenn auch gem\u00e4\u00dfigteren und langsameren Vertreibungswelle unterwarf, die bis heute andauert. Die praktische jordanische Politik in den allerletzten Tagen der Mandatsverwaltung ist eingehend im folgenden Kapitel dargestellt.\n\nWas die pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung anging, so war das, was von ihr \u00fcbrig war, v\u00f6llig zersplittert und in Aufl\u00f6sung begriffen. Einige ihrer Mitglieder verlie\u00dfen in aller Eile und, wie sie hofften, vor\u00fcbergehend das Land. Nur sehr wenige wollten bleiben und der j\u00fcdischen Aggression im Dezember 1947 und dem Beginn der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen im Januar 1948 entgegentreten, aber einige blieben doch und waren weiterhin offizielle Mitglieder der Nationalkomitees. Ihre Arbeit sollte vom Arabischen Oberkomitee koordiniert und beaufsichtigt werden, das seit den 1930er Jahren als inoffizielle Regierung der Pal\u00e4stinenser fungierte, aber etwa die H\u00e4lfte seiner Mitglieder hatte mittlerweile ebenfalls das Land verlassen und die \u00fcbrigen hatten Schwierigkeiten, mit der Lage umzugehen. Trotz aller ihrer fr\u00fcheren Fehler standen sie jedoch ihrem Volk fast bis zum bitteren Ende zur Seite, obwohl sie das Land ohne weiteres h\u00e4tten verlassen k\u00f6nnen. Es waren Emil Ghori, Ahmad Hilmi, Rafiq Tamimi, Mu'in al-Madi und Husayn al-Khalidi. Jeder von ihnen stand in Verbindung mit mehreren \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees und mit al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, dem Vorsitzenden des Arabischen Oberkomitees, der von seinem damaligen Wohnort Kairo aus die Ereignisse gemeinsam mit seinen engen Mitarbeitern Shaykh Hasan Abu Su'ud und Ishaq Darwish genau verfolgte. Die Briten hatten Amin al-Husayni 1937 ins Exil geschickt. Die Frage, ob er angesichts der britischen Pr\u00e4senz in jenen chaotischen, turbulenten Zeiten h\u00e4tte zur\u00fcckkehren k\u00f6nnen, ist m\u00fc\u00dfig, da er es nie versuchte. Sein Verwandter, Jamal al-Husayni, der ihn in seiner Abwesenheit als stellvertretender Vorsitzender des Arabischen Oberkomitees vertrat, fuhr im Januar in die USA, um eine versp\u00e4tete diplomatische Kampagne gegen die UN-Resolution in Gang zu bringen. Die Pal\u00e4stinenser waren also in jeder Hinsicht eine f\u00fchrerlose Nation.\n\nIn diesem Kontext ist noch einmal Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni zu erw\u00e4hnen, der unter den Dorfbewohnern eine paramilit\u00e4rische Einheit zu ihrem Selbstschutz zu organisieren versuchte. Seine \u00bbArmee des heiligen Krieges\u00ab \u2013 ein recht gro\u00dfspuriger Name f\u00fcr die zweifelhafte Truppe, die er f\u00fchrte \u2013 hielt durch, bis sie am 9. April besiegt und Abd al-Qadir von den Hagana-Truppen get\u00f6tet wurde, die ihr an Ausr\u00fcstung und milit\u00e4rischer Erfahrung weit \u00fcberlegen waren.\n\n\u00c4hnliche Versuche unternahmen der bereits erw\u00e4hnte Hassan Salameh und Nimr Hawari (der sich sp\u00e4ter den Juden ergab und in den 1950er Jahren der erste pal\u00e4stinensische Richter Israels wurde) im Gro\u00dfraum Jaffa. Sie versuchten aus ihrer Pfadfinderbewegung paramilit\u00e4rische Einheiten zu machen, die aber ebenfalls innerhalb weniger Wochen besiegt wurden.\n\nVor Ablauf des Mandats stellten also weder die arabischen Freiwilligen von au\u00dferhalb Pal\u00e4stinas noch die paramilit\u00e4rischen Einheiten im Inland eine ernsthafte Gefahr f\u00fcr die j\u00fcdische Gemeinde dar, den Kampf zu verlieren oder zur Kapitulation gezwungen zu werden. Weit davon entfernt: Alle diese ausl\u00e4ndischen und einheimischen Truppen versuchten lediglich \u2013 vergeblich \u2013, die heimische pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung vor j\u00fcdischen Angriffen zu sch\u00fctzen.\n\nIn der israelischen und vor allem in der amerikanischen \u00f6ffentlichen Meinung gelang es jedoch den Mythos aufrechtzuerhalten, dass dem zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat die potenzielle Vernichtung oder ein \u00bbzweiter Holocaust\u00ab drohe. Diesen Mythos konnte Israel sp\u00e4ter ausnutzen, um sich bei j\u00fcdischen Gemeinden in der ganzen Welt massive Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr den Staat zu sichern und die Araber im allgemeinen und die Pal\u00e4stinenser im Besonderen in den Augen der breiten amerikanischen \u00d6ffentlichkeit zu d\u00e4monisieren. Die Realit\u00e4t im Land sah dagegen fast genau umgekehrt aus: Pal\u00e4stinenser waren von massiven Vertreibungen bedroht. In dem Monat, den die israelische Geschichtsschreibung als \u00bbh\u00e4rtesten\u00ab darstellt, versuchten die Pal\u00e4stinenser in Wirklichkeit nur, sich vor diesem Schicksal zu sch\u00fctzen, statt sich mit der Vernichtung der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde zu befassen. Als er vor\u00fcber war, stand den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen durch Israels Truppen nichts mehr im Weg.\n\nAuf dem Weg zum \u00bbrealen Krieg\u00ab\n\nAus pal\u00e4stinensischer Sicht schien sich die Lage, oberfl\u00e4chlich betrachtet, in der zweiten Aprilh\u00e4lfte 1948 zu bessern. Abdullah informierte seine j\u00fcdischen Gespr\u00e4chspartner, dass die Arabische Liga beschlossen hatte, regul\u00e4re Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina zu entsenden: Die Ereignisse in Pal\u00e4stina in den Monaten M\u00e4rz und April lie\u00dfen den F\u00fchrern der arabischen Welt keine andere Wahl. Nun begannen sie mit ernsthaften Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr eine Milit\u00e4rintervention. Dann traf aus Washington die \u00fcberraschende Nachricht ein, dass das Au\u00dfenministerium auf eine \u00c4nderung der amerikanischen Haltung dr\u00e4ngte. US-Vertreter in Pal\u00e4stina waren sich mittlerweile \u00fcber die Vertreibungen im Klaren, die dort im Gang waren, und hatten ihren Vorgesetzten in der Heimat vorgeschlagen, die Umsetzung des Teilungsplans auszusetzen und sich um eine Alternativl\u00f6sung zu bem\u00fchen.\n\nBereits am 12. M\u00e4rz 1948 hatte das US-Au\u00dfenministerium den Vereinten Nationen den Entwurf eines neuen Vorschlags vorgelegt, der vorsah, Pal\u00e4stina f\u00fcr f\u00fcnf Jahre unter internationale Treuhandverwaltung zu stellen und in dieser Zeit von den beiden Seiten eine einvernehmliche L\u00f6sung aushandeln zu lassen. Manche behaupten, das sei der vern\u00fcnftigste Vorschlag, den die USA in der Geschichte Pal\u00e4stinas je vorgebracht h\u00e4tten, was sich leider nie mehr wiederholen sollte. Warren Austin, der US-Botschafter bei den Vereinten Nationen, erkl\u00e4rte damals: \u00bbDie Position der USA ist, dass die Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas keine tragf\u00e4hige Option mehr ist.\u00ab\n\nDie Idee gefiel einigen Mitgliedstaaten der VereintenNationen, die in Flushing Meadows, NewYork, tagten, bis sie ihren Hauptsitz in das heutige Hochhaus verlegten. Es war durchaus sinnvoll zu schlussfolgern, dass die Teilung Pal\u00e4stina keinen Frieden brachte, sondern Gewalt und Blutvergie\u00dfen sch\u00fcrte. Aber Logik war nur ein Aspekt, den es in Betracht zu ziehen galt, ein anderer, in diesem Fall vorrangiger Aspekt war der Wunsch, eine m\u00e4chtige heimische Lobby nicht gegen sich aufzubringen. H\u00e4tte die zionistische Lobby nicht \u00e4u\u00dferst effektiv Druck auf Pr\u00e4sident Harry Truman ausge\u00fcbt, h\u00e4tte die Geschichte Pal\u00e4stinas einen anderen Verlauf nehmen k\u00f6nnen. Stattdessen lernten die zionistischen Teile der amerikanischen Juden eine wichtige Lektion \u00fcber ihre F\u00e4higkeit, Einfluss auf die amerikanische Politik in Pal\u00e4stina (und sp\u00e4ter im gesamten Nahen und Mittleren Osten) zu nehmen. L\u00e4ngerfristig gelang es der zionistischen Lobby in den 1950er und bis Anfang der 1960er Jahre, die Arabienexperten im Au\u00dfenministerium kaltzustellen, so dass die amerikanische Nahostpolitik in den H\u00e4nden des Kapitols und des Wei\u00dfen Hauses lag, wo die Zionisten erheblichen Einfluss besa\u00dfen.\n\nAber der Sieg auf dem Capitol Hill war nicht leicht. Die \u00bbArabisten\u00ab im Au\u00dfenministerium lasen die Berichte der _New York Times_ aufmerksamer als die Mitarbeiter des Pr\u00e4sidenten und versuchten verzweifelt, Truman zu \u00fcberzeugen, wenn man die Teilung schon nicht durch eine Treuh\u00e4nderschaft ersetze, solle man sich zumindest mehr Zeit lassen, den Teilungsplan zu \u00fcberdenken. Sie \u00fcberredeten ihn, beiden Seiten einen dreimonatigen Waffenstillstand vorzuschlagen.\n\nAm 12. Mai, einem Mittwochnachmittag, wurde die regul\u00e4re Sitzung der _Matkal_ und der Beratergruppe f\u00fcr eine wichtige Sitzung eines neuen Gremiums verschoben, des provisorischen \u00bbRegierungsrats\u00ab, der drei Tage sp\u00e4ter die Regierung des Staates Israel bilden sollte. Ben Gurion behauptete, fast alle Anwesenden h\u00e4tten die Entscheidung unterst\u00fctzt, den amerikanischen Vorschlag abzulehnen. Sp\u00e4ter behaupteten Historiker, er habe M\u00fche gehabt, den Beschluss durchzubringen, der nicht nur die Ablehnung des amerikanischen Plans, sondern auch die Ausrufung eines Staates drei Tage sp\u00e4ter bedeutete. Aber so wichtig war diese Sitzung nicht, da die Beratergruppe bereits ihre ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen vorantrieb und Ben Gurion sich nicht von Teilen der zionistischen Politikerelite h\u00e4tte aufhalten lassen, die vorher nicht in die Vision und den Plan eingeweiht waren. Das Wei\u00dfe Haus erkannte den neuen Staat an, und das US-Au\u00dfenministerium wurde wieder zum Hinterb\u00e4nkler der amerikanischen Pal\u00e4stinapolitik.\n\nAm 30. April hatte die arabische Welt dem Mann, von dem die meisten ihrer F\u00fchrer wussten, dass er ein Geheimabkommen mit den Juden getroffen hatte, den Oberbefehl \u00fcber die Milit\u00e4roperationen in Pal\u00e4stina \u00fcbertragen. Kein Wunder, dass \u00c4gypten, der gr\u00f6\u00dfte arabische Staat, erst das Scheitern der letzten amerikanischen Initiative abwartete, bevor es beschloss, sich an dem Milit\u00e4reinsatz zu beteiligen, der in einem Fiasko enden w\u00fcrde, wie seine F\u00fchrer wohl wussten. Die Entscheidung, die am 12. Mai im \u00e4gyptischen Senat fiel, lie\u00df der \u00e4gyptischen Armee kaum drei Tage Zeit, sich auf die \u00bbInvasion\u00ab vorzubereiten, und von dieser unglaublich kurzen Vorbereitung zeugte denn auch ihre Leistung auf dem Schlachtfeld. Den anderen Armeen erging es nicht besser, wie wir noch sehen werden. Als letzte Hoffnung blieben in diesen Tagen im April und Mai 1948 die Briten, aber sie verhielten sich so perfide wie sonst nirgendwo in ihrem gesamten Imperium.\n\nBritische Verantwortung\n\nWussten die Briten von Plan Dalet? Man nimmt an, dass sie davon wussten, aber es l\u00e4sst sich nicht leicht beweisen. H\u00f6chst auffallend ist, dass die Briten, nachdem Plan Dalet beschlossen war, verk\u00fcndeten, sie seien nicht l\u00e4nger f\u00fcr Recht und Ordnung in den Gebieten zust\u00e4ndig, in denen ihre Truppen noch immer stationiert waren, und dass sie sich darauf beschr\u00e4nkten, diese Truppen zu sch\u00fctzen. Damit waren Haifa, Jaffa und die gesamte K\u00fcstenregion zwischen diesen beiden St\u00e4dten Freir\u00e4ume, in denen die zionistische F\u00fchrung Plan Dalet umsetzen konnte, ohne f\u00fcrchten zu m\u00fcssen, dass die britische Armee sie daran hindern oder ihnen auch nur entgegentreten w\u00fcrde. Weit schlimmer war, dass der Abzug der Briten vom Land und aus den St\u00e4dten Recht und Ordnung in ganz Pal\u00e4stina zusammenbrechen lie\u00df. In den damaligen Tageszeitungen, beispielsweise in _Filastin,_ spiegelte sich die Angst der Bev\u00f6lkerung vor der zunehmenden Zahl von Verbrechen wie Diebstahl und Raub in den St\u00e4dten und Pl\u00fcnderungen in den D\u00f6rfern wider. Der Abzug der britischen Polizeikr\u00e4fte aus den St\u00e4dten und Gemeinden hatte zum Beispiel auch zur Folge, dass viele Pal\u00e4stinenser ihre L\u00f6hne und Geh\u00e4lter nicht mehr bei der \u00f6rtlichen Stadtverwaltung abholen konnten: Die meisten \u00f6ffentlichen Verwaltungen waren in j\u00fcdischen Vierteln, wo sie mit \u00dcbergriffen rechnen mussten.\n\nKein Wunder, dass Pal\u00e4stinenser heute noch sagen: \u00bbDie Hauptverantwortung f\u00fcr unsere Katastrophe liegt beim britischen Mandat\u00ab, wie Jamal Khaddura, ein Fl\u00fcchtling aus Suhmata bei Akko, es ausdr\u00fcckte. Dieses Gef\u00fchl von Verrat schleppte er sein Leben lang mit sich herum und \u00e4u\u00dferte es vor einem parlamentarischen Untersuchungsausschuss zur pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage, den die Briten 2001 einrichteten. Andere Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die vor diesem Untersuchungsausschuss aussagten, \u00e4u\u00dferten ebenso wie Khaddura Bitterkeit und Schuldzuweisungen.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich vermieden die Briten bereits im Oktober 1947 jede ernsthafte Intervention und schauten unt\u00e4tig zu, wie j\u00fcdische Truppen Vorposten unter ihre Kontrolle zu bringen versuchten; sie unternahmen auch nichts gegen arabische Freiwillige, die in kleinen Mengen ins Land kamen. Im Dezember waren noch 75000 britische Soldaten in Pal\u00e4stina stationiert, aber sie hatten ausschlie\u00dflich den Auftrag, den Abzug der Truppen und der Mandatsbeamten zu sichern.\n\nGelegentlich unterst\u00fctzten sie die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen noch auf andere, direktere Weise, indem sie der j\u00fcdischen F\u00fchrung Kopien von Besitzurkunden und anderen wichtigen Daten gaben, bevor sie die Dokumente zerst\u00f6rten, wie sie es bei ihrem Dekolonisierungsprozess h\u00e4ufig taten. Diese Verzeichnisse erg\u00e4nzten die Dorfdossiers um die letzten Details, die die Zionisten f\u00fcr die massive Vertreibung der Bev\u00f6lkerung brauchten. Brutale Milit\u00e4rgewalt ist die erste Voraussetzung f\u00fcr Vertreibung und Besetzung, aber B\u00fcrokratie ist nicht minder wichtig f\u00fcr die effiziente Durchf\u00fchrung einer gro\u00df angelegten S\u00e4uberungsaktion, bei der es nicht nur um die Enteignung der Bev\u00f6lkerung, sondern auch um die Inbesitznahme der Beute geht.\n\nVerrat durch die Vereinten Nationen\n\nLaut Teilungsresolution sollten die Vereinten Nationen in Pal\u00e4stina pr\u00e4sent sein, um die Durchf\u00fchrung des Friedensplans zu \u00fcberwachen: die \u00dcberf\u00fchrung ganz Pal\u00e4stinas in die Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit und die Schaffung zweier Staaten mit Wirtschaftsunion. Die Resolution vom 29. November 1947 enthielt ganz klare Bestimmungen. Unter anderem verpflichteten sich die UN, jeden Versuch einer der beiden Seiten zu verhindern, Land zu enteignen, das B\u00fcrgern des anderen Staates oder der anderen nationalen Gruppe geh\u00f6rte \u2013 sei es bestelltes Ackerland oder Brachland.\n\nZugunsten der UN-Emiss\u00e4re in Pal\u00e4stina ist anzuf\u00fchren, dass sie die Verschlechterung der Lage zumindest merkten und auf ein \u00dcberdenken der Teilungspolitik zu dr\u00e4ngen versuchten, aber sie unternahmen nichts weiter als die Lage zu beobachten und Berichte \u00fcber anf\u00e4ngliche ethnische S\u00e4uberungen zu schreiben. Die Vereinten Nationen hatten nur begrenzt Zugang zu Pal\u00e4stina, da die britischen Beh\u00f6rden ein organisiertes UN-Gremium im Land nicht erlaubten und damit den Passus der Teilungsresolution missachteten, der die Anwesenheit einer UN-Kommission verlangte. Gro\u00dfbritannien lie\u00df die ethnische S\u00e4uberung vor den Augen seiner Soldaten und Beamten noch w\u00e4hrend seiner Mandatszeit zu, die am 14. Mai 1948 um Mitternacht endete, und behinderte die UN-Bem\u00fchungen um eine Intervention, die manche Pal\u00e4stinenser h\u00e4tte retten k\u00f6nnen. Nach dem 15. Mai gab es keine Entschuldigung mehr f\u00fcr die Art und Weise, in der die Vereinten Nationen die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung im Stich lie\u00dfen, nachdem sie ihr Land geteilt und ihr Wohl und Wehe den Juden ausgeliefert hatten \u2013 den Juden, die seit Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts den Wunsch hegten, sie zu vertreiben und ihre Stelle in dem Land einzunehmen, das sie f\u00fcr sich beanspruchten.\nKAPITEL 6\n\nDer Scheinkrieg und der reale Krieg um Pal\u00e4stina: Mai 1948\n\n_Ich habe keinerlei Zweifel, dass in Tantura ein Massaker stattfand. Ich bin nicht auf die Stra\u00dfe gegangen, um es herauszuposaunen. Es ist nicht gerade etwas, worauf man stolz ist. Aber wenn die Sache erst mal \u00f6ffentlich gemacht wird, sollte man auch die Wahrheit sagen. Nach 52 Jahren ist der Staat Israel stark und reif genug, sich seiner Vergangenheit zu stellen._\n\nEli Shimoni, Offizier der Alexandroni-Brigade, _Maariv_ , 4. Februar 2004\n\nNach Beendigung des Mandats erreichten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen innerhalb von Wochen die \u00fcberwiegende Mehrzahl der isolierten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen. Nur zwei verloren sie an die Arabische Legion, weil sie in dem Gebiet lagen, von dem beide Seiten vor Mai 1948 vereinbart hatten, dass die Jordanier es besetzen und annektieren sollten, n\u00e4mlich im Westjordanland. Die Jordanier bestanden auch auf mindestens der H\u00e4lfte Jerusalems, einschlie\u00dflich der Altstadt, in der sich die heiligen St\u00e4tten des Islam, aber auch das j\u00fcdische Viertel befanden; da es aber hier\u00fcber keine vorherigen Vereinbarungen gab, mussten sie darum k\u00e4mpfen, was sie mutig und erfolgreich taten. Es war das erste Mal, dass es zwischen den beiden Seiten zu K\u00e4mpfen kam, ganz im Gegensatz zur Unt\u00e4tigkeit der Arabischen Legion, als die israelische Armee anfing, in der N\u00e4he ihrer Standorte D\u00f6rfer und St\u00e4dte zu besetzen, zu r\u00e4umen und zu zerst\u00f6ren.\n\nAm 11. Mai 1948 rief Ben Gurion die Beratergruppe zusammen und bat seine Kollegen, die m\u00f6glichen Folgen eines offensiveren jordanischen Vorgehens f\u00fcr die Zukunft einzusch\u00e4tzen. Das Ergebnis dieser Sitzung spiegelte sich in einem Schreiben wider, in dem Ben Gurion den Brigadekommandeuren der Hagana mitteilte, die offensiveren Absichten der Arabischen Legion sollten ihre Truppen nicht von ihrer Hauptaufgabe ablenken: \u00bbDie S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas blieb das vorrangige Ziel von Plan Dalet\u00ab (er benutzte das Wort _bi'ur_ , das die vollst\u00e4ndige Reinigung des Hauses von ges\u00e4uertem Brot vor dem Pessachfest bezeichnet, im \u00fcbertragenen Sinn aber auch \u00bbausrotten\u00ab, \u00bbeliminieren\u00ab hei\u00dft).\n\nDieses Kalk\u00fcl ging auf. Die jordanische Armee war zwar die schlagkr\u00e4ftigste unter den arabischen Streitkr\u00e4ften und h\u00e4tte der st\u00e4rkste Gegner des j\u00fcdischen Staates sein k\u00f6nnen, wurde aber vom ersten Tag des Pal\u00e4stinakrieges an durch das Geheimabkommen neutralisiert, das K\u00f6nig Abdullah mit der zionistischen Bewegung getroffen hatte. Es ist nicht verwunderlich, dass der englische Befehlshaber der Arabischen Legion, Glubb Pasha, den Krieg 1948 in Pal\u00e4stina als \u00bbScheinkrieg\u00ab bezeichnete. Glubb war sich nicht nur v\u00f6llig \u00fcber die Einschr\u00e4nkungen im Klaren, die Abdullah dem Vorgehen der Legion auferlegt hatte, er war auch in die allgemeinen panarabischen Konsultationen und Vorbereitungen eingeweiht. Wie die britischen Milit\u00e4rberater der verschiedenen arabischen Armeen \u2013 von denen es viele gab \u2013 wusste er, dass die anderen arabischen Armeen f\u00fcr einen Rettungseinsatz in Pal\u00e4stina v\u00f6llig ineffektive \u2013 \u00bbj\u00e4mmerliche\u00ab, sagten einige seiner Kollegen \u2013 Voraussetzungen mitbrachten und dass das Gleiche auch f\u00fcr die Arabische Befreiungsarmee (ALA) galt.\n\nDie einzige Ver\u00e4nderung, die nach Beendigung des britischen Mandats im arabischen Verhalten festzustellen war, betraf die Rhetorik. Die Kriegstrommeln wurden noch lauter und st\u00fcrmischer ger\u00fchrt als zuvor, konnten aber \u00fcber die \u00fcberall herrschende Unt\u00e4tigkeit, Unordnung und Verwirrung nicht hinwegt\u00e4uschen. In den einzelnen arabischen Hauptst\u00e4dten mag sich die Lage etwas unterschiedlich dargestellt haben, aber das Gesamtbild war weitgehend gleich. In Kairo beschloss die Regierung erst im letzten Moment \u2013 zwei Tage vor Beendigung des Mandats \u2013, Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina zu entsenden. Unter den aufgestellten 10000 Soldaten befand sich ein gro\u00dfes Kontingent Freiwilliger der Muslimischen Bruderschaft, die fast 50 Prozent ausmachten. Die Mitglieder dieser politischen Bewegung, die in \u00c4gypten und der arabischen Welt den orthodoxen Islam wieder einf\u00fchren wollten, betrachteten Pal\u00e4stina als wichtiges Schlachtfeld im Kampf gegen den europ\u00e4ischen Imperialismus. In den 1940er Jahren hatte die Bruderschaft aber auch die \u00e4gyptische Regierung als Kollaborateur dieses Imperialismus gesehen, und als ihre extremeren Mitglieder in ihren Kampagnen zu Gewalt gegriffen hatten, waren viele von ihnen ins Gef\u00e4ngnis gewandert. Sie wurden nun im Mai 1948 freigelassen, damit sie sich den \u00e4gyptischen Expeditionstruppen anschlie\u00dfen konnten, aber sie besa\u00dfen nat\u00fcrlich keine milit\u00e4rische Ausbildung und hatten trotz ihres fanatischen Eifers den j\u00fcdischen Truppen nichts entgegenzusetzen.\n\nDie syrischen Truppen waren besser ausgebildet und ihre Politiker waren engagierter, aber nur drei Jahre, nachdem die franz\u00f6sische Mandatsmacht Syrien in die Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit entlassen hatte, schlug sich das kleine, nach Pal\u00e4stina entsandte Kontingent so schlecht, dass die Beratergruppe noch vor Ende Mai 1948 mit dem Gedanken spielte, die j\u00fcdischen Staatsgrenzen an der Nordostflanke nach Syrien hinein auszudehnen und die Golanh\u00f6hen zu annektieren. Noch kleiner und unengagierter waren die libanesischen Einheiten, die w\u00e4hrend des Krieges weitgehend auf ihrer Seite der Grenze zu Pal\u00e4stina blieben und dort widerstrebend die Grenzd\u00f6rfer zu verteidigen versuchten.\n\nDie irakischen Truppen bildeten die letzte und faszinierendste Komponente der allarabischen Milit\u00e4ranstrengungen. Sie bestanden aus einigen tausend Mann und hatten von ihrer Regierung den Befehl, sich an die jordanische Richtlinie zu halten: also den j\u00fcdischen Staat nicht anzugreifen, sondern das K\u00f6nig Abdullah zugedachte Gebiet, das Westjordanland, zu verteidigen. Sie waren im Nordteil des Westjordanlands stationiert, missachteten aber die Befehle ihrer Politiker und versuchten eine effektivere Rolle zu spielen. Dadurch konnten 15 D\u00f6rfer im Wadi Ara an der Stra\u00dfe von Afula nach Hadera standhalten und der Vertreibung entgehen (im Sommer 1949 trat die jordanische Regierung sie im Rahmen eines bilateralen Waffenstillstandsabkommens an Israel ab).\n\nDrei Wochen lang gelang es diesen arabischen Einheiten \u2013 die von der Heuchelei ihrer Politiker teils zu Kampfbereitschaft provoziert, teils davon abgeschreckt wurden \u2013, in die Gebiete vorzudringen, die von der UN-Teilungsresolution f\u00fcr den arabischen Staat vorgesehen waren, und sie zu halten. An einigen Orten konnten sie dort isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen einkesseln und eine Zeit lang besetzen, verloren sie aber nach einigen Tagen wieder.\n\nIn Pal\u00e4stina merkten die arabischen Truppen sehr bald, dass sie ihre Nachschublinien \u00fcberdehnt hatten und daher keine Munition mehr f\u00fcr ihre antiquierten und oft versagenden Waffen bekamen. Ihre Offiziere mussten feststellen, dass es keine Koordination zwischen den verschiedenen nationalen Armeen gab und die R\u00fcstungsvorr\u00e4te in ihren Heimatl\u00e4ndern zur Neige gingen, selbst wenn die Nachschubwege frei waren. Waffen waren knapp, da die Hauptr\u00fcstungslieferanten der arabischen Armeen, Frankreich und Gro\u00dfbritannien, einWaffenembargo gegen Pal\u00e4stina verh\u00e4ngt hatten. Das beeintr\u00e4chtigte die arabischen Armeen, nicht aber die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte, die in der Sowjetunion und ihrem neu geschaffenen Ostblock bereitwillige Lieferanten fanden. Was die mangelnde Koordination anging, so war sie die unausweichliche Folge aus der Entscheidung der Arabischen Liga, K\u00f6nig Abdullah den Oberbefehl \u00fcber die allarabische Armee zu \u00fcbertragen und einen irakischen General zu ihrem Befehlshaber zu machen. W\u00e4hrend die Jordanier nie den Blick zur\u00fcck wandten auf diese Tage im Mai, Juni und Juli 1948, als sie den allgemeinen arabischen Milit\u00e4reinsatz nach Kr\u00e4ften untergruben, stellten die revolution\u00e4ren Herrscher, die 1958 im Irak die Macht \u00fcbernahmen, ihre Generale wegen ihrer Rolle in der Katastrophe vor Gericht.\n\nDennoch gelang es den arabischen Truppen, die j\u00fcdische Armee in K\u00e4mpfe zu verwickeln und einige mutige j\u00fcdische Reaktionen zu provozieren, vor allem bei isolierten j\u00fcdischen Gemeinden mitten im UN-designierten arabischen Staat oder an den \u00e4u\u00dfersten Enden des Landes, wo Ben Gurion beim Einmarsch arabischer Einheiten in Pal\u00e4stina am 15. Mai die strategische Entscheidung getroffen hatte, anf\u00e4llige j\u00fcdische Vorposten sich selbst zu \u00fcberlassen. Einheiten der syrischen Armee r\u00fcckten an diesem Tag auf der Stra\u00dfe von Damaskus nach Tiberias vor und wurden in der Umgebung der vier isolierten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen Mishmar Hayarden, Ayelet Hashahar, Haztor und Menahemiya in K\u00e4mpfe verwickelt. Es gelang ihnen lediglich, Mishmar Hayarden zu besetzen, wo sie bis zum ersten Tag des Waffenstillstands (11. Juni) blieben. Als sie sp\u00e4ter angegriffen und aus Pal\u00e4stina vertrieben wurden, \u00bbzeigten sie keinen Kampfgeist\u00ab, wie der israelische Geheimdienst feststellte.\n\nIsraelische Historiker kritisierten Ben Gurion sp\u00e4ter, weil er diese Siedlungen vor\u00fcbergehend aufgegeben hatte. Aus rein milit\u00e4rischer Sicht hatte Ben Gurion Recht, da keine der Siedlungen letztlich in arabischer Hand blieb, und obwohl die ethnische S\u00e4uberung ihm offensichtlich wesentlich wichtiger war und h\u00f6her auf seiner Agenda rangierte, lag ihm durchaus am Schicksal dieser entlegenen Orte.\n\nDas erkl\u00e4rt auch, weshalb die meisten Heldengeschichten, die den israelischen Mythos und die kollektive Erinnerung an den Krieg von 1948 gen\u00e4hrt haben, aus diesen ersten drei Kriegswochen stammen. Der reale Krieg unterzog Ausdauer und Entschlossenheit der israelischen Seite zwar noch weiteren Pr\u00fcfungen etwa in Tel Aviv, das in den ersten Kriegstagen mehrfach von \u00e4gyptischen Flugzeugen bombardiert wurde, aber sie lie\u00dfen in den folgenden Wochen nach und h\u00f6rten schlie\u00dflich ganz auf. Die Anwesenheit der arabischen Truppen reichte jedoch zu keiner Zeit aus, um die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen aufzuhalten \u2013 deren Gr\u00e4uel die offizielle und popul\u00e4re israelische Darstellung nie besch\u00e4digten, da sie v\u00f6llig aus der Erinnerung getilgt wurden.\n\nIm \u00dcbrigen verliefen die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen in der zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte 1948 nicht anders als im April und Anfang Mai. Das Ende der Mandatsverwaltung beeintr\u00e4chtigte also die massiven Vertreibungen nicht, die ohne Unterbrechung weitergingen. Am Tag vor dem 15. Mai 1948 gab es ebenso ethnische S\u00e4uberungsaktionen wie am Tag danach. Israel verf\u00fcgte \u00fcber gen\u00fcgend Truppen, um mit den arabischen Armeen fertig zu werden und gleichzeitig die S\u00e4uberungen fortzusetzen.\n\nEs d\u00fcrfte also klar geworden sein, dass der grundlegende israelische Mythos \u00fcber die freiwillige Flucht der Pal\u00e4stinenser gleich bei Kriegsbeginn \u2013 als Reaktion auf einen Aufruf arabischer F\u00fchrer, Platz f\u00fcr die Invasion ihrer Armeen zu machen \u2013 keineswegs stichhaltig ist. Und dass es von j\u00fcdischer Seite Versuche gab, Pal\u00e4stinenser zum Bleiben zu bewegen, wie israelische Geschichtsb\u00fccher bis heute behaupten, ist reine Erfindung. Hunderttausende Pal\u00e4stinenser waren bereits vor Kriegsbeginn gewaltsam vertrieben worden und weitere Zehntausende sollten in den ersten Kriegswochen vertrieben werden. F\u00fcr die meisten Pal\u00e4stinenser war der 15. Mai 1948 damals kein Datum von besonderer Bedeutung: Er war nur ein weiterer Tag in dem grauenvollen Kalender der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung, die bereits mehr als f\u00fcnf Monate zuvor begonnen hatte.\n\n_Tihur_ -Zeit\n\n_Tihur_ ist ein weiteres hebr\u00e4isches Wort f\u00fcr S\u00e4uberung und bedeutet w\u00f6rtlich Reinigung. Nachdem am Abend des 14. Mai 1948 der j\u00fcdische Staat ausgerufen war, tauchte dieser Begriff h\u00e4ufig explizit in den Einsatzbefehlen an die Einheiten im Feld auf. Das Oberkommando w\u00e4hlte diese Sprache, um die israelischen Soldaten aufzustacheln, bevor man sie ausschickte, um pal\u00e4stinensische Land- und Stadtbezirke zu zerst\u00f6ren. Diese Eskalation der Rhetorik war der einzige offensichtliche Unterschied zum vorhergehenden Monat \u2013 ansonsten gingen die S\u00e4uberungsaktionen unvermindert weiter.\n\nDie Beratergruppe kam weiter zusammen, allerdings weniger regelm\u00e4\u00dfig, da der j\u00fcdische Staat nun ein Fait accompli mit arbeitsf\u00e4higer Regierung, Kabinett, Milit\u00e4rkommando, Geheimdiensten usw. war. Ihre Mitglieder befassten sich nun nicht mehr vorrangig mit dem Masterplan der Vertreibung: Seit Plan Dalet in Gang gesetzt war, lief er reibungslos und bedurfte keiner weiteren Koordination und Direktiven. Ihre Aufmerksamkeit richtete sich nun auf die Frage, ob sie ausreichend Soldaten hatten, um einen \u00bbZweifrontenkrieg\u00ab durchzuhalten: gegen die arabischen Armeen und gegen die eine Million Pal\u00e4stinenser, die v\u00f6lkerrechtlich seit dem 15. Mai israelische Staatsb\u00fcrger waren. Bis Ende Mai hatten sich diese Bef\u00fcrchtungen gelegt.\n\nFalls es \u00fcberhaupt etwas Neues an der Arbeit der Beratergruppe gab, so war es der Umzug in ein neues Geb\u00e4ude auf einem H\u00fcgel mit Blick auf das ger\u00e4umte Dorf Shaykh Muwannis. Es wurde zum _Matkal_ , dem Hauptquartier des Generalstabs der israelischen Armee. Von diesem erh\u00f6hten Standort aus konnte die Beratergruppe buchst\u00e4blich die Offensive beobachten, die am 1. Mai gegen die umliegenden pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer begonnen hatte. Aber es war keineswegs die einzige Operation, vielmehr erfolgte sie gleichzeitig mit \u00e4hnlichen Eins\u00e4tzen im Osten und Norden. Die Alexandroni-Brigade hatte den Auftrag, die D\u00f6rfer \u00f6stlich und n\u00f6rdlich von Tel Aviv und Jaffa zu s\u00e4ubern und anschlie\u00dfend nach Norden vorzur\u00fccken, um gemeinsam mit anderen Einheiten die pal\u00e4stinensische K\u00fcstenregion bis nach Haifa zu entv\u00f6lkern.\n\nDie Befehle trafen am 12. Mai ein: \u00bbVom 14. bis 15. sind zu besetzen und zu zerst\u00f6ren: Tira, Qalansuwa und Qaqun, Irata, Danba, Iqtaba und Shuweika. Au\u00dferdem sollte Qalqilya besetzt, aber nicht zerst\u00f6rt werden\u00ab (die Stadt im besetzten Westjordanland, die die Alexandroni-Brigade nicht einnahm, ist heute vollst\u00e4ndig von der acht Meter hohen Sperrmauer umgeben, die Israel errichtet hat). Innerhalb von zwei Tagen traf der n\u00e4chste Befehl im Hauptquartier der Alexandroni-Brigade ein: \u00bbTirat Haifa, Ayn Ghazal, Ijzim, Kfar Lam, Jaba, Ayn Hawd und Mazar sind anzugreifen und zu r\u00e4umen.\u00ab\n\nZeichnet man die Route nach, die die Brigade nahm, so gingen die Truppen offenbar systematisch von S\u00fcden nach Norden vor und zerst\u00f6rten die D\u00f6rfer, wie es ihnen richtig erschien, statt sich genau an die in den Befehlen angegebene Reihenfolge zu halten. Da das Gesamtziel darin bestand, die Liste abzuarbeiten, wurden keine eindeutigen Priorit\u00e4ten gesetzt. Die Alexandroni-Brigade begann mit den D\u00f6rfern n\u00f6rdlich und \u00f6stlich von Tel Aviv: Kfar Saba und Qaqun, deren Einwohner vertrieben wurden. Wie die Vereinten Nationen behaupteten und Aussagen j\u00fcdischer Soldaten best\u00e4tigten, kam es bei der Einnahme von Qaqun zu einem Fall von Vergewaltigung.\n\nAlles in allem gab es zwischen Tel Aviv und Haifa auf einem 100 Kilometer langen und 15 bis 20 Kilometer breiten K\u00fcstenstreifen 64 D\u00f6rfer. Davon blieben letzten Endes nur zwei verschont: Furaydis und Jisr al-Zarqa. Auch ihre Zwangsr\u00e4umung war geplant, aber Einwohner der benachbarten j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen \u00fcberredeten die Armeekommandeure, sie zu verschonen, indem sie behaupteten, sie br\u00e4uchten die Einwohner als ungelernte Arbeitskr\u00e4fte in Haus und Hof. Heute f\u00fchren durch diesen K\u00fcstenstreifen die beiden Hauptstra\u00dfen, die Haifa und Tel Aviv verbinden: die Schnellstra\u00dfen 2 und 4. T\u00e4glich pendeln auf diesen Stra\u00dfen Hunderttausende Israelis, von denen die meisten nicht die geringste Ahnung von den Orten haben, durch die sie fahren, geschweige denn von ihrer Geschichte. J\u00fcdische Siedlungen, Nadelw\u00e4lder und Fischteiche haben die pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinden ersetzt, die fr\u00fcher hier florierten.\n\nDas Tempo, mit dem die Alexandroni-Brigade den K\u00fcstenstreifen s\u00e4uberte, war erschreckend \u2013 allein in der zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte 1948 r\u00e4umte sie folgende Orte: Manshiyya (bei Tul-Karem), Butaymat, Khirbat al-Manara, Qannir, Khirbat Qumbaza und Khirbat al-Shuna. Eine Reihe kleiner D\u00f6rfer leistete so erbitterten Widerstand, dass die Alexandroni-Brigade sie nicht einnehmen konnte. Dennoch wurden sie im Juli schlie\u00dflich ger\u00e4umt. Die ethnische S\u00e4uberung der zentralen K\u00fcstenebene erfolgte also in zwei Phasen: die erste im Mai, die zweite im Juli. Die wichtigste \u00bbTroph\u00e4e\u00ab in der zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte war das Dorf Tantura, das die Alexandroni-Brigade am 22. Mai 1948 einnahm.\n\nDas Massaker in Tantura\n\nAls eines der gr\u00f6\u00dften D\u00f6rfer an der K\u00fcste war Tantura f\u00fcr die vordringende Brigade st\u00f6rend wie \u00bbeine Gr\u00e4te im Hals\u00ab, wie das offizielle Kriegsbuch der Alexandroni-Brigade es formulierte. Tanturas Stunde schlug am 22. Mai 1948.\n\nDas alte pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf an der Mittelmeerk\u00fcste war f\u00fcr damalige Verh\u00e4ltnisse gro\u00df. Seine 1500 Einwohner lebten von Landwirtschaft, Fischfang und Hilfsarbeiten im nahen Haifa. Am 15. Mai 1948 traf sich eine kleine Gruppe der Notabeln von Tantura, zu denen auch der Muchtar des Dorfes geh\u00f6rte, mit j\u00fcdischen Geheimdienstoffizieren, die ihnen Kapitulationsbedingungen anboten. Da sie f\u00fcrchteten, dass eine Kapitulation zur Vertreibung der Einwohner f\u00fchren w\u00fcrde, lehnten sie das Angebot ab.\n\nEine Woche sp\u00e4ter, am 22. Mai 1948, begann nachts der Angriff auf das Dorf. Der j\u00fcdische Kommandeur wollte zuerst einen Lastwagen in das Dorf schicken, der die Einwohner \u00fcber Lautsprecher auffordern sollte, sich zu ergeben, aber dieser Plan wurde nicht ausgef\u00fchrt.\n\nDie Offensive erfolgte von allen vier Seiten. Das war ungew\u00f6hnlich, denn in der Regel schloss die Brigade ein Dorf von drei Seiten ein und schuf taktisch an der vierten Seite ein \u00bboffenes Tor\u00ab, durch das sie die Bev\u00f6lkerung hinaustreiben konnte. Aufgrund mangelnder Koordination hatten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen Tantura vollst\u00e4ndig eingekesselt und mussten nun mit einer sehr gro\u00dfen Zahl von Einwohnern fertig werden.\n\nDie j\u00fcdischen Truppen trieben die gefangenen Einwohner von Tantura mit Waffengewalt an den Strand, trennten die M\u00e4nner von den Frauen und Kindern, die sie in das benachbarte Furaydis vertrieben, wohin einige der M\u00e4nner ihnen nach eineinhalb Jahren folgen sollten. Den Hunderten am Strand versammelten M\u00e4nnern befahlen sie, sich zu setzen und auf die Ankunft des israelischen Geheimdienstoffiziers, Shimshon Mashvitz, zu warten, der in der nahen Siedlung Givat Ada lebte und zu dessen \u00bbBezirk\u00ab das Dorf geh\u00f6rte.\n\nMashvitz kam mit einem \u00f6rtlichen Kollaborateur, der wie in Ayn al-Zaytun maskiert war, suchte einzelne M\u00e4nner (\u00bbM\u00e4nner\u00ab waren in den Augen der israelischen Armee alle m\u00e4nnlichen Einwohner im Alter von 10 bis 50 Jahren) heraus und brachte sie in kleinen Gruppen etwas beiseite, wo sie hingerichtet wurden. Die Auswahl der M\u00e4nner erfolgte nach einer vorbereiteten Liste aus dem Dorfdossier f\u00fcr Tantura, auf der alle standen, die sich an der Revolte 1936 und an Angriffen auf j\u00fcdischen Verkehr beteiligt hatten, die Kontakte zum Mufti unterhielten oder ein \u00bbVerbrechen\u00ab begangen hatten, das sie unweigerlich verurteilte.\n\nAber nicht nur diese M\u00e4nner wurden hingerichtet. Vor der Selektion und Exekution am Strand war die Invasionstruppe marodierend durch die H\u00e4user und Stra\u00dfen gezogen. Joel Skolnik, ein Pionier des Bataillons, der bei dem Angriff verwundet wurde, h\u00f6rte im Krankhaus von anderen Soldaten, es sei \u00bbeiner der besch\u00e4mendsten K\u00e4mpfe der israelischen Armee\u00ab gewesen. Nach seiner Schilderung hatten Heckensch\u00fctzen aus dem Dorf auf die vordringenden Soldaten gefeuert, was die j\u00fcdischen Truppen veranlasste, Amok zu laufen, sobald der Ort eingenommen war und noch bevor es zu den Szenen am Strand kam. Diese \u00dcbergriffe erfolgten, nachdem die Einwohner des Dorfes zum Zeichen ihrer Kapitulation wei\u00dfe Flaggen geschwenkt hatten.\n\nWie Skolnik h\u00f6rte, waren vor allem zwei Soldaten mordend durch den Ort gezogen und h\u00e4tten das auch weiter getan, wenn nicht einige Leute aus der nahen j\u00fcdischen Siedlung Zikhron Yaacov gekommen w\u00e4ren und sie aufgehalten h\u00e4tten. Es war Yaacov Epstein, der Leiter der Siedlung Zikhron Yaacov, dem es gelang, der Mordorgie in Tantura ein Ende zu setzen, aber \u00bber kam zu sp\u00e4t\u00ab, wie ein \u00dcberlebender bitter erkl\u00e4rte.\n\nDie meisten Erschie\u00dfungen erfolgten am Strand. Einige der Opfer wurden vorher verh\u00f6rt und nach einem \u00bbriesigen Waffenversteck\u00ab befragt, das sich angeblich im Dorf befinden sollte. Da sie keine Angaben dazu machen konnten \u2013 es gab kein solches Waffenlager \u2013, wurden sie an Ort und Stelle erschossen. Viele \u00dcberlebende dieser grauenvollen Ereignisse leben heute im Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Yarmuk in Syrien und kommen nach den traumatischen Erlebnissen, Augenzeugen der Exekutionen geworden zu sein, nur schwer mit ihrem Leben zurecht.\n\nEin j\u00fcdischer Offizier schilderte die Hinrichtungen in Tantura:\n\nGefangene wurden etwa 200 Meter beiseite gef\u00fchrt und dann erschossen. Soldaten kamen zu dem Oberkommandierenden und sagten: \u00bbMein Vetter wurde im Krieg get\u00f6tet\u00ab. Als sein Kommandeur das h\u00f6rte, befahl er den Truppen, eine Gruppe von f\u00fcnf bis sieben Leuten abzuf\u00fchren und hinzurichten. Dann kam ein Soldat und sagte, sein Bruder sei im Kampf gefallen. F\u00fcr einen Bruder war die Vergeltung h\u00e4rter. Der Kommandeur befahl, eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Gruppe wegzubringen und zu erschie\u00dfen und so ging es weiter.\n\nWas in Tantura geschah, war also die systematische Exekution wehrf\u00e4higer junger M\u00e4nner durch j\u00fcdische Soldaten und Geheimdienstoffiziere. Ein Augenzeuge, Abu Mashaykh, hielt sich bei einem Freund im Dorf auf, da j\u00fcdische Truppen sein Heimatdorf Qisarya bereits im Februar 1948 zwangsger\u00e4umt und zerst\u00f6rt hatten. Er erlebte mit, wie vor seinen Augen 85 junge M\u00e4nner aus Tantura in Zehnergruppen abgef\u00fchrt und auf dem Friedhof oder in der nahen Moschee hingerichtet wurden. Nach seiner Ansicht wurden noch mehr M\u00e4nner exekutiert, die Gesamtzahl sch\u00e4tzte er auf 110. Er sah, dass Shimshon Mashvitz die ganze Operation leitete: \u00bbEr hatte eine \u203aSten\u2039 [Maschinenpistole] und t\u00f6tete sie.\u00ab Sp\u00e4ter f\u00fcgte er hinzu: \u00bbSie standen an der Wand, alle mit dem Gesicht zur Wand. Er kam von hinten und schoss ihnen in den Kopf, allen.\u00ab Au\u00dferdem bezeugte er noch, dass j\u00fcdische Soldaten den Exekutionen mit offensichtlicher Genugtuung zugeschaut hatten.\n\nFawzi Muhammad Tanj Abu Khalid, war ebenfalls Augenzeuge der Exekutionen. Nach seiner Schilderung wurden die M\u00e4nner des Dorfes von den Frauen getrennt, in Gruppen von sieben bis zehn weggebracht und hingerichtet. Er war Zeuge, wie 90 Menschen get\u00f6tet wurden.\n\nMahmud Abu Salih aus Tantura berichtete ebenfalls von der T\u00f6tung von 90 Menschen. Er war damals 17 Jahre alt; er wird nie vergessen, wie ein Vater vor den Augen seiner Kinder get\u00f6tet wurde. Abu Salih hielt Kontakt zu einem der S\u00f6hne, der den Verstand verloren hatte, als er die Hinrichtung seines Vaters miterlebte, und sich nie wieder davon erholte. Abu Salih war Augenzeuge, als sieben m\u00e4nnliche Angeh\u00f6rige seiner eigenen Familie hingerichtet wurden.\n\nMustafa Abu Masri, genannt Abu Jamil, war damals 13 Jahre alt, wurde aber bei der Selektion wohl irrt\u00fcmlich f\u00fcr einen Zehnj\u00e4hrigen gehalten und den Frauen und Kindern zugeordnet, was ihn rettete. Ein Dutzend seiner Verwandten im Alter von 10 bis 30 hatten weniger Gl\u00fcck und wurden vor seinen Augen erschossen. Seine Schilderung der Ereignisse ist grauenerregend. Sein Vater lief einem j\u00fcdischen Offizier \u00fcber den Weg, den er kannte und dem er vertraute, und so schickte er seine Familie mit ihm fort. Er selbst wurde sp\u00e4ter erschossen. Abu Jamil erinnerte sich, dass 125 Menschen bei Massenhinrichtungen get\u00f6tet wurden. Er sah Shimshon Mashvitz mit einer Peitsche zwischen den Leuten umhergehen, die man am Strand zusammengetrieben hatte, und \u00bbnur zum Spa\u00df\u00ab auf sie eindreschen. \u00c4hnliche Gr\u00e4uelgeschichten \u00fcber Mashvitz schilderte auch Anis Ali Jarban. Er stammte aus dem Nachbardorf Jisr al-Zarqa und war mit seiner Familie nach Tantura gefl\u00fcchtet, weil er den gr\u00f6\u00dferen Ort f\u00fcr sicherer gehalten hatte.\n\nAls das W\u00fcten im Dorf vorbei und die Exekutionen beendet waren, erhielten zwei Pal\u00e4stinenser den Befehl, Massengr\u00e4ber auszuheben; Mordechai Sokoler aus Zikhron Yaacov, der Besitzer der Traktoren, die man f\u00fcr diese grausige Arbeit geholt hatte, beaufsichtigte sie dabei. Er erinnerte sich 1999, dass er 230 Leichen begraben hatte; die Zahl hatte er noch genau im Kopf: \u00bbIch habe sie eine nach der anderen ins Grab gelegt.\u00ab\n\nMehrere Pal\u00e4stinenser, die mithelfen mussten, die Massengr\u00e4ber zu schaufeln, schilderten den entsetzlichen Moment, als ihnen klar wurde, dass man sie ebenfalls t\u00f6ten w\u00fcrde. Sie wurden nur gerettet, weil Yaacov Epstein kam, der schon bei der Gewaltorgie im Dorf eingegriffen hatte und nun auch dem T\u00f6ten am Strand Einhalt gebot. Abu Fihmi, einer der \u00e4ltesten und angesehensten Einwohner des Dorfes, geh\u00f6rte zu den M\u00e4nnern, die rekrutiert wurden, um die Leichen zu identifizieren und dann in die Gr\u00e4ber zu legen: Shimshon Mashvitz befahl ihm, eine Liste der Leichen anzulegen, und er z\u00e4hlte 95. Jamila Ihsan Shura Khalil sah, wie diese Leichen auf Wagen gelegt und von den Einwohnern des Ortes an das Grab gefahren wurden.\n\nDie meisten Interviews mit den \u00dcberlebenden f\u00fchrte 1999 der israelische Student Teddy Katz, der bei seiner Doktorarbeit f\u00fcr die Universit\u00e4t Haifa \u00fcber das Massaker \u00bbstolperte\u00ab. Als es publik wurde, disqualifizierte die Universit\u00e4t nachtr\u00e4glich seine Doktorarbeit, und Veteranen der Alexandroni-Brigade verklagten Katz wegen Verleumdung. Katz' \u00e4ltester Interviewpartner war Shlomo Ambar, der sp\u00e4ter zum General in der IDF aufgestiegen war. Ambar weigerte sich, ihm Details dar\u00fcber zu erz\u00e4hlen, was er gesehen hatte, und erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbIch will vergessen, was da passiert ist.\u00ab Als Katz nachhakte, war er lediglich bereit zu sagen:\n\nIch bringe das mit der Tatsache in Verbindung, dass ich gegen die Deutschen gek\u00e4mpft habe [er hatte im Zweiten Weltkrieg bei der J\u00fcdischen Brigade gedient]. Die Deutschen waren der schlimmste Feind, den das j\u00fcdische Volk je hatte, aber als wir k\u00e4mpften, k\u00e4mpften wir nach den Kriegsregeln, die die internationale Gemeinschaft vorschrieb. Die Deutschen t\u00f6teten keine Kriegsgefangenen, sie t\u00f6teten slawische Kriegsgefangene, aber keine britischen, nicht einmal j\u00fcdische.\n\nAmbar gab zu, etwas zu verbergen: \u00bbIch habe damals nicht geredet, warum sollte ich jetzt reden?\u00ab Angesichts der Bilder, die ihm in den Sinn gekommen sein m\u00f6gen, als Katz ihn fragte, was seine Kameraden in Tantura getan hatten, ist das wohl nur verst\u00e4ndlich.\n\nTats\u00e4chlich wurde \u00fcber die Geschichte von Tantura bereits in den 1950er Jahren berichtet, aber damals erregte sie nicht so viel Aufmerksamkeit wie das Massaker von Deir Yassin. Sie tauchte in den Memoiren eines Notabeln aus Haifa auf; Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib hatte einige Tage nach der Einnahme des Ortes die Aussage eines Pal\u00e4stinensers aufgezeichnet, der ihm von den Massenhinrichtungen am Strand erz\u00e4hlte hatte:\n\nIn der Nacht vom 22. auf den 23. Mai griffen die Juden von drei Seiten an und landeten in Booten vom Meer aus. Wir leisteten in den Stra\u00dfen und H\u00e4usern Widerstand, und morgens waren \u00fcberall Leichen zu sehen. Diesen Tag werde ich mein Leben lang nicht vergessen. Die Juden holten alle Frauen und Kinder an einer Stelle zusammen, wo sie s\u00e4mtliche Leichen ablegten, damit sie ihre toten M\u00e4nner, V\u00e4ter und Br\u00fcder sahen und Angst bek\u00e4men, aber sie blieben ruhig.\n\nDie M\u00e4nner sammelten sie an einer anderen Stelle, brachten sie in Gruppen weg und erschossen sie. Als die Frauen die Sch\u00fcsse h\u00f6rten, fragten sie ihren j\u00fcdischen Bewacher danach. Er antwortete: \u00bbWir r\u00e4chen uns f\u00fcr unsere Toten.\u00ab Ein Offizier suchte 40 M\u00e4nner heraus und brachte sie auf den Dorfplatz. Jeweils vier wurden beiseite gef\u00fchrt. Sie erschossen einen und befahlen den anderen dreien, seine Leiche in eine gro\u00dfe Grube zu werfen. Dann erschossen sie einen anderen, und die \u00fcbrigen beiden trugen seine Leiche an die Grube, und so weiter.\n\nNachdem die Alexandroni-Brigade ihre S\u00e4uberungsoperationen an der K\u00fcste abgeschlossen hatte, erhielt sie Befehl, weiter nach Obergalil\u00e4a vorzur\u00fccken:\n\nIhr Auftrag lautet, Qadas, Mayrun, Nabi Yehoshua und Malkiyye zu besetzen; Qadas ist zu zerst\u00f6ren; die beiden anderen Orte sind an die Golani-Brigade zu \u00fcbergeben, deren Kommandeur entscheiden wird, was damit geschieht. Mayrun ist zu besetzen und an die Golani zu \u00fcbergeben.\n\nZwischen diesen Orten liegen betr\u00e4chtliche Entfernungen, die wieder einmal von dem ehrgeizigen Tempo zeugen, das man von den Truppen bei ihrem Vernichtungszug erwartete.\n\nDie blutige Spur der Brigaden\n\nDie oben geschilderten Ereignisse geh\u00f6rten zu den blutigen Spuren, die die Alexandroni-Brigade an Pal\u00e4stinas K\u00fcste zur\u00fccklie\u00df. Weitere Massaker anderer Brigaden sollten folgen, das schlimmste im Herbst 1948, als es den Pal\u00e4stinensern endlich gelang, an manchen Orten einen gewissen Widerstand gegen die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen zu leisten und die j\u00fcdischen Truppen als Reaktion bei ihren Vertreibungen immer abgefeimtere Gr\u00e4ueltaten begingen.\n\nUnterdessen folgte die Golani-Brigade der Alexandroni-Brigade. Sie griff Gebiete an, die die andere Brigade ausgelassen hatte, oder Enklaven, die aus irgendwelchen Gr\u00fcnden noch nicht eingenommen waren. Ein solches Ziel war das Dorf Umm al-Zinat, das bei den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen im Bezirk Haifa im Februar verschont geblieben war. Ein weiteres war Lajjun in der N\u00e4he der Ruinen der antiken Stadt Meggido. Die Kontrolle \u00fcber das Gebiet zwischen Lajjun und Umm al-Zinat bedeutete, dass nun die gesamte Westflanke der Marj Ibn Amir und des Wadi Milk, also der Schlucht, die von der K\u00fcstenstra\u00dfe in das Tal f\u00fchrte, in j\u00fcdischer Hand war.\n\nEnde Mai 1948 gab es innerhalb des j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiets immer noch einige pal\u00e4stinensische Enklaven, die schwerer zu besetzen waren als die anderen Orte und deren Einnahme noch einige Monate dauern sollte. So scheiterten in diesem Monat Versuche, die Kontrolle \u00fcber abgelegene Teile Obergalil\u00e4as auszuweiten, vor allem am Widerstand der libanesischen und einheimischen Freiwilligen, die D\u00f6rfer wie Sa'sa, das prim\u00e4re Ziel der j\u00fcdischen Truppen, tapfer verteidigten.\n\nIm Einsatzbefehl der Golani-Brigade f\u00fcr den zweiten Angriff auf Sa'sa hie\u00df es: \u00bbZweck der Besetzung ist nicht, dauerhaft zu bleiben, sondern die Zerst\u00f6rung des Dorfes und die Verminung der Tr\u00fcmmer und umliegender Kreuzungen.\u00ab Sa'sa blieb jedoch noch einige Monate verschont. Selbst f\u00fcr die effizienten und fanatischen Golani-Truppen erwies sich der Plan als zu ehrgeizig. Gegen Ende Mai kam folgende Klarstellung: \u00bbWenn Mangel an Soldaten herrscht, sind Sie befugt, die S\u00e4uberung, Einnahme und Zerst\u00f6rung der feindlichen D\u00f6rfer in Ihrem Distrikt (vor\u00fcbergehend) einzuschr\u00e4nken.\u00ab\n\nDie Befehle, die die Brigaden nun erhielten, waren eindeutiger formuliert als die vagen m\u00fcndlichen Instruktionen, die sie vorher bekommen hatten. Das Schicksal eines Dorfes war besiegelt, wenn es im Einsatzbefehl hie\u00df _\u00bble-taher\u00ab_ , s\u00e4ubern, also die Einwohner zu vertreiben und die H\u00e4user unbesch\u00e4digt zu lassen, oder _\u00bble-hashmid\u00ab_ , zerst\u00f6ren, also nach der Vertreibung der Einwohner die H\u00e4user zu sprengen und die Tr\u00fcmmer zu verminen, um die R\u00fcckkehr der Einwohner zu verhindern. Direkte Anweisungen zu Massakern gab es nicht, aber wenn sie stattfanden, wurden sie auch nicht umfassend und glaubw\u00fcrdig verurteilt.\n\nManchmal blieb die Entscheidung, ob ein Dorf \u00bbges\u00e4ubert\u00ab oder \u00bbzerst\u00f6rt\u00ab werden sollte, dem \u00f6rtlichen Kommandeur \u00fcberlassen: \u00bbDie D\u00f6rfer in Ihrem Distrikt sind entweder zu s\u00e4ubern oder zu zerst\u00f6ren, die Entscheidung treffen Sie nach Konsultation mit den arabischen Beratern und den Shai-[Geheimdienst-]Offizieren.\u00ab\n\nW\u00e4hrend die Alexandroni- und die Golani-Brigade in der K\u00fcstenregion die in Plan Dalet umrissenen Einsatzmethoden mit fast religi\u00f6sem Eifer umsetzten, kam die Carmeli-Brigade im Norden des Bezirks Haifa und in Westgalil\u00e4a zum Einsatz. Wie gleichzeitig oder sp\u00e4ter auch andere Brigaden erhielt sie den Befehl, das Talgebiet des Wadi Ara mit seinen 15 D\u00f6rfern einzunehmen, das die K\u00fcstenregion bei Hadera mit dem Ostteil der Marj Ibn Amir bei Afula verband. Die Carmeli-Brigade eroberte zwei nahe D\u00f6rfer, Jalama am 23. April und kurz darauf Kabara, drang aber nicht in das eigentliche Tal vor. Das israelische Oberkommando betrachtete diese Route als lebenswichtige Verbindung, schaffte es aber nie, sie zu besetzen. K\u00f6nig Abdullah \u00fcberlie\u00df sie den Israelis, wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, im Sommer 1949, was f\u00fcr eine gro\u00dfe Gruppe von Pal\u00e4stinensern, die sich erfolgreich gegen eine Vertreibung gewehrt hatten, tragisch war.\n\nWie in den vorangegangenen Monaten wurde die Irgun \u2013 deren Einheiten nun zur neu geschaffenen israelischen Armee geh\u00f6rten \u2013 in der zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte in die K\u00fcstengebiete geschickt, um Aufgaben zu erf\u00fcllen, die die Hagana f\u00fcr fragw\u00fcrdig oder zumindest zu dieser Zeit f\u00fcr weniger erstrebenswert hielt. Doch schon vor ihrer offiziellen Eingliederung in die Armee kooperierte die Irgun mit der Hagana bei der Besetzung des Gro\u00dfraums Jaffa. Sie half der Hagana bei der Operation Hametz (\u00bbGes\u00e4uertes\u00ab), die am 29. April 1948 begann. An dieser Operation waren drei Brigaden beteiligt, Alexandroni, Qiryati und Givati. Sie eroberten und s\u00e4uberten Beit Dajan, Kfar Ana, Abbasiyya, Yahudiyya, Saffuriyya, Khayriyya, Salama und Yazur sowie die Jaffa-Vororte Jabalya und Abu Kabir.\n\nIn der zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte kam die Irgun im Gro\u00dfraum Jaffa zum Einsatz, um die Operationen der drei Hagana-Brigaden abzuschlie\u00dfen. Sie galten ebenso als minderwertige Truppe wie die Qiryati-Brigade. Nach Ansicht der israelischen Milit\u00e4rkommandeure hatte sie \u00bbmindere Soldaten\u00ab, n\u00e4mlich Mizrahi-Juden. In einem Bericht \u00fcber s\u00e4mtliche Brigaden, den ein Inspekteur im Juni 1948 vorlegte, bezeichnete er die Qiryati als eine \u00bb\u00e4u\u00dferst problematische\u00ab Brigade aus \u00bbAnalphabeten ohne Kandidaten f\u00fcr die Unteroffizierslaufbahn und selbstverst\u00e4ndlich nicht f\u00fcr Offiziersr\u00e4nge\u00ab.\n\nIrgun und Qiryati-Brigade erhielten den Auftrag, weiter ihre Aufr\u00e4umoperation s\u00fcdlich von Jaffa fortzusetzen. Bis Mitte Mai halfen sie, die Operation Hametz zum Abschluss zu bringen. Die Tr\u00fcmmer einiger D\u00f6rfer und Vororte, die im Laufe dieser Operation besetzt und zwangsger\u00e4umt wurden, liegen unter der \u00bbWei\u00dfen Stadt\u00ab Tel Aviv begraben; sie entstand 1909 als erste \u00bbhebr\u00e4ische\u00ab Stadt auf D\u00fcnen, die einem \u00f6rtlichen Gro\u00dfgrundbesitzer abgekauft wurden, und hat sich mittlerweile zu einer wuchernden Metropole ausgedehnt.\n\nIn den israelischen Milit\u00e4rarchiven findet sich eine Anfrage des Kommandeurs der Qiryati-Brigade vom 22. Mai 1948, ob er die D\u00f6rfer mit Bulldozern zerst\u00f6ren d\u00fcrfe statt mit Sprengstoff, wie Plan Dalet es anordnete. Seine Anfrage belegt, in welchem Ma\u00dfe es sich hier um einen \u00bbScheinkrieg\u00ab handelte: Nur eine Woche nach Beginn dieses Krieges hatte der Brigadekommandeur Zeit genug, um die unz\u00e4hligen D\u00f6rfer auf seiner Liste mit einer langsameren Methode abzurei\u00dfen und dem Erdboden gleichzumachen.\n\nF\u00fcr Yitzhak Rabins Harel-Brigade war es keine Frage, welche Abrissmethode sie anwenden sollte. Bereits am 11. Mai, einen Tag bevor die endg\u00fcltigen Befehle f\u00fcr die n\u00e4chste Phase der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung ausgegeben wurden, konnte sie melden, dass sie das Dorf Beit Masir im heutigen Nationalpark von Jerusalem an den Westh\u00e4ngen der Berge eingenommen hatte und \u00bbwir zurzeit die H\u00e4user sprengen. Wir haben bereits 60 bis 70 H\u00e4user gesprengt\u00ab.\n\nGemeinsam mit der Etzioni-Brigade konzentrierte sich die Harel-Brigade auf den Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem. Weit von dort entfernt in den T\u00e4lern im Nordosten des Landes waren die Soldaten der \u00bbBulgarischen\u00ab Brigade so erfolgreich in ihrer Vernichtungsmission, dass das Oberkommando damals glaubte, sie k\u00f6nnten in einem Durchmarsch Teile des n\u00f6rdlichen Westjordanlands und Obergalil\u00e4as besetzen. Das erwies sich jedoch als allzu ehrgeiziges Ziel und schlug fehl. Die \u00bbBulgarim\u00ab schafften es nicht, das irakische Kontingent zur\u00fcckzudr\u00e4ngen, das Jenin hielt, und so gelang es erst im Oktober, Obergalil\u00e4a einzunehmen. Aber allein schon die \u2013 wenn auch vermessene \u2013 \u00dcberzeugung, diese Brigade k\u00f6nne trotz des Abkommens mit Abdullah den Nordteil des Westjordanlands besetzen und sogar eine Invasion in den S\u00fcdlibanon unternehmen, w\u00e4hrend sie gleichzeitig weite Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas ethnisch s\u00e4uberte, belegt wieder einmal den Zynismus, der sich hinter dem Mythos verbirgt, Israel habe einen \u00bbKampf ums \u00dcberleben\u00ab gef\u00fchrt. Die Brigade erreichte unterdessen \u00bbgenug\u00ab und konnte sich br\u00fcsten, mehr Ortschaften als erwartet zerst\u00f6rt und ger\u00e4umt zu haben.\n\nIm Laufe des Monats Mai verschmolzen die beiden Fronten des \u00bbrealen Krieges\u00ab und des \u00bbScheinkrieges\u00ab zu einer, da das Oberkommando mittlerweile selbstbewusst genug war, um Einheiten in die Grenzgebiete zu den arabischen L\u00e4ndern zu schicken und dort gegen die arabischen Expeditionstruppen zu k\u00e4mpfen, die deren Regierungen am 15. Mai 1948 nach Pal\u00e4stina entsandt hatten. W\u00e4hrenddessen konzentrierten sich die Golani- und Yiftach-Brigaden auf S\u00e4uberungsoperationen an der Grenze zu Syrien und zum Libanon. Sie konnten ihre Mission sogar ungehindert durchf\u00fchren und in jedem Dorf, f\u00fcr das sie einen Zerst\u00f6rungsbefehl hatten, nach ihrer \u00fcblichen Routine vorgehen, w\u00e4hrend libanesische oder syrische Truppen in der Umgebung tatenlos wegschauten, statt ihre Leute in Gefahr zu bringen.\n\nRachefeldz\u00fcge\n\nAber nicht immer war nur der Himmel die Grenze. Unweigerlich gab es auch Schwierigkeiten beim rasanten Tempo der israelischen Operationen; es forderte seinen Preis, gleichzeitig die systematische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas fortzusetzen und die Konfrontation mit den regul\u00e4ren arabischen Armeen zu suchen, die auf dem Vormarsch ins Land waren. Isolierte Siedlungen im S\u00fcden waren den \u00e4gyptischen Truppen ausgeliefert, die mehrere von ihnen besetzten \u2013 wenn auch nur f\u00fcr einige Tage \u2013, und den syrischen Truppen, die drei Siedlungen ebenfalls f\u00fcr einige Tage einnahmen. Opfer forderten auch die Konvois, die regelm\u00e4\u00dfig durch dichtbesiedelte, noch nicht eingenommene arabische Gebiete fuhren: Einige von ihnen wurden erfolgreich angegriffen, wobei \u00fcber 200 j\u00fcdische Soldaten starben.\n\nNach einem solchen Angriff auf einen Konvoi, der zu der j\u00fcdischen Siedlung Yechiam in der Nordwestspitze des Landes unterwegs war, gingen die Truppen sp\u00e4ter bei ihren Operationen in dieser Gegend besonders rachs\u00fcchtig und abgefeimt vor. Die Siedlung Yechiam lag einige Kilometer s\u00fcdlich der pal\u00e4stinensischen Westgrenze zum Libanon. Den j\u00fcdischen Truppen, die im Mai 1948 mit Operation \u00bbBen-Ami\u00ab die D\u00f6rfer dieser Region angriffen, hatte man ausdr\u00fccklich gesagt, dass die Orte aus Vergeltung f\u00fcr den Verlust des Konvois zu eliminieren seien. Daher wandten sie in Sumiriyya, Zib, Bassa, Kabri, Umm al-Faraj und Nahr eine noch grausamere Variante der \u00fcblichen Zerst\u00f6rungs- und Vertreibungspraxis israelischer Einheiten an: \u00bbUnser Auftrag: Angreifen zum Zweck der Besetzung ... die M\u00e4nner t\u00f6ten, Kabri, Umm al-Faraj und Nahr zerst\u00f6ren und in Brand stecken.\u00ab\n\nDer besondere Eifer, zu dem die Truppen sich so angespornt f\u00fchlten, sorgte f\u00fcr eine der schnellsten Entv\u00f6lkerungsoperationen in einer der dichtest besiedelten arabischen Regionen Pal\u00e4stinas. Innerhalb von 29 Stunden nach Beendigung des Mandats waren nahezu s\u00e4mtliche D\u00f6rfer in den Nordwestbezirken Galil\u00e4as \u2013 die alle innerhalb des designierten arabischen Staatsgebiets lagen \u2013 zerst\u00f6rt, worauf Ben Gurion dem neu gebildeten Parlament zufrieden verk\u00fcnden konnte: \u00bbWestgalil\u00e4a ist befreit\u00ab (tats\u00e4chlich wurden einige D\u00f6rfer n\u00f6rdlich von Haifa erst sp\u00e4ter besetzt). Die j\u00fcdischen Truppen brauchten also nur gut einen Tag, um einen Distrikt mit 96 Prozent pal\u00e4stinensischer und nur 4 Prozent j\u00fcdischer Bev\u00f6lkerung \u2013 und gleichem Verh\u00e4ltnis an Grundbesitz \u2013 in ein fast ausschlie\u00dflich j\u00fcdisches Gebiet zu verwandeln. Besonders zufrieden war Ben Gurion dar\u00fcber, wie reibungslos die Vertreibung der Bev\u00f6lkerung in den gr\u00f6\u00dferen Orten vonstatten gegangen war, etwa in Kabri mit 1500, Zib mit 2000 und Bassa mit 3000 Einwohnern.\n\nBassa einzunehmen dauerte l\u00e4nger als einen Tag, weil die Dorfmilizen und einige ALA-Freiwillige Widerstand leisteten. H\u00e4tte der Befehl, als Vergeltung f\u00fcr den Angriff auf den j\u00fcdischen Konvoi bei Yechiam mit besonderer H\u00e4rte gegen das Dorf vorzugehen, noch nicht ausgereicht, so h\u00e4tte sein Widerstand einen weiteren Grund geliefert, den Ort (\u00fcber die Vertreibung der Einwohner hinaus) zu \u00bbbestrafen\u00ab. Dieses Vorgehen entsprach einem wiederkehrenden Muster: D\u00f6rfer, die schwer zu unterwerfen waren, wurden \u00bbmit Strafen belegt\u00ab. Wie alle traumatischen Erlebnisse haben sich einige der schlimmsten Gr\u00e4ueltaten tief in das Ged\u00e4chtnis der \u00dcberlebenden eingebrannt. Die Familien der Opfer bewahrten diese Erinnerungen und gaben sie von einer Generation an die n\u00e4chste weiter. Nizar al-Hanna geh\u00f6rt einer solchen Familie an, deren Erinnerungen auf den traumatischen Erlebnissen seiner Gro\u00dfmutter basieren:\n\nMeine Gro\u00dfmutter m\u00fctterlicherseits war ein junges M\u00e4dchen, als die israelischen Truppen nach Bassa kamen und befahlen, alle jungen M\u00e4nner in einer Reihe aufzustellen und vor einer der Kirchen hinzurichten. Meine Gro\u00dfmutter sah, wie zwei ihrer Br\u00fcder, einer war 21, der andere 22 und frisch verheiratet, von der Hagana exekutiert wurden.\n\nBei der v\u00f6lligen Zerst\u00f6rung, die dem Massaker folgte, blieben nur eine griechisch-orthodoxe Kirche und eine \u00fcberkuppelte Moschee f\u00fcr die andere H\u00e4lfte der Dorfbev\u00f6lkerung verschont. Noch heute sind in einem St\u00fcck Brachland, das mittlerweile von j\u00fcdischen B\u00fcrgern enteignet wurde, einige H\u00e4user hinter Stacheldraht zu sehen. Das Dorf war so gro\u00df (25000 Dunam, davon 17000 kultiviert), dass sich heute auf seinem Gebiet ein Milit\u00e4rflugplatz, ein Kibbuz und eine Neubausiedlung befinden. Aufmerksame Beobachter entdecken noch die \u00dcberreste eines komplexen Bew\u00e4sserungssystems, das der ganze Stolz der Einwohner und gerade erst fertig gestellt war, als der Ort ausradiert wurde.\n\nDie Vertreibung so vieler Einwohner \u2013 die die UN-Teilungsresolution gerade von B\u00fcrgern des britischen Mandatsgebiets zu B\u00fcrgern des UN-designierten arabischen beziehungsweise j\u00fcdischen Staates gemacht hatte \u2013 aus ihren D\u00f6rfern blieb von den Vereinten Nationen unbemerkt. Trotz des britischen Abzugs und potenzieller Probleme mit der arabischen Welt, die Truppen nach Pal\u00e4stina schickte, gingen die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen ohne Unterbrechung weiter. Die F\u00fchrer des neu geschaffenen \u2013 und noch im Aufbau befindlichen \u2013 Staates Israel und seine Milit\u00e4rkommandeure wussten, dass sie gen\u00fcgend Truppen zur Verf\u00fcgung hatten, um die eindringenden arabischen Einheiten aufzuhalten und gleichzeitig ihre unabl\u00e4ssige ethnische S\u00e4uberung des Landes fortzusetzen. Au\u00dferdem war offensichtlich, dass die Kapazit\u00e4t der j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte im folgenden Monat einen neuen H\u00f6chststand erreichen w\u00fcrde: Anfang Juni waren die Einsatzbefehle an die Truppen noch weitreichender sowohl in der geografischen Spannweite als auch in den ehrgeizigen Vorgaben, wie viele D\u00f6rfer jede Brigade zu besetzen und zu zerst\u00f6ren hatte.\n\nDagegen verlor das Arabische Oberkommando sehr schnell die Kontrolle \u00fcber die Lage. Die \u00e4gyptischen Generale hatten ihre Hoffnungen auf die Luftwaffe gesetzt, aber die Flugzeuge, die sie in der entscheidenden zweiten Maih\u00e4lfte schickten, versagten bei den meisten Eins\u00e4tzen, abgesehen von einigen Luftangriffen auf Tel Aviv. Im Juni waren die \u00e4gyptischen und sonstigen arabischen Luftstreitkr\u00e4fte andernorts gebunden und beschr\u00e4nkten sich auf ihre Hauptaufgabe, die arabischen Regime zu sch\u00fctzen, statt bei der Rettung Pal\u00e4stinas zu helfen.\n\nIch bin kein Experte f\u00fcr Milit\u00e4rgeschichte, zudem ist dies nicht der richtige Ort, die rein milit\u00e4rischen Aspekte des Krieges abzuhandeln, da der Schwerpunkt dieses Buches nicht auf Milit\u00e4rstrategien, sondern auf ihren Folgen liegt, n\u00e4mlich auf Kriegsverbrechen. Bezeichnenderweise waren viele Milit\u00e4rhistoriker bei der Zusammenfassung der Ereignisse von Mai 1948 besonders beeindruckt von der Leistung der syrischen Armee, die ihren Feldzug im Mai 1948 begann und mit Unterbrechungen bis Dezember 1948 durchhielt. In Wirklichkeit schlug sie sich recht erb\u00e4rmlich. Nur drei Tage lang, n\u00e4mlich vom 15. bis 18. Mai, stellten syrische Artillerie, Panzer und Infanterie mit gelegentlicher Unterst\u00fctzung der Luftwaffe eine gewisse Bedrohung f\u00fcr die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte dar. Einige Tage danach waren ihre Kampfanstrengungen bereits sporadischer und weniger effektiv. Und nach dem ersten Waffenstillstand befanden sie sich wieder auf dem R\u00fcckzug.\n\nEnde Mai 1948 schritt die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas planm\u00e4\u00dfig voran. Als Ben Gurion und seine Berater die potenzielle St\u00e4rke der Truppen einsch\u00e4tzten, die die Arabische Liga schlie\u00dflich nach Pal\u00e4stina entsandt hatte, kamen sie zu dem Schluss, dass die allarabischen Streitkr\u00e4fte \u2013 wie sie bereits eine Woche nach dem Einmarsch der arabischen Armeen in Pal\u00e4stina vorhergesehen hatten \u2013 isolierte j\u00fcdische Siedlungen etwas effektiver angreifen konnten als die Freiwilligenarmee, dass sie ansonsten aber ebenso ineffektiv und schwach waren wie die irregul\u00e4ren und paramilit\u00e4rischen Verb\u00e4nde, die zuerst ins Land gekommen waren.\n\nDiese Erkenntnis bewirkte eine euphorische Stimmung, die sich deutlich in den Anweisungen an die zw\u00f6lf Brigaden der israelischen Armee widerspiegelte, sie sollten eine Besetzung des Westjordanlands, der Golanh\u00f6hen und des S\u00fcdlibanon in Erw\u00e4gung ziehen. Ben Gurions Tagebucheintrag vom 24. Mai, nach einer Sitzung mit seinen Beratern, klingt triumphierend und machthungriger denn je:\n\nWir werden einen christlichen Staat im Libanon schaffen, dessen S\u00fcdgrenze der Litani sein wird. Wir werden Transjordanien brechen, Amman bombardieren und seine Armee vernichten, und dann f\u00e4llt Syrien, und wenn \u00c4gypten immer noch weiter k\u00e4mpft \u2013 dann bombardieren wir Port Said, Alexandria und Kairo. Das wird die Vergeltung f\u00fcr das, was sie (die \u00c4gypter, die Aram\u00e4er und die Assyrer) unseren Vorfahren in biblischer Zeit angetan haben.\n\nAm selben Tag hatte die israelische Armee eine gro\u00dfe Lieferung moderner, brandneuer Gesch\u00fctze aus dem kommunistischen Ostblock erhalten. Am Zustandekommen dieses Waffenhandels hatte die Kommunistische Partei Israels entscheidend mitgewirkt. Nun besa\u00df Israel eine Artillerie, an die weder die arabischen Truppen in Pal\u00e4stina noch s\u00e4mtliche arabischen Armeen zusammen heranreichten.\n\nDamit waren die anf\u00e4nglichen Bedenken ausger\u00e4umt, die die Beratergruppe zu Beginn des \u00bbrealen Krieges\u00ab dar\u00fcber gehegt hatte, ob die Kapazit\u00e4ten ihrer Armee f\u00fcr einen effektiven und umfassenden Kampf an zwei Fronten ausreichten. Nun konnten sie sich anderen Fragen zuwenden, die den Qualifikationen der Orientalisten in der Beratergruppe mehr entsprachen, und den Regierungschef beispielsweise beraten, was mit den kleinen pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerungsgruppen zu tun war, die in den gemischten St\u00e4dten \u00fcbrig geblieben waren. Als L\u00f6sung schlugen sie vor, diese Menschen in jeder Stadt in ein gesondertes Viertel umzusiedeln, ihre Bewegungsfreiheit einzuschr\u00e4nken und sie unter Milit\u00e4rverwaltung zu stellen.\n\nHier sei noch erw\u00e4hnt, dass im Laufe des Monats Mai die endg\u00fcltige Infrastruktur der IDF beschlossen wurde und darin die zentrale Stellung der Milit\u00e4rverwaltung (hebr\u00e4isch _Ha-Mishmal Ha-Tzvai_ ) und des israelischen Sicherheitsdienstes Shabak festgelegt wurde. Die Beratergruppe wurde nicht mehr gebraucht. Die Maschinerie der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen lief von allein, vorangetrieben von ihrer eigenen Dynamik.\n\nAm letzten Tag im Mai unternahmen arabische Freiwillige und einige regul\u00e4re Einheiten einen letzten Versuch, einige D\u00f6rfer im designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet zur\u00fcckzuerobern, der aber scheiterte. Die milit\u00e4rische St\u00e4rke, der sie sich gegen\u00fcbersahen, war so gro\u00df, dass nur eine gut ausgebildete, professionelle Armee wie die Arabische Legion es mit ihr aufnehmen konnte. Die Legion verteidigte die Teile des Westjordanlands, die K\u00f6nig Abdullah als Lohn daf\u00fcr ansah, dass er nicht in Gebiete eingedrungen war, die sich die zionistische Bewegung f\u00fcr ihren j\u00fcdischen Staat ausbedungen hatte \u2013 ein Versprechen, an das er sich bis zum Kriegsende hielt. Seine Armee zahlte allerdings einen hohen Preis f\u00fcr die Tatsache, dass die beiden Seiten sich nicht \u00fcber das Schicksal Jerusalems hatten einigen k\u00f6nnen, denn die meisten jordanischen Soldaten, die w\u00e4hrend des Krieges get\u00f6tet wurden, fielen beim erfolgreichen Kampf der Legion um die Ostteile der Heiligen Stadt.\nKAPITEL 7\n\nDie Eskalation der S\u00e4uberungsaktionen: Juni bis September 1948\n\n_Artikel 9: Niemand darf willk\u00fcrlich festgenommen, in Haft gehalten oder des Landes verwiesen werden. \nArtikel 13\/2: Jeder hat das Recht, jedes Land, einschlie\u00dflich seines eigenen, zu verlassen und in sein Land zur\u00fcckzukehren. Artikel 17\/2: Niemand darf willk\u00fcrlich seines Eigentums beraubt werden._\n\nAus: Allgemeine Erkl\u00e4rung der Menschenrechte, Resolution 217A (III) der Generalversammlung vom 10. Dezember 1948, einen Tag bevor die Generalversammlung in Resolution 194 das uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge erkl\u00e4rte.\n\nAnfang Juni fanden sich auf der Liste der zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer auch viele, die bis dahin unter dem Schutz benachbarter Kibbuzim gestanden hatten. Dieses Schicksal betraf mehrere Orte im Verwaltungsbezirk Gaza: Najd, Burayr, Simsim, Kawfakha, Muharraqa und Huj. F\u00fcr die umliegenden Kibbuzim war es offenbar ein Schock, als sie erfuhren, dass man diese befreundeten D\u00f6rfer brutal angegriffen, ihre H\u00e4user zerst\u00f6rt und s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner vertrieben hatte. Auf dem Areal von Huj baute Ariel Sharon sein Privathaus, Havat Hashikmim, ein b\u00e4uerliches Anwesen mit 5000 Dunam Ackerland des Dorfes.\n\nObwohl der UN-Vermittler Graf Folke Bernadotte fortlaufend Waffenstillstandsverhandlungen f\u00fchrte, gingen die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen ungehindert weiter. Mit offenkundiger Genugtuung schrieb Ben Gurion am 5. Juni in sein Tagebuch: \u00bbHeute haben wir Yibneh (ohne ernsthaften Widerstand) und Qaqun besetzt. Hier dauern die S\u00e4uberungen [ _tihur_ ] an; von den anderen Fronten habe ich nichts geh\u00f6rt.\u00ab Ab Ende Mai spiegelte sein Tagebuch ein erneutes Interesse an den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen wider. Mit Hilfe von Yossef Weitz stellte er eine Liste der eingenommenen D\u00f6rfer mit Fl\u00e4chenangaben und Vertriebenenzahlen zusammen, die er sorgf\u00e4ltig in sein Tagebuch eintrug. Die Formulierungen waren nun nicht mehr so vorsichtig: \u00bbDies ist die Liste der besetzten und ger\u00e4umten [ _mefunim_ ] D\u00f6rfer.\u00ab Zwei Tage sp\u00e4ter berief er eine Sitzung bei sich zu Hause ein, um festzustellen, wie viel Geld mittlerweile von den Banken der \u00bbAraber\u00ab gepl\u00fcndert wurde und wie viele Zitrusfruchthaine und andere Verm\u00f6genswerte enteignet wurden. Eliezer Kaplan, sein Finanzminister, \u00fcberredete ihn, die Enteignung des gesamten bisher eroberten pal\u00e4stinensischen Eigentums zu genehmigen, um ein hektisches Gerangel unter den Eroberern zu verhindern, die es gar nicht abwarten k\u00f6nnten, \u00fcber die Beute herzufallen.\n\nDie Beute aufzuteilen war eine Aufgabe, die den Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten besch\u00e4ftigte. Ben Gurion war ein Autokrat, ein Pedant und geradezu besessen von Sicherheitsfragen; in seinem Tagebuch finden sich noch andere, geringf\u00fcgige Probleme, die mit der systematischen Zerst\u00f6rung Pal\u00e4stinas einhergingen. In mehreren Eintragungen berichtete er von Gespr\u00e4chen mit Offizieren \u00fcber die Sprengstoffknappheit, die durch die gro\u00dfe Zahl einzelner H\u00e4user entstanden war, die nach Plan Dalet zu sprengen waren.\n\nWie ein heftiger Sturm, der an Wucht zunahm, verschonten die israelischen Truppen in ihrer Zerst\u00f6rungswut niemanden mehr. Alle Mittel waren nun recht, auch H\u00e4user niederzubrennen, wenn Dynamit knapp war, und Felder und \u00dcberreste eroberter pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer in Brand zu setzen. Die Eskalation in den S\u00e4uberungsaktionen der israelischen Armee war das Ergebnis einer Sitzung der neuen, reduzierten Beratergruppe, die sich am 1. Juni mit Ben Gurion getroffen hatte. Sp\u00e4ter berichtete sie dem Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten, dass Einwohner in ihre H\u00e4user zur\u00fcckzukehren versuchten und sie daher die Armee angewiesen h\u00e4tte, das um jeden Preis zu verhindern. Um sicherzugehen, dass die liberaler gesinnten Regierungsmitglieder keine Einw\u00e4nde gegen diese Politik erhoben, holte er vorab ihre Zustimmung ein und erhielt am 16. Juni 1948 Carte blanche.\n\nMit zunehmender Abgebr\u00fchtheit reagierten die Israelis auch auf ein kurzes Aufflackern von Angriffen der arabischen Armeen Anfang Juni. Die arabische Artillerie beschoss alles, was in ihrer Reichweite lag, und die \u00e4gyptische Luftwaffe griff vier oder f\u00fcnf Mal Tel Aviv an, wobei sie am 4. Juni Ben Gurions Haus traf, aber nur begrenzten Schaden anrichtete. Als Vergeltung flog die israelische Luftwaffe auf die arabischen Hauptst\u00e4dte Angriffe, die zahlreiche Opfer forderten. Aber die arabischen Bem\u00fchungen, Pal\u00e4stina zu retten, verloren bereits an Schwung, vor allem weil die Arabische Legion darauf bestand, dass Ostjerusalem jordanisch bleiben sollte. Der Krieg zog sich hin: Die Arbeitsteilung der israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte an den verschiedenen Fronten, die allein von Ben Gurion bestimmt wurde, hatte zur Folge, dass den Milit\u00e4ranstrengungen auf j\u00fcdischer Seite die n\u00f6tige Schlagkraft fehlte, um die Oberhand \u00fcber die Jordanier zu gewinnen. F\u00fcr langwierige K\u00e4mpfe sorgte auch die Z\u00e4higkeit der \u00e4gyptischen Freiwilligen, vor allem der Muslimischen Bruderschaft, die es trotz ihrer armseligen Ausr\u00fcstung und mangelnden Ausbildung schafften, ihre Stellungen im Negev zu halten. Au\u00dferdem konnten die \u00c4gypter die pal\u00e4stinensische Stadt Isdud an der K\u00fcste, einige Enklaven im Negev (Naqab) und die D\u00f6rfer s\u00fcdwestlich von Jerusalem geraume Zeit verteidigen. Da die Israelis merkten, dass sie sich wohl etwas \u00fcbernommen hatten, akzeptierten sie nun das Waffenstillstandsangebot des UN-Vermittlers Graf Folke Bernadotte.\n\nDie erste Waffenruhe\n\nSobald die Waffenruhe in Kraft trat (offiziell erkl\u00e4rt wurde sie am 8. Juni, tats\u00e4chlich begann sie am 11. Juni 1948 und dauerte vier Wochen), machten Abrissarbeiten einen wesentlichen Teil der israelischen Aktivit\u00e4ten aus. Die Waffenruhe nutzte die Armee, eine Reihe ger\u00e4umter D\u00f6rfer vollends zu zerst\u00f6ren: Mazar im S\u00fcden, Fayja bei Petah Tikva, Biyar 'Adas, Misea, Hawsha, Sumiriyya und Manshiyya bei Akko. Gro\u00dfe Orte wie Daliyat al-Rawha, Butaymat und Sabbarin wurden an einem einzigen Tag abgerissen; viele weitere wurden dem Erdbogen gleichgemacht, bevor die Waffenruhe am 8. Juli 1948 endete.\n\nAlles in allem lie\u00dfen die umfangreichen Vorbereitungen, die das milit\u00e4rische Oberkommando im Juni f\u00fcr die n\u00e4chsten Phasen traf, ein wachsendes Vertrauen in die F\u00e4higkeiten der Armee erkennen, nicht nur die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen fortzusetzen, sondern auch das j\u00fcdische Staatsgebiet \u00fcber die bereits eroberten 87 Prozent des pal\u00e4stinensischen Mandatsgebiets hinaus auszudehnen. Zum Teil erwuchs dieses Vertrauen aus der betr\u00e4chtlichen Aufstockung der Luftwaffe. Ende Mai waren die Israelis nur in einem Bereich im Nachteil: bei den Luftstreitkr\u00e4ften. Im Juni bekamen sie jedoch eine gro\u00dfe Lieferung neuer Flugzeuge, die ihre recht primitiven Maschinen erg\u00e4nzten.\n\nAm 1. Juni 1948 begann die Operation \u00bbYitzhak\u00ab mit dem Ziel, Jenin, Tul-Karem und Qalqilya sowie die Br\u00fccken \u00fcber den Jordan zu besetzen. Jenin hatten die Israelis bereits einen Monat zuvor angegriffen, aber das irakische Truppenkontingent, das die Stadt und sein Umland bewachte, hatte das Gebiet erfolgreich verteidigt. Israelische Luftangriffe beschr\u00e4nkten sich damals zwar \u00fcberwiegend auf die Staatsgrenzen, aber in den Milit\u00e4rarchiven finden sich auch Befehle f\u00fcr die Bombardierung von Jenin und Tul-Karem sowie anderer Orte an der pal\u00e4stinensischen Grenze. Ab Juli kamen Flugzeuge bei den erbarmungslosen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen zum Einsatz, um die Einwohner zum Massenexodus zu zwingen \u2013 auf jeden, der nicht rechtzeitig in Deckung gehen konnte, wurde gezielt.\n\nAnfang Juni begn\u00fcgte sich Ben Gurion damit, sich auf den langen Marsch nach Obergalil\u00e4a zu konzentrieren und den Vormarsch seiner Truppen an die Grenze zum Libanon voranzutreiben. Die libanesische Armee hatte von ihren insgesamt 5000 Mann 2000 an der Grenze stehen. Unterst\u00fctzt wurden sie von 2000 ALA-Freiwilligen, die zum gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil in Nazareth stationiert waren, w\u00e4hrend die \u00fcbrigen sich in kleinen Gruppen auf Dutzende D\u00f6rfer im Umland verteilten. Unter der F\u00fchrung des charismatischen Fawzi al-Qawqji verteidigten die Freiwilligen die D\u00f6rfer weiter so gut sie konnten und zeigten sich angesichts der drohenden israelischen Offensive recht unbeeindruckt. Sie waren allerdings nicht nur durch ihre geringe Zahl und ihre mangelnde milit\u00e4rische Ausbildung eingeschr\u00e4nkt, sondern auch durch die schlechte Qualit\u00e4t ihrer Waffen und den Mangel an Munition.\n\nDer Kommandeur eines ALA-Bataillons, des Bataillons Hittin, schickte al-Qawqji einmal folgende Meldung: \u00bbDie Ausr\u00fcstung des Bataillons ist durch Verschmutzung unbrauchbar. Das betrifft Gewehre, Maschinenpistolen und Fahrzeuge.\u00ab Er beklagte au\u00dferdem, dass es nur eine Nachschublinie aus Syrien gebe, die h\u00e4ufig blockiert sei, und selbst wenn die Nachschubverbindungen offen seien, tr\u00e4ten andere Probleme auf. Einmal erhielt er folgendes Telegramm: \u00bbAuf Ihre Anfrage, Wagen zu schicken, um Nachschub von Tarshiha nach Rama zu bef\u00f6rdern: Wir haben keinen Treibstoff f\u00fcr die Wagen, k\u00f6nnen Sie also nicht erreichen\u00ab (abgeschickt am 29. Juni und vom israelischen Nachrichtendienst abgefangen).\n\nDa es dort keine regul\u00e4ren arabischen Truppen gab, war in Galil\u00e4a der Weg f\u00fcr einen israelischen Angriff frei. Aber schon im Juni und zunehmend in den folgenden Monaten begannen die Orte selbst, den vorr\u00fcckenden Truppen mehr Widerstand entgegenzusetzen \u2013 das ist einer der Gr\u00fcnde, weshalb es heute in Galil\u00e4a anders als in der Marj Ibn Amir, an der K\u00fcste, den Ebenen im Binnenland und im n\u00f6rdlichen Negev noch immer pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer gibt.\n\nDer verzweifelte Mut der pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer erkl\u00e4rt allerdings auch das brutale Vorgehen an dieser Front. In ihrem Vormarsch waren die israelischen Truppen entschlossener denn je, zu Massenhinrichtungen und jedem anderen Mittel zu greifen, um die Vertreibungen zu beschleunigen. Einer der ersten Orte, die Opfer dieser Strategie wurden, war Mi'ar, wo sich heute mehrere j\u00fcdische Siedlungen befinden, die in den 1970er Jahren gebaut wurden: Segev, Yaad und Manof. Es entbehrt nicht einer gewissen Ironie, dass Teile des 1948 eroberten Landes jahrzehntelang unbesiedelt blieben und dann von Pal\u00e4stinensern der Umgebung bewirtschaftet wurden, bis Israel diese Gebiete in den 1970er Jahren im Rahmen der \u00bbJudaisierung Galil\u00e4as\u00ab erneut konfiszierte \u2013 ein brutaler Versuch der Regierung, Galil\u00e4a zu entarabisieren, das in manchen Gegenden immer noch demografisch zu gleichen Teilen von Juden und Arabern bewohnt war. Zurzeit hat es den Anschein, als wolle Israel diesen Plan mit den Milliarden Dollar reaktivieren, die es nach dem Abzug aus dem Gazastreifen im August 2005 von der US-Regierung zu bekommen hofft.\n\nDer Schriftsteller Muhammad Ali Taha war 17 Jahre alt, als die israelischen Soldaten am 20. Juni 1948 in das Dorf Mi'ar vordrangen; er wurde im Nachbarort Saffuriyya geboren. Die heutigen Gedichte und Prosawerke des israelischen Staatsb\u00fcrgers sind von den traumatischen Erlebnissen gepr\u00e4gt, die er in Mi'ar machte. Damals im Juni sah er bei Sonnenuntergang die israelischen Truppen vorr\u00fccken und wahllos auf die Bauern schie\u00dfen, die auf den Feldern ihr Getreide (Durra) ernteten. Nach dem Morden begannen die Soldaten die H\u00e4user zu zerst\u00f6ren. Sp\u00e4ter kehrten Einwohner nach Mi'ar zur\u00fcck und lebten dort, bis die israelischen Truppen den Ort Mitte Juli erneut besetzten und sie endg\u00fcltig vertrieben. Bei dem israelischen Angriff am 20. Juni wurden 40 Menschen get\u00f6tet \u2013 sie geh\u00f6ren zu den mehreren tausend Pal\u00e4stinensern, die bei Massakern w\u00e4hrend der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen starben.\n\nIn Unter- und Ostgalil\u00e4a wurden die Ortschaften schneller besetzt und ges\u00e4ubert, als es in allen vorhergehenden Einsatzphasen der Fall war. Bis zum 29. Juni erschienen auf den Listen mit zuk\u00fcnftigen Zielen, die an die Truppen gingen, gro\u00dfe Orte mit erheblicher Pr\u00e4senz von ALA-Truppen: Kuwaykat, Amqa, Tel-Qisan, Lubya, Tarbikha, Majd al-Krum, Mghar, Itarun, Malkiyye, Saffuriyya, Kfar Yassif, Abu Sinan, Judeida und Tabash. In weniger als zehn Tagen waren alle erobert und aus einigen die Einwohner vertrieben, aus anderen nicht, wobei die Gr\u00fcnde von Ort zu Ort variierten.\n\nMajd al-Krum und Mghar existieren heute noch. In Majd al-Krum hatten die Besatzungstruppen mit Massenvertreibungen begonnen, als es pl\u00f6tzlich zu einem Streit zwischen den Geheimdienstoffizieren kam, worauf die H\u00e4lfte der Einwohner von dem Weg ins erzwungene Exil zur\u00fcckkehren durfte. Der Name des Dorfes hei\u00dft w\u00f6rtlich \u00fcbersetzt \u00bbherrlichste Olivenhaine\u00ab; noch immer liegt es inmitten riesiger Weing\u00e4rten und Olivenhaine an den Nordh\u00e4ngen der h\u00f6chsten Berge Galil\u00e4as, nicht weit von Akko. In der Antike hie\u00df der Ort \u00bbdie Herrlichkeit Gottes\u00ab, aber als die Weing\u00e4rten, die rund um das Dorf entstanden, Ber\u00fchmtheit erlangten, \u00e4nderte man den Namen. Im Ortszentrum gab es eine Quelle \u2013 die Erkl\u00e4rung f\u00fcr die \u00fcppigen Plantagen und Obstb\u00e4ume der Umgebung. Einige H\u00e4user aus Naturstein und Lehm machten den Eindruck, als st\u00fcnden sie schon seit undenklichen Zeiten dort, umgeben von Olivenb\u00e4umen im S\u00fcden und weiten Feldern im Osten und Westen.\n\nHeute ist Majd al-Krum stranguliert von Israels diskriminierender Politik, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Ortschaften keine normale Expansion erlaubt, die aber gleichzeitig rundherum f\u00fcr weitere neue j\u00fcdische Siedlungen sorgt. Seit 1948 gab es daher im Dorf einen starken politischen Kader nationalistischen und kommunistischen Widerstands, den der Staat mit der Zerst\u00f6rung weiterer H\u00e4user bestrafte. Die Dorfbewohner lie\u00dfen dieseTr\u00fcmmer zum Andenken an ihre einstige Standhaftigkeit und ihren Mut liegen, wo man sie noch heute von der Stra\u00dfe Akko\u2013Safad aus sehen kann.\n\nAuch Mghar existiert noch in einer malerischen Schlucht in dem Tal, das von Untergalil\u00e4a hinunter an den Tiberias-See f\u00fchrt. Hier kamen die j\u00fcdischen Besatzungstruppen in ein Dorf, in dem Christen, Muslime und Drusen seit Jahrhunderten friedlich zusammen gelebt hatten. Der Milit\u00e4rkommandeur legte Plan Dalet so aus, dass nur Muslime den Ort zu verlassen h\u00e4tten. Um ihre Vertreibung zu beschleunigen, exekutierte er vor den Augen aller Einwohner mehrere Muslime auf dem Dorfplatz, was die \u00fcbrigen wirkungsvoll \u00bb\u00fcberzeugte\u00ab, sofort zu fl\u00fcchten.\n\nIn Galil\u00e4a gab es viele D\u00f6rfer, die wie Mghar eine gemischte Bev\u00f6lkerung hatten. Daher erhielten die Milit\u00e4rkommandeure von nun an strikte Anweisungen, den Geheimdienstoffizieren die Selektion und damit die Entscheidung zu \u00fcberlassen, wer bleiben durfte und wer nicht. Die Drusen kollaborierten mittlerweile mit den Juden, und in D\u00f6rfern mit drusischem Bev\u00f6lkerungsanteil blieben Christen im Allgemeinen von der Vertreibung verschont.\n\nSaffuriyya hatte weniger Gl\u00fcck. S\u00e4mtliche Einwohner wurden vertrieben; die Soldaten schossen \u00fcber ihre K\u00f6pfe hinweg, um ihre Flucht zu beschleunigen. Als das Dorf eingenommen wurde, war Al-Hajj Abu Salim 27 Jahre alt und Vater einer Tochter; seine Frau erwartete das zweite Kind. Noch immer erinnert er sich an sein warmherziges Elternhaus und seinen Vater, einen netten, gro\u00dfz\u00fcgigen Mann, der zu den reichsten Bauern des Ortes geh\u00f6rte. F\u00fcr Abu Salim begann die Nakba mit der Nachricht, dass andere Orte kapituliert hatten. \u00bbWenn das Haus deines Nachbarn in Flammen steht, f\u00e4ngst du an, dir Sorgen zu machen\u00ab, lautet ein bekanntes arabisches Sprichwort, das die Gef\u00fchle und Best\u00fcrzung der Bev\u00f6lkerung inmitten der Katastrophe gut wiedergibt.\n\nSaffuriyya war eines der ersten D\u00f6rfer, das die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte aus der Luft bombardierten. Im Juli sollten noch viele weitere Ortschaften auf diese Weise terrorisiert werden, aber im Juni war das noch beispiellos. Voller Angst und Schrecken nahmen die Frauen ihre Kinder und suchten Zuflucht in alten H\u00f6hlen in der N\u00e4he. Die jungen M\u00e4nner bereiteten sich mit ihren primitiven Gewehren auf den unausweichlichen Angriff vor, aber die Freiwilligen aus den arabischen L\u00e4ndern packte die Angst und sie fl\u00fcchteten aus der M\u00e4dchenschule, in der sie stationiert waren. Abu Salim blieb mit den M\u00e4nnern, um zu k\u00e4mpfen. Viele Jahre sp\u00e4ter erinnerte er sich: \u00bbDer Offizier von der ALA riet mir und den anderen, wegzulaufen\u00ab, was durchaus sinnvoll gewesen w\u00e4re, wie er zugab. Aber er blieb und wurde so Zeuge der Ereignisse, die folgten.\n\nNach der Bombardierung aus der Luft kam der Angriff der Bodentruppen, und zwar nicht nur auf das Dorf, sondern auch auf die nahen H\u00f6hlen. \u00bbDie Frauen und Kinder wurden von den Juden herausgeholt, und meine Mutter wurde get\u00f6tet\u00ab, erz\u00e4hlte er 53 Jahre sp\u00e4ter im Jahre 2001 einer Zeitung. \u00bbSie versuchte in die Verk\u00fcndigungskirche zu kommen, und die Juden warfen eine Bombe, sie wurde im Bauch getroffen.\u00ab Sein Vater fl\u00fcchtete mit Abu Salims Frau nach Reina, ein Dorf, das bereits kapituliert hatte. Ein paar Monate schl\u00fcpften sie bei einer christlichen Familie unter, die Essen und Kleidung mit ihnen teilte. Sie arbeiteten in den Obstplantagen der Familie und wurden gut behandelt. Da sie ihre Kleider im Dorf hatten zur\u00fccklassen m\u00fcssen, versuchten die Einwohner sich im Schutz der Dunkelheit ins Dorf zu schleichen und ihre Habe hinauszuschmuggeln. Israelische Truppen erwischten mehrere von ihnen und erschossen sie auf der Stelle. Zum Schluss erkl\u00e4rte der mittlerweile achtzigj\u00e4hrige Abu Salim, er sei nach wie vor bereit, sein altes Haus f\u00fcr gutes Geld zur\u00fcckzukaufen. Aber seine Familie kann er nicht wiederbekommen. Zu seinem Bruder hat er jeden Kontakt verloren, er glaubt, dass er Kinder hat und irgendwo in der Diaspora lebt, konnte aber keinen seiner Angeh\u00f6rigen ausfindig machen.\n\nWie viele Dorfbewohner in der Umgebung von Nazareth, so fl\u00fcchteten auch die Einwohner von Saffuriyya in die Stadt. Heute machen Inlandsfl\u00fcchtlinge 60 Prozent der Einwohner von Nazareth aus. Da der \u00f6rtliche israelische Kommandeur, der Nazareth einen Monat sp\u00e4ter besetzte, sich entschloss, die Einwohner nicht zu vertreiben, blieb vielen Vertriebenen aus dem Umland eine abermalige Vertreibung erspart. Gemeinsam mit \u00dcberlebenden aus anderen D\u00f6rfern bauten die Menschen aus Saffuriyya sich neue H\u00e4user in einem Viertel, das heute Safafra hei\u00dft, mit Blick auf ihr altes Dorf. Sie mussten zuschauen, wie die j\u00fcdischen Siedler ihre H\u00e4user leer r\u00e4umten, sich darin einrichteten und ihr geliebtes Dorf nach und nach in einen israelischen Moshav \u2013 eine landwirtschaftliche Kollektivsiedlung \u2013 verwandelten, die sie Zippori nannten. Alsbald behaupteten israelische Arch\u00e4ologen, das sei der Name der urspr\u00fcnglichen talmudischen Stadt.\n\nIn anderen Vierteln von Nazareth finden sich heute noch \u00dcberlebende aus Malul und Mujaydil, die sich im S\u00fcden der Stadt ansiedelten, so nah wie m\u00f6glich an der israelischen Rei\u00dfbrettstadt Migdal Ha-Emeq, die nach der Besetzung ihrer D\u00f6rfer im Juli auf den Tr\u00fcmmern entstand. Malul ist spurlos verschwunden; in Mujaydil zeugten bis vor kurzem nur noch zwei Kirchen und eine Moschee von der fr\u00fcheren Anwesenheit der Pal\u00e4stinenser. Die Moschee wurde 2003 abgerissen, um Platz f\u00fcr ein Einkaufszentrum zu schaffen, so sind nur noch die beiden Kirchen \u00fcbrig.\n\nDas Dorf Mujaydil hatte 2000 Einwohner, die zum gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil nach Nazareth fl\u00fcchteten, bevor die Soldaten ihre H\u00e4user erreicht hatten. Aus irgendwelchen Gr\u00fcnden lie\u00df die Armee die H\u00e4user stehen. Nach der Intervention des Papstes bot man den Christen 1950 an, wieder zur\u00fcckzukehren, aber sie weigerten sich, ohne ihre muslimischen Nachbarn zu gehen. Daraufhin zerst\u00f6rte Israel die H\u00e4lfte der H\u00e4user und eine der Moscheen des Ortes. Die al-Hulda-Moschee in Mujaydil war 1930 erbaut worden und hatte eine H\u00f6he von zw\u00f6lf Metern. Nebenan befand sich eine _kuttah_ , eine Koranschule. Die Anlage war ber\u00fchmt f\u00fcr das ausgekl\u00fcgelte System, mit dem Regenwasser von den D\u00e4chern der Moschee in eine Zisterne geleitet und gesammelt wurde. In den 1940er Jahren hatte man ein imposantes Minarett hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nEbenso malerisch waren die christlichen Kirchen. Ein Teil der russisch-orthodoxen Kirche steht heute noch, auch wenn ihre Mauern l\u00e4ngst verschwunden sind. Sie wurde zu Ehren des Bruders des russischen Zaren, Serjei Alexandrov, erbaut, der den Ort 1882 besucht und das Geld f\u00fcr den Kirchenbau in der Hoffnung gestiftet hatte, Einheimische anderer christlicher Glaubensgemeinschaften lie\u00dfen sich zum orthodoxen Glauben bekehren. Nachdem er abgereist war, k\u00fcmmerte sich der Repr\u00e4sentant der orthodoxen Kirche in Pal\u00e4stina, Patriarch Nikodim, weniger engagiert um die ihm anvertraute missionarische T\u00e4tigkeit als vielmehr um die allgemeine Schulbildung: Er \u00f6ffnete die Kirche allen Konfessionen im Ort und sorgte daf\u00fcr, dass sie vor allem als Dorfschule diente.\n\nIm Ort gab es auch eine 1903 erbaute r\u00f6misch-katholische Kirche, die im Obergeschoss eine dreisprachige Schule f\u00fcr Jungen und M\u00e4dchen beherbergte (der Unterricht fand auf Arabisch, Italienisch und Franz\u00f6sisch statt). Au\u00dferdem unterhielt sie eine medizinische Ambulanz f\u00fcr alle Einwohner des Ortes. Diese Kirche existiert immer noch; eine alte Familie, die Abu Hani, die aus Nazareth zur\u00fcckgekehrt sind, k\u00fcmmert sich heute um das Geb\u00e4ude, den h\u00fcbschen Obstgarten und die Schule.\n\nWie in anderen Orten Pal\u00e4stinas lohnt es auch hier, sich eingehender mit der Lokalgeschichte zu besch\u00e4ftigen, da sie zeigt, wie die Nakba nicht nur H\u00e4user und Felder, sondern eine ganze Dorfgemeinschaft mit ihrem komplexen Sozialgef\u00fcge und ihren kulturellen Errungenschaften zerst\u00f6rte. So l\u00f6schte die israelische Armee in Mujaydil ein St\u00fcck Geschichte aus, das einige sch\u00f6ne Bauwerke und eine Reihe bedeutender sozialer Entwicklungen hervorgebracht hatte. Kaum 20 Jahre vor der Nakba hatten die stolzen Einwohner des Ortes beschlossen, das althergebrachte System zu modernisieren, das den Muchtar an die Spitze der Gemeinde stellte. Bereits1925 hatten sie einen Gemeinderat gew\u00e4hlt, der als sein erstes Projekt die Stra\u00dfenbeleuchtung im Ort schuf.\n\nMujaydil war noch in mancherlei anderer Hinsicht einzigartig. Au\u00dfer seinen Sakralbauten und der modernen Infrastruktur besa\u00df der Ort relativ viele Schulen: die beiden kirchlichen und die staatliche Banin-Schule, die einen Schulhof mit herrlichen, Schatten spendenden B\u00e4umen und einem Brunnen in der Mitte besa\u00df und von Obstb\u00e4umen umgeben war. Hauptquelle des kollektiven Wohlstands, der alle diese beeindruckenden Bauten finanzierte, war eine M\u00fchle aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, die auch f\u00fcr die D\u00f6rfer der Umgebung arbeitete, unter anderem auch f\u00fcr die \u00bbalte\u00ab j\u00fcdische Siedlung Nahalal (Moshe Dayan stammte aus Nahalal und erw\u00e4hnte, dass sein Vater diese M\u00fchle nutzte).\n\nOperation Palme\n\nDie Besetzung von Mujaydil geh\u00f6rte zur Operation _Dekel_ (Palme), bei der es um die Einnahme Nazareths und der umliegenden Orte ging. Heute wachsen auf vielen der zerst\u00f6rten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer nicht Palmen, sondern Nadelb\u00e4ume, ausgedehnte \u00bbgr\u00fcne Lungen\u00ab, die die Tr\u00fcmmer bedecken und vom Jewish National Fund zu \u00bbErholungs- und Tourismuszwecken\u00ab aufgeforstet wurden. Ein solcher Nadelwald entstand auch auf dem zerst\u00f6rten Dorf Lubya. Nur der unerm\u00fcdlichen, sorgf\u00e4ltigen Arbeit sp\u00e4terer Generationen, allen voran des Historikers Mahmoud Issa, der mittlerweile in D\u00e4nemark lebt, ist es zu verdanken, dass Besucher heute die \u00dcberreste des Dorfes finden und der 60 Menschen gedenken k\u00f6nnen, die dort ihr Leben lie\u00dfen. Das Dorf lag einst an der letzten gro\u00dfen Kreuzung der Stra\u00dfe von Nazareth nach Tiberias, bevor sie steil zum See von Galil\u00e4a hinunterf\u00fchrt.\n\nIm Juni 1948 konnten die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer relativ m\u00fchelos besetzen und s\u00e4ubern, aber gelegentlich hielten sich hartn\u00e4ckige Widerstandsnester, wenn auch nie allzu lang. In der Regel handelte es sich um Orte, in denen Freiwillige der Arabischen Befreiungsarmee oder regul\u00e4re arabische Truppen, vor allem Iraker, halfen, die Angriffe abzuwehren. Ein solches Dorf war Qaqun. Die Alexandroni-Brigade hatte es im Mai angegriffen und besetzt, aber dann hatten irakische Truppen es zur\u00fcckerobert. Das israelische Hauptquartier ordnete am 3. Juni einen Sondereinsatz unter dem Decknamen _Kippa_ (hebr. f\u00fcr \u00bbKuppe\u00ab, \u00bbKuppel\u00ab oder \u00bbKappe\u00ab) an, um das Dorf erneut zu besetzen, in dem der israelische Geheimdienst 200 Iraker und ALA-Freiwillige vermutete. Ihre Sch\u00e4tzung erwies sich als \u00fcbertrieben: Als die Alexandroni-Brigade den Ort einnahm, fand sie wesentlich weniger Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte.\n\nIm Einsatzbefehl f\u00fcr die Operation Kippa tauchte nach _tihur_ und _biur_ nun ein weiteres hebr\u00e4isches Wort f\u00fcr S\u00e4uberungen auf: Zug D der Alexandroni-Brigade hatte den Befehl, eine _nikkuy_ (\u00bbReinigungsaktion\u00ab) durchzuf\u00fchren \u2013 alle drei Begriffe entsprechen den anerkannten internationalen Definitionen ethnischer S\u00e4uberung.\n\nDie Besetzung von Qaqun war auch die erste, bei der der Milit\u00e4rpolizei des neu gegr\u00fcndeten Staates eine wesentliche Rolle zugewiesen wurde. Einige Zeit vor dem Angriff hatte sie in der N\u00e4he Gefangenenlager f\u00fcr die zu vertreibenden Einwohner des Ortes eingerichtet, um Probleme wie in Tantura und zuvor in Ayn al-Zaytun zu vermeiden, wo die Besatzungstruppen am Ende zu viele M\u00e4nner im \u00bbwehrf\u00e4higen Alter\u00ab (zwischen 10 und 50 Jahren) gefangen genommen und daher viele von ihnen umgebracht hatten.\n\nIm Juli eroberten die israelischen Truppen viele der \u00bbNester\u00ab, die in den vorangegangenen Monaten \u00fcbrig geblieben waren. Nun fielen mehrere D\u00f6rfer an der K\u00fcstenstra\u00dfe, die bislang standgehalten hatten: Ayn Ghazal, Jaba, Ayn Hawd, Tirat Haifa, Kfar Lam und Ijzim sowie die Stadt Nazareth und einige D\u00f6rfer in ihrer Umgebung.\n\nZwischen den Waffenruhen\n\nAm 8. Juli 1948 war die Waffenruhe beendet. Der UN-Vermittler, Graf Folke Bernadotte, brauchte zehn Tage, um eine weitere Feuerpause auszuhandeln, die am 18. Juli in Kraft trat. F\u00fcr den \u00bbrealen\u00ab Krieg zwischen Israel und den arabischen Staaten mag der 15. Mai 1948 ein bedeutsames Datum gewesen sein, f\u00fcr die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen war er v\u00f6llig unerheblich. Das Gleiche gilt f\u00fcr die beiden Waffenruhen. F\u00fcr den Krieg stellten sie bemerkenswerte Meilensteine dar, f\u00fcr die S\u00e4uberungen waren sie irrelevant, vielleicht mit dem Unterschied: W\u00e4hrend der Kampfhandlungen waren S\u00e4uberungsaktionen gro\u00dfen Stils einfacher. So vertrieben die Israelis zwischen den beiden Waffenruhen die Bev\u00f6lkerung der beiden St\u00e4dte Lydda und Ramla, insgesamt 70000 Menschen, und begannen nach der zweiten Waffenruhe erneut mit umfangreichen Vertreibungen, Deportationen und Entv\u00f6lkerungsaktionen im S\u00fcden und Norden Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nAb dem 9. Juli, dem Tag nach Ablauf der ersten Waffenruhe, kam es zehn Tage lang sporadisch zu K\u00e4mpfen zwischen der israelischen Armee und den arabischen Einheiten aus Jordanien, Irak, Syrien und Libanon. In weniger als zwei Wochen wurden Hunderttausende Pal\u00e4stinenser aus ihren D\u00f6rfern, Gemeinden und St\u00e4dten vertrieben. Der \u00bbFriedensplan\u00ab der Vereinten Nationen hatte dazu gef\u00fchrt, dass die Zivilbev\u00f6lkerung durch psychologische Kriegsf\u00fchrung eingesch\u00fcchtert und terrorisiert, mit schwerem Granatbeschuss belegt und vertrieben wurde, dass Menschen zusehen mussten, wie Verwandte hingerichtet, Frauen und T\u00f6chter misshandelt, beraubt und in einigen F\u00e4llen vergewaltigt wurden. Bis zum Juli hatten israelische Pioniere die meisten ihrer H\u00e4user gesprengt. Die Pal\u00e4stinenser konnten 1948 auf keine internationale Intervention hoffen, noch nicht einmal auf Besorgnis im Ausland \u00fcber die grauenhaften Zust\u00e4nde, die in Pal\u00e4stina offenkundig wurden. Hilfe kam auch nicht von den UN-Beobachtern, die im Land unterwegs waren und die Barbarei und das Morden \u00bbbeobachteten\u00ab, aber nicht willens oder in der Lage waren, dagegen einzuschreiten.\n\nEin UN-Emiss\u00e4r war anders. Graf Folke Bernadotte war am 20. Mai in Pal\u00e4stina eingetroffen und blieb, bis j\u00fcdische Terroristen ihn im September ermordeten, weil er es \u00bbgewagt\u00ab hatte, eine Neuaufteilung des Landes in zwei H\u00e4lften vorzuschlagen und die uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehr s\u00e4mtlicher Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu fordern. Bereits w\u00e4hrend der ersten Waffenruhe hatte er die Wiedereinb\u00fcrgerung der Fl\u00fcchtlinge verlangt, was aber ignoriert wurde, und als er seine Empfehlung in seinem Abschlussbericht an die Vereinten Nationen wiederholte, wurde er ermordet. Dennoch ist es Bernadotte zu verdanken, dass die UN-Vollversammlung im Dezember 1948 sein Verm\u00e4chtnis posthum annahm und die uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehr aller Fl\u00fcchtlinge empfahl, die Israel vertrieben hatte \u2013 eine von unz\u00e4hligen UN-Resolutionen, die Israel seitdem s\u00e4mtliche ignoriert hat. Da Bernadotte sich als Pr\u00e4sident des schwedischen Roten Kreuzes w\u00e4hrend des Zweiten Weltkriegs erheblich f\u00fcr die Rettung von Juden vor den Nazis eingesetzt hatte, hatte die israelische Regierung seiner Ernennung zum UN-Vermittler zugestimmt: Sie hatte nicht damit gerechnet, dass er sich f\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser ebenso einsetzen w\u00fcrde wie zuvor f\u00fcr die Juden.\n\nBernadotte gelang es, einen gewissen internationalen Druck auf Israel zu lenken oder zumindest die M\u00f6glichkeit f\u00fcr einen solchen Druck zu schaffen. Die israelischen Architekten des ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsprogramms merkten, dass sie die Diplomaten und den Au\u00dfenminister ihres Landes unmittelbarer einbeziehen mussten, um dem entgegenzuwirken. Bis zum Juli arbeiteten der politische Apparat, das diplomatische Corps und das Milit\u00e4r des neuen Staates Israel bereits harmonisch zusammen. Inwieweit Israels Diplomaten und h\u00f6here Staatsbeamte vor Juli 1948 in den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsplan eingeweiht waren, ist nicht klar. Als die Tatsachen allm\u00e4hlich offensichtlich wurden, brauchte die Regierung jedoch eine Public-Relations-Kampagne, um negative internationale Reaktionen zu verhindern; so begann sie, die Mitarbeiter einzubeziehen und zu informieren, die daf\u00fcr zust\u00e4ndig waren, im Ausland das richtige Image zu verbreiten: das einer liberalen Demokratie im Aufbau. Mitarbeiter des Au\u00dfenministeriums arbeiteten eng mit den Geheimdiensten des Landes zusammen, die sie im voraus \u00fcber die n\u00e4chsten Phasen der S\u00e4uberungsoperationen informierten, um sicherzustellen, dass sie vor der \u00d6ffentlichkeit verborgen blieben.\n\nYaacov Shimoni fungierte als Bindeglied zwischen den beiden staatlichen Stellen. Als Orientalist und europ\u00e4ischer Jude war Shimoni besonders geeignet, Israels Sache im Ausland propagieren zu helfen. Im Juli dr\u00e4ngte er auf ein schnelleres Vorgehen: Er war \u00fcberzeugt, dass sich die Chance bot, die Vertreibung und Besetzung abzuschlie\u00dfen, bevor die Welt wieder auf Pal\u00e4stina aufmerksam werden w\u00fcrde. In der akademischen Welt Israels galt Shimoni sp\u00e4ter wegen seiner Fachkenntnisse \u00fcber Pal\u00e4stina und die arabische Welt als einer der Nestoren des Orientalismus \u2013 Fachkenntnisse, die er und viele seiner Kollegen sich an israelischen Universit\u00e4ten w\u00e4hrend der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung und der Entarabisierung Pal\u00e4stinas angeeignet hatten.\n\nIn den zehn Tagen zwischen den beiden Waffenruhen nahmen sich die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte zun\u00e4chst die verbliebenen pal\u00e4stinensischen Nester in Galil\u00e4a um Akko und Nazareth vor. \u00bbDie D\u00f6rfer vollst\u00e4ndig vom Feind s\u00e4ubern\u00ab, lautete der Befehl an drei Brigaden am 6. Juli, zwei Tage bevor die israelischen Truppen \u2013 die ungeduldig darauf brannten, die S\u00e4uberungen fortzusetzen \u2013 Befehl erhielten, die erste Waffenruhe zu brechen. Den j\u00fcdischen Soldaten war sofort klar, dass mit dem \u00bbFeind\u00ab wehrlose Pal\u00e4stinenser und ihre Familien gemeint waren. Die betreffenden Einheiten geh\u00f6rten zu den Brigaden Carmeli, Golani und Sieben, also zu den drei Brigaden im Norden, die im Oktober auch die abschlie\u00dfenden S\u00e4uberungsaktionen in Obergalil\u00e4a durchf\u00fchren sollten. Die findigen Leute, die sich f\u00fcr solche Eins\u00e4tze Decknamen ausdenken mussten, wechselten nun von \u00bbS\u00e4uberungsbildern\u00ab (\u00bbBesen\u00ab, \u00bbSchere\u00ab) zu B\u00e4umen: \u00bbPalme\u00ab ( _Dekel)_ f\u00fcr die Region Nazareth und \u00bbZypresse\u00ab ( _Brosh_ ) f\u00fcr das Jordantal.\n\nDie Operation in und um Nazareth erfolgte in rasantem Tempo; die D\u00f6rfer, die man im Mai nicht eingenommen hatte, wurden nun z\u00fcgig besetzt: Amqa, Birwa (wo der ber\u00fchmte zeitgen\u00f6ssische Dichter Mahmoud Darwish geboren wurde), Damun, Khirbat Jiddin und Kuwaykat hatten jeweils \u00fcber 1500 Einwohner, die m\u00fchelos vertrieben wurden.\n\nBrigade Sieben leitete die Durchf\u00fchrung von Operation Palme mit Unterst\u00fctzung der Carmeli- und Golani-Brigaden. In den vielen m\u00fcndlichen Berichten von Pal\u00e4stinensern, die inzwischen publik geworden sind, tauchen kaum Brigadenamen auf. Aber immer wieder wird die Brigade Sieben namentlich erw\u00e4hnt und als \u00bbterroristisch\u00ab und \u00bbbarbarisch\u00ab bezeichnet.\n\nDer erste Angriff galt Amqa, dessen Geschichte wie in vielen D\u00f6rfern der K\u00fcstenebene mindestens 600 Jahre zur\u00fcckreichte. Amqa war auch insofern typisch, als es eine gemischte Bev\u00f6lkerung aus Muslimen und Drusen hatte, die friedlich zusammen lebten, bis die israelische Politik nach dem Motto \u00bbteile und herrsche\u00ab einen Keil zwischen die beiden Gruppen trieb: Die Muslime wurden deportiert, w\u00e4hrend die Drusen in andere Drusend\u00f6rfer der Umgebung gehen durften.\n\nTrotz der massiven Zerst\u00f6rungen, zu denen es vor beinahe 60 Jahren kam, sind heute noch Reste von Amqa zu sehen. Mitten in den wilden Wiesen, die das Gel\u00e4nde \u00fcberwuchern, sind Reste der Schule und die Dorfmoschee zu erkennen. Die Moschee ist zwar bauf\u00e4llig, zeugt aber noch immer von den erlesenen Steinmetzarbeiten, die das Dorf f\u00fcr ihren Bau einsetzte. Da der gegenw\u00e4rtige j\u00fcdische \u00bbBesitzer\u00ab sie als Lager nutzt, ist sie nicht zu besichtigen, aber ihre Gr\u00f6\u00dfe und einzigartige Bauweise sind auch von au\u00dfen zu erkennen.\n\nMit Operation Palme war die Eroberung Westgalil\u00e4as abgeschlossen. Einige Orte blieben verschont: Kfar Yassif, Iblin und Shafa'Amr, deren gemischte Bev\u00f6lkerung aus Christen, Muslimen und Drusen bestand. Doch auch hier wurden viele Einwohner deportiert, die der \u00bbfalschen\u00ab Familie oder politischen Gruppierung angeh\u00f6rten. Viele Familien waren bereits vor der Besetzung gefl\u00fcchtet, da sie wussten, was ihnen drohte. Manche D\u00f6rfer waren verlassen, existieren aber noch heute, weil die Israelis Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus zerst\u00f6rten Ortschaften dort einziehen lie\u00dfen. Eine solche Politik sorgte f\u00fcr Verwirrung und Chaos, da Befehlen Gegenbefehle folgten, die selbst die Vertreiber irritierten. In einigen gemischten Orten ordneten die Israelis die hektische Vertreibung der halben Bev\u00f6lkerung an, vor allem der Muslime, und erlaubten anschlie\u00dfend christlichen Fl\u00fcchtlingen aus ger\u00e4umten Nachbard\u00f6rfern, in die gerade verlassenen H\u00e4user zu ziehen, wie es in Kfar Yassif, Iblin und Shafa'Amr geschah.\n\nDiese Umschichtung der Bev\u00f6lkerung innerhalb Galil\u00e4as lie\u00df Shafa'Amr zu einer gro\u00dfen Stadt anschwellen, die nach den Milit\u00e4roperationen von Mai bis Juli vor Fl\u00fcchtlingen aus dem Umland \u00fcberquoll. Am 16. Juli wurde der Ort besetzt, aber weitgehend in Ruhe gelassen, das hei\u00dft, niemand wurde vertrieben. Das war eine au\u00dfergew\u00f6hnliche Entscheidung, die sich in Nazareth wiederholen sollte \u2013 in beiden F\u00e4llen ging die Initiative von \u00f6rtlichen Kommandeuren aus.\n\nAls Generalstabschef Yigael Yadin im Laufe des Monats Shafa'-Amr besuchte, war er offensichtlich best\u00fcrzt, eine arabische Stadt mitsamt allen Einwohnern vorzufinden: \u00bbDie Leute bewegen sich frei in der Stadt\u00ab, berichtete er Ben Gurion verbl\u00fcfft. Sofort ordnete Yadin an, eine Ausgangssperre zu verh\u00e4ngen und eine Razzia durchzuf\u00fchren, gab aber ausdr\u00fcckliche Anweisung, die Drusen von Shafa'Amr in Ruhe zu lassen.\n\nOperation Polizist\n\nEin Widerstandsnest an der K\u00fcste s\u00fcdlich von Haifa hielt sich so lange, dass einige D\u00f6rfer dieser Region zehn Tage lang den K\u00e4mpfen standhielten. Von den sechs D\u00f6rfern fielen drei, bevor die zweite Waffenruhe verk\u00fcndet wurde; die anderen drei ergaben sich, _nachdem_ die Waffenruhe in Kraft getreten war.\n\nDie ersten drei D\u00f6rfer waren Tirat Haifa, Kfar Lam und Ayn Hawd. Das gr\u00f6\u00dfte von ihnen war mit 5000 Einwohnern Tirat Haifa, nur einige Kilometer s\u00fcdlich von Haifa. Heute steht hier eine trostlose j\u00fcdische Rei\u00dfbrettstadt mit dem ganz \u00e4hnlichen Namen Tirat Hacarmel; sie liegt an den unteren Westh\u00e4ngen des Karmel, unterhalb des Nobelviertels von Haifa, Denya, das sich allm\u00e4hlich vom Bergr\u00fccken des Karmel (wo Haifas Universit\u00e4t steht) hangabw\u00e4rts ausgedehnt hat; allerdings vermeidet es die Stadtverwaltung sorgsam, beide Orte durch Stra\u00dfen zu verbinden.\n\nTirat Haifa war das nach Fl\u00e4che und Einwohnerzahl gr\u00f6\u00dfte Dorf des Bezirks. Zur Zeit der Kreuzritter hie\u00df es St.Yohan deTire und erlangte eine gewisse Bedeutung f\u00fcr christliche Pilger und \u00f6rtliche Kirchen. Seither besa\u00df Tirat Haifa neben seiner muslimischen Mehrheit durchg\u00e4ngig eine kleine christliche Gemeinde, wobei beide Gruppen das christliche Erbe des Ortes und seinen muslimischen Gesamtcharakter respektierten. Als das Dorf 1596 zum Unterbezirk Lajjun kam, hatte es nur 286 Einwohner. 300 Jahre sp\u00e4ter befand es sich auf dem besten Weg, eine Stadt zu werden, fiel aber dann der neuen Zentralisierungspolitik des sp\u00e4ten Osmanischen Reiches und den umfangreichen Rekrutierungen seiner jungen M\u00e4nner in die osmanische Armee zum Opfer, da die meisten anschlie\u00dfend nicht zur\u00fcckkehrten.\n\nTirat Haifa geh\u00f6rte zu den Orten, in denen Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs nach harten, schweren Zeiten eine neue \u00c4ra angebrochen war. \u00dcberall waren Zeichen des Aufschwungs zu sehen: Es entstanden neue Stein- und Lehmziegelh\u00e4user, und die beiden Schulen, eine f\u00fcr Jungen und eine f\u00fcr M\u00e4dchen, wurden renoviert. Der Anbau von Feldfr\u00fcchten, Obst und Gem\u00fcse pr\u00e4gte die Wirtschaft des Ortes. Er war reicher als die meisten D\u00f6rfer, weil nahe Quellen eine hervorragende Wasserversorgung sicherten. Der ganze Stolz des Dorfes waren seine Mandeln, die in der Region ber\u00fchmt waren. Tirat al-Lawz, \u00bbTira der Mandeln\u00ab, war ein Begriff in Pal\u00e4stina. Eine weitere Einkommensquelle war der Tourismus, der sich vor allem auf die noch heute vorhandenen Ruinen des Klosters St. Brocardus konzentrierte.\n\nIn meiner Kindheit gab es \u00fcberall zwischen den grauen Wohnsilos der j\u00fcdischen Stadt, die man auf dem Gel\u00e4nde des Dorfes gebaut hatte, noch Reste der alten Steinh\u00e4user. Nach 1967 lie\u00df die Gemeindeverwaltung die meisten von ihnen abrei\u00dfen, allerdings mehr, um aus den Grundst\u00fccken Profit zu schlagen, als um sich an dem ideologischen Memorizid zu beteiligen, der f\u00fcr die Israelis nach wie vor Priorit\u00e4t besa\u00df.\n\nWie viele andere D\u00f6rfer im Gro\u00dfraum Haifa war auch Tirat Haifa vor seiner endg\u00fcltigen Entv\u00f6lkerung st\u00e4ndigen Angriffen und \u00dcbergriffen j\u00fcdischer Truppen ausgesetzt. Die Irgun nahm den Ort bereits im Dezember 1947 unter Beschuss und t\u00f6tete 13 Menschen, vor allem Kinder und alte Leute. Nach dem Granatbeschuss kam ein Sturmtrupp von 20 Irgun-Leuten und feuerte auf ein einzeln stehendes Haus am Ortsrand. Im Rahmen der britischen \u00bbVermittlungsbem\u00fchungen\u00ab, die es den j\u00fcdischen Truppen erm\u00f6glichten, den Gro\u00dfraum Haifa ungehindert durch \u00e4u\u00dferen Druck ethnisch zu s\u00e4ubern, brachte man zwischen dem 23. April und dem 3. Mai 1948 s\u00e4mtliche Frauen und Kinder aus Tirat Haifa mit Bussen ins Westjordanland, w\u00e4hrend die M\u00e4nner zur\u00fcckblieben. Ein Sonderkommando aus den Elitetrupps mehrerer Brigaden st\u00fcrmte Tirat Haifa am 16. Juli.\n\nNoch am selben Tag war Kfar Lam an der Reihe. Der Ort lag s\u00fcdlich von Tirat Haifa und war weniger wohlhabend, obwohl er ebenfalls gute Wasservorkommen besa\u00df \u2013 an der Nordgrenze des Dorfes entsprangen etwa 15 Quellen. Von der asphaltierten Landstra\u00dfe zwischen Haifa und Tel Aviv f\u00fchrte eine staubige Piste in das Dorf, dessen Hausteinh\u00e4user traditionelle Holzd\u00e4cher mit Betondeckung hatten. Es gab weder Z\u00e4une noch Wacht\u00fcrme, auch nicht im Juli.\n\nDie relative Armut des Ortes entsprang seinem ungew\u00f6hnlichen System des Grundbesitzes, das sich von dem der umliegenden D\u00f6rfer stark unterschied. Die H\u00e4lfte der bestellten Felder geh\u00f6rte Ali Bek al-Khalil und seinem Bruder aus Haifa, die das Land gegen einen Anteil an der Ernte verpachtet hatten. Einige wenige Familien waren nicht in diese Pachtverh\u00e4ltnisse einbezogen und mussten ihren Lebensunterhalt in Haifa verdienen. Das gesamte Dorf hatte enge Verbindungen nach Haifa, wo es den Gro\u00dfteil seiner landwirtschaftlichen Erzeugnisse verkaufte. Und auch hier sah das Leben drei Jahre vor der Nakba rosiger und vielversprechender aus.\n\nKfar Lam war ein ausgesprochen unpolitisches Dorf, was vielleicht seine relative Gelassenheit angesichts der Zerst\u00f6rungswelle erkl\u00e4rt, die seit Februar 1948 in der Umgebung tobte. Das Dorfdossier der Hagana bezeichnete den Ort als \u00bbgem\u00e4\u00dfigt\u00ab, aber bereits Anfang der 1940er Jahre war darin ein verh\u00e4ngnisvolles Detail aufgetaucht, das auf das zuk\u00fcnftige Schicksal des Dorfes hindeutete. Dort hie\u00df es, dass im Dorf einige Samariter lebten, die urspr\u00fcnglich wohl Juden waren, aber in den 1940er Jahren zum Islam konvertiert waren. Dem zionistischen Historiker und f\u00fchrenden Politiker der zionistischen Bewegung, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, gen\u00fcgte das als Nachweis, dass an der K\u00fcste Pal\u00e4stinas durchg\u00e4ngig Juden gelebt hatten.\n\nDiese Suche nach Kontinuit\u00e4t war eine der Hauptobsessionen unter zionistischen Akademikern der damaligen Zeit. Ben-Zvi hatte bereits 1918 gemeinsam mit Ben Gurion ein Buch (auf Jiddisch) ver\u00f6ffentlicht, in dem sie behaupteten, die arabischen Fellachen (Bauern) seien Nachfahren j\u00fcdischer Bauern, die nach dem r\u00f6mischen Exil in Pal\u00e4stina geblieben seien. Diese These entwickelte Ben-Zvi in den 1930er und 1940er Jahren weiter. In seinem Buch _Sha'ar ha-Yishuv_ (\u00bbTor zur j\u00fcdischen Besiedlung\u00ab) vertrat er ebenfalls, die Bewohner des Berglands um Hebron seien eigentlich zum Islam konvertierte Juden.\n\nIm Juli 1948 bedeutete der Nachweis einer solchen Kontinuit\u00e4t allerdings nicht, dass man den Einwohnern von Kfar Lam ein Bleiberecht als B\u00fcrger des neuen j\u00fcdischen Staates zugestanden h\u00e4tte, es hie\u00df lediglich, dass ihr Dorf nun \u00bbrechtm\u00e4\u00dfig\u00ab an das j\u00fcdische Volk zur\u00fcckgegeben wurde. Weder die relativ niedrigen Ernteertr\u00e4ge noch die politische Indifferenz der Einwohner konnten das Dorf retten, und nur seiner N\u00e4he zu wehrhafteren D\u00f6rfern an der K\u00fcste war es zu verdanken, dass es bis Juli 1948 \u00fcberstand.\n\nW\u00e4hrend Kfar Lam verschwunden ist, blieb das Dorf Ayn Hawd, das zur gleichen Zeit besetzt wurde, fast v\u00f6llig intakt. Manche D\u00f6rfer lie\u00dfen sich als \u00bbsch\u00f6n\u00ab oder \u00bbattraktiv\u00ab beschreiben und wurden von zeitgen\u00f6ssischen Besuchern und Einwohnern auch so empfunden, die den besonderen Charme, die Sch\u00f6nheit und Ruhe ihrer Umgebung oft in den Ortsnamen deutlich zum Ausdruck brachten; das galt beispielsweise auch f\u00fcr das Dorf Khayriyya, das auf arabisch \u00bbder Segen des Landes\u00ab hei\u00dft, aber von den Israelis abgerissen und als M\u00fcllkippe von Tel Aviv genutzt wurde.\n\nAyn Hawd war tats\u00e4chlich ungew\u00f6hnlich und eroberte sich einen Platz im Herzen vieler in dieser Gegend. Von der Hauptfamilie im Ort, den Abu al-Hija, hie\u00df es, sie bes\u00e4\u00dfe besondere Heilkr\u00e4fte, daher kamen viele Menschen von der K\u00fcste \u00fcber eine gewundene Stra\u00dfe hinauf an die H\u00e4nge des Karmel in das 15 Kilometer s\u00fcdlich von Haifa gelegene Dorf. Es war halb versteckt im Tal eines der vielen Fl\u00fcsse, die von den Bergen nach Westen ins Meer flie\u00dfen. Dieser besonders malerische Flecken blieb unzerst\u00f6rt, weil es in der Einheit, die den Ort besetzte, einige Bohemiens gab: Sie erkannten sofort das Potenzial des Dorfes und beschlossen, es so zu belassen, wie sie es vorgefunden hatten, um sich sp\u00e4ter hier niederzulassen und es zu einer K\u00fcnstlerkolonie zu machen. Jahrelang lebten hier Israels bekannteste K\u00fcnstler, Musiker und Schriftsteller, die meist zum \u00bbFriedenslager\u00ab des Landes geh\u00f6rten. Auch in der Altstadt von Safad und Jaffa wurden H\u00e4user, die der Zerst\u00f6rung entgingen, sp\u00e4ter zu K\u00fcnstlerenklaven.\n\nBereits im Mai 1948 hatte Ayn Hawd einen Angriff erlebt, den die f\u00fcnf Familien des Clans Abu al-Hija erfolgreich abgewehrt hatten, aber am 16. Juli unterlagen sie. Die Einwohner wurden vertrieben, und die staatliche \u00bbNamensfindungskommission\u00ab \u2013 die pal\u00e4stinensische Ortsnamen durch hebr\u00e4ische ersetzte \u2013 beschloss, das besetzte Dorf Ein Hod zu nennen. Eine der f\u00fcnf Familien des Clans Abu al-Hija suchte einige Kilometer \u00f6stlich Zuflucht und siedelte sich dort an. Hartn\u00e4ckig und tapfer weigerte sie sich fortzugehen und baute nach und nach ein neues Dorf mit dem alten Namen Ayn Hawd.\n\nDieser Zweig des Abu-al-Hija-Clans erzielte einen beachtlichen Erfolg. Zun\u00e4chst fl\u00fcchtete sich die Familie in den nahen Ort Tirat Haifa, musste aber feststellen, dass er am Tag zuvor besetzt worden war. Man jagte sie in die Schluchten in der N\u00e4he ihres Heimatdorfes, wo sie auszuharren vermochte. Der israelische Kommandeur meldete: \u00bbDie Operationen zur S\u00e4uberung der Widerstandsnester von Fl\u00fcchtlingen im Wadi \u00f6stlich des Dorfes gehen weiter.\u00ab Aber alle Versuche, die Familie zu vertreiben, scheiterten. Die \u00fcbrigen Einwohner von Ayn Hawd wurden in alle Winde zerstreut, manche bis in den Irak, andere in die Drusend\u00f6rfer oberhalb von Ayn Hawd auf dem Berg Karmel.\n\nIn den 1950er Jahren bauten die Abu al-Hija neue Betonh\u00e4user in dem Wald, der heute ihr Dorf umgibt. Da die israelische Regierung sich weigerte, die Siedlung als legal anzuerkennen, drohte ihnen st\u00e4ndig die Vertreibung. Als der Staat das neue Dorf 1986 abrei\u00dfen lassen wollte, gelang es den Clanangeh\u00f6rigen gegen alle Wahrscheinlichkeit, ihre Vertreibung zu verhindern. Schlie\u00dflich gew\u00e4hrte ein relativ liberal gesinnter Innenminister dem Dorf 2005 halbwegs die Anerkennung.\n\nDagegen befindet sich die j\u00fcdische K\u00fcnstlerkolonie im Niedergang und scheint im 21. Jahrhundert weniger \u00bbattraktiv\u00ab zu sein als in ihrer Bl\u00fctezeit. Das Caf\u00e9 der Kolonie, das \u00bbBonanza\u00ab in der ehemaligen Dorfmoschee, ist heutzutage meist leer. Der K\u00fcnstler und Begr\u00fcnder des j\u00fcdischen Ortes Ein Hod, Marcel Janko, wollte es zum Zentrum des Dadaismus machen, jener gegen das Establishment gerichteten Bewegung, die Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts entstand und das \u00bbPrimitive\u00ab als Gegenpol zur klassischen griechisch-r\u00f6mischen Tradition sch\u00e4tzte. Getrieben von dem Wunsch, den \u00bbprimitiven\u00ab Kern der Kunst zu bewahren, war Janko bestrebt, einen Teil der urspr\u00fcnglichen Steinh\u00e4user von Ayn Hawd vor r\u00fccksichtsloser Renovierung zu bewahren. Doch schon bald wurden die urspr\u00fcnglichen H\u00e4user des Ortes zu modernen Wohnungen f\u00fcr europ\u00e4isch-j\u00fcdische K\u00fcnstler umgebaut, und in der prachtvollen alten Dorfschule fanden Kunstausstellungen, Feste und andere Touristenattraktionen statt.\n\nJankos eigene Werke zeugen von dem Rassismus, mit dem die zeitgen\u00f6ssische israelische Linke der Kultur der Araber im Allgemeinen und der Pal\u00e4stinenser im Besonderen begegnete \u2013 ein verdeckter und zuweilen nuancierter, aber dennoch durchg\u00e4ngig vorhandener Rassismus in ihren Schriften, Kunstwerken und politischen Aktivit\u00e4ten. So kommen in Jankos Gem\u00e4lde zwar arabische Gestalten vor, aber sie verschwinden immer im Hintergrund des besetzten Ayn Hawd. In dieser Hinsicht sind seine Werke Vorl\u00e4ufer der Gem\u00e4lde, die heutzutage auf der von Israel tief im Westjordanland errichteten Apartheidmauer zu finden sind: Wo sie in der N\u00e4he israelischer Landstra\u00dfen verl\u00e4uft, hat man israelische K\u00fcnstler gebeten, Teile dieses acht Meter hohen Betonmonstrums mit Panoramen malerischer Landschaften zu dekorieren, die sich hinter der Mauer befinden \u2013 allerdings ohne die pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer, die auf der anderen Seite liegen, und ohne die Menschen, die dort leben.\n\nIm K\u00fcstenstreifen s\u00fcdlich von Haifa blieben im Juli 1948 nur drei D\u00f6rfer \u00fcbrig, die massive j\u00fcdische Truppen in den zehn Tagen zwischen der ersten und der zweiten Waffenruhe durchg\u00e4ngig vergebens einzunehmen versuchten. Ben Gurion war anscheinend geradezu besessen von diesen drei Orten und befahl, selbst nach Inkrafttreten der zweiten Waffenruhe weiter ihre Eroberung zu betreiben. Das Oberkommando erkl\u00e4rte den UN-Beobachtern, bei der Operation handele es sich um eine Polizeiaktion, und gab dem Angriff sogar den Decknamen Operation Polizist.\n\nDas gr\u00f6\u00dfte dieser drei D\u00f6rfer war Ijzim mit 3000 Einwohnern. Es hielt den Angreifern auch am l\u00e4ngsten stand. Auf seinen Tr\u00fcmmern entstand die j\u00fcdische Siedlung Kerem Maharal. Einige malerische H\u00e4user sind erhalten geblieben, in einem davon wohnt der ehemalige israelische Geheimdienstchef, der k\u00fcrzlich gemeinsam mit einem pal\u00e4stinensischen Professor einen \u00bbFriedensvorschlag\u00ab ersann, wonach das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge im Tausch gegen den vollst\u00e4ndigen R\u00fcckzug Israels aus den 1967 besetzten Gebieten aufgegeben werden soll.\n\nOperation Polizist (hebr\u00e4isch _Shoter_ ) begann am 25. Juli, genau eine Woche nach Inkrafttreten der \u00bbWaffenruhe\u00ab, aber Ijzim hielt weitere drei Tage heftiger K\u00e4mpfe durch, in denen eine kleine Zahl bewaffneter Einwohner sich gegen Hunderte israelischer Soldaten zur Wehr setzte. Israel setzte seine Luftwaffe ein, um den Widerstand zu brechen. Als die K\u00e4mpfe vorbei waren, wurden s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner nach Jenin vertrieben. Nach Erinnerung der \u00dcberlebenden starben bei den K\u00e4mpfen 130 Einwohner. Die israelischen Nachrichtenoffiziere der Nordfront berichteten \u00fcber die Einnahme des Ortes am 28. Juli: \u00bbUnsere Truppen sammelten 200 Leichen ein, viele davon Zivilisten, die durch unsere Bombardierung get\u00f6tet wurden.\u00ab\n\nBereits vorher war Ayn Ghazal mit 3000 Einwohnern gefallen. Wie in Kfar Lam war auch hier das Leben h\u00e4rter als in anderen Orten. Die H\u00e4user waren \u00fcberwiegend aus Beton \u2013 eine untypische Bauweise f\u00fcr diese Gegend \u2013 und besa\u00dfen spezielle, teils bis zu drei Meter tiefe Sch\u00e4chte und Gruben, um Weizen zu lagern. Diese Tradition und die ungew\u00f6hnliche Architektur erwuchsen vielleicht aus den ethnischen Urspr\u00fcngen des Ortes. Ayn Ghazal war noch relativ jung, \u00bberst\u00ab 250 Jahre alt (zum Vergleich: wenn wir von relativ \u00bbalten\u00ab j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen sprechen, sind sie m\u00f6glicherweise erst vor 30 oder 35 Jahren entstanden, und nur eine verschwindend geringe Zahl wurde bereits Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts gegr\u00fcndet). Die Einwohner von Ayn Ghazal waren aus dem Sudan gekommen, um in Syrien und Libanon Arbeit zu suchen, und hatten sich hier niedergelassen (Nachbarorte wie Furaydis, Tantura und Daliyat al-Rahwa bestanden schon seit Jahrhunderten).\n\nF\u00fcr viele Muslime war Ayn Ghazal ein beliebter Wallfahrtsort, da sich dort das Grab (Maqam) eines Heiligen namens Shaykh Shehadeh befand. Einige Einwohner hatten Ayn Ghazal bereits vor den Angriffen verlassen und Zuflucht in den beiden einzigen D\u00f6rfern gesucht, die von den urspr\u00fcnglich 64 K\u00fcstenorten noch \u00fcbrig geblieben waren: Furaydis und Jisr al-Zarqa. Nach 1948 bem\u00fchten sich \u00e4ltere Einwohner dieser D\u00f6rfer, den Maqam Shaykh Shehadehs zu erhalten. Da die israelischen Beh\u00f6rden von diesen Bestrebungen wussten, erkl\u00e4rten sie den Maqam zu einer j\u00fcdischen heiligen St\u00e4tte, um den Gedenk- und Pilgerfahrten ein Ende zu setzen. Einer der Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus dem Dorf, Ali Hamuda, h\u00fctete den Maqam und bewahrte seinen muslimischen Charakter nahezu im Alleingang. Obwohl man ihn zu einer Geldstrafe verurteilte und ihm mit Gef\u00e4ngnis drohte, weil er das Grabmal 1985 renoviert hatte, bestand er weiter darauf, die heilige St\u00e4tte seines Glaubens zu bewahren und die Erinnerung an sein Dorf lebendig zu erhalten.\n\nDie Einwohner, die im Juli 1948 noch in Ayn Ghazal waren, jubelten, als sie erfuhren, dass eine zweite Waffenruhe zustande gekommen war. Selbst die Wachen, die das Dorf seit Mai bewacht hatten, glaubten, sie k\u00f6nnten in ihrer Wachsamkeit nachlassen. Es war Ramadan, und am Nachmittag des 26. Juli waren die meisten Einwohner zum Fastenbrechen auf der Stra\u00dfe und sammelten sich in den wenigen Kaffeeh\u00e4usern im Ortszentrum, als ein Flugzeug auftauchte und eine Bombe abwarf, die mitten in die Menge traf. Frauen und Kinder fl\u00fcchteten in Panik, w\u00e4hrend die M\u00e4nner zur\u00fcckblieben und schon bald die j\u00fcdischen Truppen ins Dorf st\u00fcrmen sahen.\n\nDie Besatzungstruppen befahlen den \u00bbM\u00e4nnern\u00ab, sich an einer Stelle zu sammeln, wie sie es bei solchen Gelegenheiten in l\u00e4ndlichen Gegenden routinem\u00e4\u00dfig taten. Kurz darauf kamen der, wie \u00fcblich, vermummte Informant und der Geheimdienstoffizier. Sie suchten 17 der M\u00e4nner aus, weil sie sich angeblich an der Revolte 1936 beteiligt h\u00e4tten, und erschossen sie an Ort und Stelle. Die \u00fcbrigen wurden vertrieben. Das gleiche Schicksal erfuhr noch am selben Tag das sechste Dorf in diesem Widerstandswinkel, Jaba.\n\nOperation Dani\n\nOperation Dani war der harmlos klingende Deckname f\u00fcr den Angriff auf die beiden pal\u00e4stinensischen St\u00e4dte Lydda und Ramla auf halbem Weg zwischen Jaffa und Jerusalem.\n\nLydda liegt 50 Meter \u00fcber dem Meeresspiegel in den Binnenebenen Pal\u00e4stinas. In der Erinnerung der Einheimischen hat sie sich als \u00bbStadt der Moscheen\u00ab eingepr\u00e4gt, die in der arabischen Welt ber\u00fchmt waren. Die gro\u00dfe Moschee al-Umari, die noch heute steht, stammte aus der Zeit des Mameluckensultans Rukn al-Din Baybars, der die Stadt von den Kreuzfahrern eroberte. Ber\u00fchmt ist auch die Dahamish-Moschee, die 800 Gl\u00e4ubige aufnehmen konnte und eine Ladenarkade mit sechs Gesch\u00e4ften hatte. Heute ist Lydda die j\u00fcdische Rei\u00dfbrettstadt Lod, eine der Vorst\u00e4dte rund um Tel Aviv, in denen die \u00c4rmsten und Unterprivilegierten der Metropole leben. Lange Jahre hie\u00df auch Israels einziger internationaler Flughafen Lod, mittlerweile tr\u00e4gt er den Namen Ben-Gurion Airport.\n\nAm 10. Juli 1948 \u00fcbertrug Ben Gurion Yigal Allon das Kommando \u00fcber Operation Dani und ernannte Yitzhak Rabin zu seinem Stellvertreter. Allon ordnete zun\u00e4chst an, al-Lydda aus der Luft zu bombardieren \u2013 es war die erste Stadt, die aus der Luft angegriffen wurde. Darauf folgte ein direkter Angriff auf das Stadtzentrum, der alle noch verbliebenen ALA-Freiwilligen in die Flucht schlug. Manche waren schon vorher aus ihren Stellungen geflohen, als sie erfahren hatten, dass die in Stadtn\u00e4he stationierten jordanischen Einheiten der Arabischen Legion von ihrem britischen Befehlshaber, Glubb Pasha, den Befehl zum R\u00fcckzug erhalten hatten. Da sowohl Lydda als auch Ramla eindeutig im designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet lagen, hatten die Einwohner und die Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte angenommen, die Legion w\u00fcrde der israelischen Besetzung gewaltsam entgegentreten, wie sie es in Ostjerusalem und im Gebiet Latrun, westlich von Jerusalem (nicht weit von Lydda und Ramla entfernt) tat; aber sie hatten sich geirrt. Glubb Pashas Entscheidung zum R\u00fcckzug kostete ihn sp\u00e4ter seine Position, worauf er nach Gro\u00dfbritannien zur\u00fcckkehren musste.\n\nNachdem sowohl die Freiwilligen als auch die Legion\u00e4re sie im Stich gelassen hatten, suchten die M\u00e4nner von Lydda, mit ein paar alten Gewehren bewaffnet, Zuflucht in der Dahamish-Moschee im Stadtzentrum. Nach einigen Stunden Kampf ergaben sie sich und wurden von den israelischen Truppen in der Moschee massakriert. Pal\u00e4stinensische Quellen geben an, dass in der Moschee und den umliegenden Stra\u00dfen, wo die j\u00fcdischen Truppen weiter mordeten und pl\u00fcnderten, 426 M\u00e4nner, Frauen und Kinder get\u00f6tet wurden (176 Leichen wurden in der Moschee gefunden). Am n\u00e4chsten Tag, am 14. Juli 1948, gingen j\u00fcdische Soldaten von Haus zu Haus, holten die Menschen heraus und trieben etwa 50000 Einwohner zu Fu\u00df aus der Stadt in Richtung Westjordanland (\u00fcber die H\u00e4lfte von ihnen waren bereits aus umliegenden D\u00f6rfern gefl\u00fcchtet).\n\nEine der fundiertesten Schilderungen zu den Vorg\u00e4ngen in al-Lydda ver\u00f6ffentlichte der Soziologe Salim Tamari im Sommer 1998 im _Journal of Palestine Studies_. Sie st\u00fctzt sich auf Interviews mit Spiro Munayar, der Zeit seines Lebens in Lydda wohnte und an jenem grauenhaften Tag im Juli Augenzeuge der Ereignisse war. Er erlebte die Besetzung, das Massaker in der Moschee, die israelischen Truppen, die in die H\u00e4user st\u00fcrmten und die Familien herauszerrten und kein einziges Haus verschonten. Er sah, wie die H\u00e4user anschlie\u00dfend gepl\u00fcndert und die Fl\u00fcchtlinge beraubt wurden, bevor man ihnen befahl, in einem der hei\u00dfesten Monate des Jahres an einem der hei\u00dfesten Orte Pal\u00e4stinas zu Fu\u00df Richtung Westjordanland zu gehen.\n\nEr arbeitete damals als junger Arzt im Krankenhaus des Ortes mit dem engagierten Dr. George Habash zusammen, dem sp\u00e4teren Gr\u00fcnder und F\u00fchrer der Volksfront zur Befreiung Pal\u00e4stinas. Er erinnert sich an die unz\u00e4hligen Toten und Verwundeten, die von den Schaupl\u00e4tzen des Gemetzels ins Krankenhaus gebracht wurden \u2013 grauenvolle Erlebnisse, die Habash verfolgen und dazu treiben sollten, den Weg des Guerillakriegs einzuschlagen, um seine Stadt und sein Heimatland von denjenigen zu befreien, die es 1948 verw\u00fcstet hatten.\n\nMunayar schilderte auch die Vertreibungsszenen, die er miterlebte:\n\nIn der Nacht begannen die Soldaten in den Gebieten, die sie besetzt hatten, in die H\u00e4user zu gehen, die Einwohner zusammenzutreiben und aus der Stadt zu jagen. Manchen befahlen die Soldaten, nach Kharruba und Barfilyya zu gehen, anderen sagten sie: \u00bbGeht zu K\u00f6nig Abdullah nach Ramallah.\u00ab Die Stra\u00dfen waren voller Menschen, die sich mit ungewissem Ziel auf den Weg machten.\n\nSolche Szenen beobachteten auch die wenigen ausl\u00e4ndischen Journalisten, die an jenem Tag in der Stadt waren. Zwei von ihnen waren Amerikaner, die die israelischen Truppen offenbar eingeladen hatten, sie bei dem Angriff zu begleiten \u2013 heute w\u00fcrde man sie wohl als \u00bbembedded correspondents\u00ab bezeichnen. Einer der beiden, Keith Wheeler von der _Chicago Sun Times_ , schrieb: \u00bbPraktisch alles, was ihnen [den israelischen Truppen] in den Weg kam, starb. Am Stra\u00dfenrand lagen durchsiebte Leichen.\u00ab Der andere, Kenneth Bilby von der _New York Herald Tribune_ , sah \u00bbim Gefolge des skrupellos brillanten Sturmangriffs die Leichen arabischer M\u00e4nner, Frauen und sogar Kinder verstreut liegen\u00ab. Bilby schrieb auch ein Buch \u00fcber diese Ereignisse, _New Star in the Near East_ , das zwei Jahre sp\u00e4ter erschien.\n\nMan mag sich fragen, wieso Zeitungsberichte \u00fcber ein Massaker dieses Ausma\u00dfes keinen Aufschrei der Entr\u00fcstung in den Vereinigten Staaten ausl\u00f6sten. Allen, die schockiert waren \u00fcber die Abgebr\u00fchtheit und Unmenschlichkeit, mit der die US-Truppen zuweilen bei ihrem Irakeinsatz gegen Araber vorgegangen sind, m\u00f6gen die Berichte aus Lydda seltsam vertraut vorkommen. Damals wunderten sich amerikanische Reporter wie Wheeler \u00fcber das, was er ironisch den israelischen \u00bbBlitzkrieg\u00ab nannte und \u00fcber die Entschlossenheit der j\u00fcdischen Truppen. In seinen Berichten \u00fcber den Feldzug der israelischen Armee unterlie\u00df Wheeler es leider ebenso wie Bilby (\u00bbskrupellos brillant\u00ab), genauso eingehend \u00fcber die Zahl der get\u00f6teten, verwundeten und aus ihren D\u00f6rfern vertriebenen Pal\u00e4stinenser zu schreiben. Die Korrespondentenberichte waren v\u00f6llig einseitig.\n\nSensibler und weniger einseitig berichtete der _London Economist_. Er schilderte seinen Lesern die grauenhaften Szenen, die sich abspielten, wenn Einwohner gezwungen wurden, sich zu Fu\u00df auf den Weg zu machen, nachdem man ihre H\u00e4user gepl\u00fcndert, ihre Familienangeh\u00f6rigen ermordet und ihre Stadt verw\u00fcstet hatte: \u00bbDie arabischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge wurden systematisch all ihrer Habe beraubt, bevor man sie auf ihren Treck an die Grenze schickte. Haushaltsgegenst\u00e4nde, Vorr\u00e4te, Kleider, alles mussten sie zur\u00fccklassen.\u00ab\n\nAuch Munayar erinnerte sich an diesen systematischen Raub:\n\nDie Besatzungssoldaten hatten Stra\u00dfensperren an allen Stra\u00dfen nach Osten errichtet und durchsuchten die Fl\u00fcchtlinge, besonders die Frauen, stahlen ihnen den Goldschmuck von Hals, Handgelenken und Fingern und alles, was sie in ihren Kleidern versteckt hatten, auch Geld und alles andere, was wertvoll und leicht genug war, es zu tragen.\n\nGanz in der N\u00e4he lag Ramla oder Ramleh, wie es heute hei\u00dft, die Heimatstadt eines hoch angesehenen PLO-F\u00fchrers, des verstorbenen Khalil al-Wazir, Abu Jihad. Bereits zwei Tage zuvor, am 12. Juli 1948, hatte der Angriff auf die Stadt mit ihren 17000 Einwohnern begonnen, aber die Israelis besetzten sie erst endg\u00fcltig, nachdem sie Lydda eingenommen hatten. Schon vorher hatten j\u00fcdische Truppen Terroranschl\u00e4ge auf die Stadt ver\u00fcbt; der erste erfolgte am 18. Februar 1948, als die Irgun auf dem Markt eine Bombe deponierte, die mehrere Menschen t\u00f6tete.\n\nEntsetzt \u00fcber die Nachrichten, die aus Lydda kamen, trafen die Notabeln der Stadt eine Vereinbarung mit der israelischen Armee, die der Bev\u00f6lkerung angeblich erlaubte zu bleiben. Am 14. Juli kamen die israelischen Einheiten in die Stadt und begannen sofort eine Durchsuchung, bei der sie 3000 Menschen festnahmen und in ein Gefangenenlager in der N\u00e4he brachten; noch am selben Tag pl\u00fcnderten sie die Stadt. Der Kommandeur des Einsatzes war Yitzhak Rabin. Er erinnerte sich, wie Ben Gurion ihn zuvor in sein B\u00fcro bestellt hatte, um mit ihm das Schicksal von Lydda und Ramla zu besprechen: \u00bbYigal Allon fragte: Was soll mit der Bev\u00f6lkerung [von Lydda und Ramla] passieren? Ben Gurion machte eine Handbewegung, die besagte: \u203aJagt sie fort!\u2039\u00ab\n\nDie Einwohner beider St\u00e4dte wurden gezwungen, ohne Wasser und Nahrung zu Fu\u00df ins Westjordanland zu gehen, viele verhungerten und verdursteten unterwegs. Da in beiden St\u00e4dten nur einige hundert bleiben durften und viele aus den umliegenden D\u00f6rfern dort Zuflucht gesucht hatten, sch\u00e4tzte Rabin, dass insgesamt 50000 Menschen auf diese inhumane Weise \u00bbtransferiert\u00ab wurden. Wieder stellt sich die unvermeidliche Frage: Was ging in den K\u00f6pfen der Juden vor, die drei Jahre nach dem Holocaust diese elenden Menschen vorbeiziehen sahen?\n\nWeiter westlich verteidigte die Arabische Legion, die diese beiden pal\u00e4stinensischen St\u00e4dte im Stich gelassen hatte, das Gebiet um Latrun so hartn\u00e4ckig, dass der Kampf sich als gr\u00f6\u00dfte Niederlage des Krieges in das Ged\u00e4chtnis der israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte einpr\u00e4gen sollte. Die bittere Erinnerung an dieses Fiasko sch\u00fcrte Rachegel\u00fcste. Als Israel dieses Gebiet 1967 besetzte, bot sich die Gelegenheit zur Vergeltung, die sich aber nicht gegen die Jordanier, sondern gegen die Pal\u00e4stinenser richtete: Drei der D\u00f6rfer im Latrun-Tal \u2013 Biddu, Yalu und Imwas \u2013 wurden ger\u00e4umt und dem Erdboden gleichgemacht. Die Massendeportation der Einwohner markierte den Beginn einer neuen ethnischen S\u00e4uberungswelle.\n\nIm Juli 1948 wehrte die Arabische Legion auch israelische Angriffe auf die \u00f6stlichen Viertel Jerusalems erfolgreich ab, besonders auf Shaykh Jarrah. \u00bbBesetzen und zerst\u00f6ren\u00ab, verlangte Ben Gurion rachs\u00fcchtig von der Armee in Bezug auf dieses bezaubernde Viertel. Dank der Standhaftigkeit der Arabischen Legion ist unter den zahlreichen Sch\u00e4tzen dieses Viertels heute noch das American Colony Hotel zu finden: Es geh\u00f6rte zu den ersten H\u00e4usern, die Ende des 19.Jahrhunderts au\u00dferhalb der Stadtmauern erbaut wurden, und war urspr\u00fcnglich der Wohnsitz Rabah al-Husaynis, eines f\u00fchrenden Notabeln der Stadt.\n\nFortsetzung von Operation Palme\n\nBen Gurions Tagebucheintrag vom 11. Juli 1948 zeugt von betr\u00e4chtlichem Vertrauen in Israels milit\u00e4rische St\u00e4rke gegen\u00fcber der vereinten Macht seiner arabischen Nachbarn: \u00bb[Ich habe befohlen] Nablus zu besetzen, Kairo, Alexandria, Damaskus und Beirut massiv zu bombardieren.\u00ab Trotz Ben Gurions Anweisungen wurde Nablus jedoch nicht eingenommen, das Gleiche galt in den zehn Tagen hektischer Operationen zwischen den beiden Waffenruhen aber auch noch f\u00fcr eine weitere pal\u00e4stinensische Stadt: Nazareth. Ihre Geschichte ist eine der ungew\u00f6hnlichsten Episoden der Urbizid-Kampagne. In dieser relativ gro\u00dfen Stadt sollten lediglich 500 ALA-Freiwillige unter dem Kommando von Madlul Bek nicht nur die Einheimischen, sondern auch Tausende Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus den umliegenden D\u00f6rfern besch\u00fctzen, die in die \u00fcberf\u00fcllte Stadt und ihr Umland dr\u00e4ngten.\n\nDer Angriff auf Nazareth begann am 9. Juli, einen Tag nach Beendigung der ersten Waffenruhe. Als der M\u00f6rserbeschuss auf die Stadt anfing, bef\u00fcrchteten die Einwohner ihre Vertreibung und beschlossen, von selbst zu gehen. Aber Madlul Bek ordnete an, dass sie bleiben. Aus von Israel abgefangenen Telegrammen zwischen ihm und Kommandeuren der arabischen Armee geht hervor, dass er und andere ALA-Offiziere den Befehl erhielten, die Vertreibungen mit allen Mitteln zu beenden: Die arabischen Regierungen wollten verhindern, dass noch mehr Fl\u00fcchtlinge in ihre L\u00e4nder str\u00f6mten. So kam es, dass Madlul einige Leute zur\u00fcckholte, die sich bereits auf der Flucht aus der Stadt befanden. Aber als der M\u00f6rserbeschuss st\u00e4rker wurde, hielt er es f\u00fcr sinnlos, der \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigenden \u00dcbermacht der j\u00fcdischen Truppen weiter standhalten zu wollen, und ermunterte nun die Bev\u00f6lkerung, die Stadt zu verlassen. Am 16. Juli um 22 Uhr kapitulierte er.\n\nBen Gurion wollte nicht, dass Nazareth entv\u00f6lkert wurde, denn ihm war klar, dass die Augen der christlichen Welt auf diese Stadt gerichtet waren. Aber ein f\u00fchrender General und Oberkommandeur der Operation, Moshe Karmil, ordnete die vollst\u00e4ndige R\u00e4umung der Stadt von der gesamten, verbliebenen Bev\u00f6lkerung an (\u00bb16000\u00ab, notierte Ben Gurion, \u00bb10000 davon waren Christen\u00ab). Daraufhin wies Ben Gurion Karmil an, seinen Befehl zur\u00fcckzunehmen und die Einwohner in der Stadt zu lassen. Er war sich mit Ben Dunkelman, dem milit\u00e4rischen Operationschef, einig: \u00bbHier schaut die Welt auf uns.\u00ab Nazareth hatte also mehr Gl\u00fcck als jede andere Stadt Pal\u00e4stinas. Bis heute ist Nazareth die einzige arabische Stadt Israels (in den Grenzen von vor 1967).\n\nAber auch hier wurden nicht alle Menschen verschont. Einige wurden am ersten Tag der Besetzung vertrieben oder verhaftet, als Geheimdienstoffiziere die Stadt Haus f\u00fcr Haus zu durchsuchen begannen und Verd\u00e4chtige oder \u00bbunerw\u00fcnschte Personen\u00ab entsprechend ihren mitgef\u00fchrten Liste festnahmen. Palti Sela wiederum ging mit einer bekannten arabischen Pers\u00f6nlichkeit aus Nazareth und sieben Notizb\u00fcchern mit Namen von Leuten herum, die wegen ihrer Zugeh\u00f6rigkeit zu Clans, die mit den Israelis kollaboriert hatten, oder aus anderen Gr\u00fcnden bleiben durften.\n\n\u00c4hnliches fand auch in den D\u00f6rfern um Nazareth statt; Palti Sela behauptete 2002, dank seiner Bem\u00fchungen h\u00e4tten 1600 Menschen bleiben d\u00fcrfen, eine Entscheidung, f\u00fcr die man ihn sp\u00e4ter kritisiert habe. \u00bbDie Notizb\u00fccher sind verloren gegangen\u00ab, erkl\u00e4rte er seinem Interviewer, erinnerte sich aber, dass er sich geweigert hatte, auch nur einen einzigen Beduinen in diese Liste aufzunehmen. \u00bbSie sind alle Diebe\u00ab, hatte er seinen Partnern bei diesen Operationen gesagt.\n\nAber wirklich sicher war niemand, nicht einmal der arabische Notabel, der Palti Sela begleitete \u2013 und anonym bleiben will. Der erste Milit\u00e4rgouverneur, der nach dem Krieg eingesetzt wurde, mochte diesen Mann aus irgendwelchen Gr\u00fcnden nicht und wollte ihn deportieren lassen. Palti Sela schaltete sich ein und bewahrte ihn davor, indem er versprach, ihn mit Familie und Freunden nach Haifa zu bringen. Er r\u00e4umte ein, dass eine ganze Reihe von Leuten, die in seinen Notizb\u00fcchern als \u00bbGute\u00ab aufgelistet waren, letztlich doch gezwungen wurden, das Land zu verlassen.\n\nIn dem Gebiet zwischen Nazareth und Tiberias lag noch ein Dorf, dessen Eroberung in den vorangegangenen Monaten gescheitert war und das nun besetzt werden sollte: Hittin. Ein Foto des Dorfes von 1937 erweckt den Anschein, als stamme es aus einer modernen Fremdenverkehrsbrosch\u00fcre f\u00fcr die Toskana oder Griechenland. Acht Kilometer nordwestlich von Tiberias gelegen, klebt es in atemberaubenden 125 Metern H\u00f6he am Hang \u00fcber dem See von Galil\u00e4a, wirkt aber wesentlich h\u00f6her, da der See unter dem Meeresspiegel liegt. Auf dem Schwarzwei\u00dffoto sind deutlich Hittins Bruchsteinh\u00e4user mit Holzd\u00e4chern zu erkennen, die von Obstg\u00e4rten mit Kaktushecken umgeben sind. Der Ort war gut mit Fahrzeugen zu erreichen, erwies sich 1948 aber als schwer einzunehmen, weil er starken Widerstand leistete, obwohl ihn nicht mehr als 25 schlecht bewaffnete Freiwillige verteidigten.\n\nDie Geschichte des Dorfes reicht zur\u00fcck bis zu der ber\u00fchmten Schlacht zwischen Sultan Saladin und den Kreuzfahrern 1187. Zum Ruhm des Ortes trug auch das Grab von Nabi Shu'ayb bei, des heiligen Propheten der pal\u00e4stinensischen Drusen, die ihn mit Moses' Schwiegervater Jetro gleichsetzen und seinen Maqam als heilige Pilgerst\u00e4tte in Ehren halten. Die Tatsache, dass die Drusen bereits auf die andere Seite \u00fcbergelaufen waren und sich mit der israelischen Armee verb\u00fcndet hatten, spornte die Israelis in ihrem Ehrgeiz an, das Dorf zu nehmen. Auf einer Internetseite f\u00fcr Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus Hittin findet sich heute der Eintrag: \u00bbOb es ihnen [den Drusen] gef\u00e4llt oder nicht, sie sind immer noch pal\u00e4stinensische Araber\u00ab \u2013 ein eindeutiger Hinweis darauf, dass die Drusen damals wenig Solidarit\u00e4t oder Affinit\u00e4t, geschweige denn Mitleid mit ihren pal\u00e4stinensischen Landsleuten zeigten. Im Gegenteil, viele beteiligten sich an der Verw\u00fcstung der l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas, einem Land, dem sie nat\u00fcrlich tragischerweise selbst angeh\u00f6rten.\n\nWie in so vielen der hier angef\u00fchrten D\u00f6rfer schlug die Nakba zu, als sich gerade ein gewisser Wohlstand eingestellt hatte. Zeichen dieses Aufschwungs waren eine neue Schule und ein neues Bew\u00e4sserungssystem, aber das alles ging den Einwohnern von Hittin nach dem 17. Juli 1948 verloren, als eine Einheit der Brigade Sieben das Dorf st\u00fcrmte und eine besonders brutale S\u00e4uberungsaktion startete. Viele fl\u00fcchteten sich in benachbarte D\u00f6rfer \u2013 und bei deren Besetzung im Oktober wurden sie dann ein zweites Mal vertrieben. Damit endete die Operation Palme, die s\u00e4mtliche D\u00f6rfer im Umland von Nazareth r\u00e4umte.\n\nDie Bodentruppen konnten mittlerweile auf Unterst\u00fctzung durch die noch in den Kinderschuhen steckende israelische Luftwaffe z\u00e4hlen. Sie bombardierte Saffuriyya und Mujaydil aus der Luft sowie mehrere D\u00f6rfer an der K\u00fcste: Jaba, Ijzim und Ayn Ghazal erlebten bis weit in die zweite Waffenruhe hinein Luftangriffe, die sie zur Unterwerfung zwingen sollten. Im Juli kam es zu einer regelrechten ethnischen S\u00e4uberung aus der Luft. Luftangriffe waren ein wichtiges Instrument, in gr\u00f6\u00dferen pal\u00e4stinensischen Orten Panik zu sch\u00fcren und Verw\u00fcstungen anzurichten, um die Bev\u00f6lkerung noch vor der Besetzung zur Flucht zu bewegen. Diese neue Taktik sollte im Oktober voll zur Geltung kommen.\n\nAber bereits in der zweiten Julih\u00e4lfte konnten israelische Piloten an dem Drama, das sich vor ihren Augen abspielte, die Wirkung ihrer Eins\u00e4tze ermessen: In Scharen str\u00f6mten Fl\u00fcchtlinge mit ein paar Habseligkeiten aus den D\u00f6rfern auf die Landstra\u00dfen und machten sich auf den Weg in vermeintlich sicherere Orte. Manche Bodentruppen sahen darin ein zu verlockendes Ziel, um es auszulassen. In einem Bericht des Nordkommandos vom 17. Juli 1948 hei\u00dft es: \u00bbUnsere Truppen begannen die einzige Stra\u00dfe aus Sejra zu beschie\u00dfen, auf der ein Fl\u00fcchtlingsstrom unterwegs war.\u00ab Das Dorf Sejra am Berg Tabor hatte heikle Beziehungen zu den \u00bbalten\u00ab zionistischen Kolonien, die Ben Gurion bei seiner Ankunft in Pal\u00e4stina so fasziniert hatten.\n\nIm Sommer 1948 interessierte Ben Gurion sich allerdings weniger f\u00fcr den Norden, wo er seine Karriere begonnen hatte, als f\u00fcr den S\u00fcden, wo sie enden sollte. Im Juli weiteten sich die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen erstmals auf den Negev (Naqab) aus. In dieser Region lebten die Negev-Beduinen seit byzantinischer Zeit und hatten mindestens seit 1500 ihre halb nomadische Lebensweise beibehalten. Hier gab es 1948 etwa 90000 Beduinen, aufgeteilt in 96 St\u00e4mme, die bereits ein System des Grundbesitzes, der Weideund Wasserrechte entwickelten. Auf Anhieb vertrieben j\u00fcdische Truppen elf St\u00e4mme und dr\u00e4ngten weitere 19 in Reservate, die sie nur noch mit Sondergenehmigung verlassen durften, nachdem Israel sie zu milit\u00e4rischen Sperrgebieten erkl\u00e4rt hatte. Die Vertreibung der Negev-Beduinen setzte sich bis 1959 fort.\n\nAls ersten Stamm traf es die Jubarat. Ein Teil wurde im Juli vertrieben; Mitte Oktober, als die zweite Waffenruhe offiziell endete, wurde dann der gesamte Stamm zwangsweise umgesiedelt, die meisten nach Hebron, der Rest in den Gazastreifen. Israel vertrieb den Stamm 1967 erneut, dieses Mal ans Ostufer des Jordans. Die meisten anderen Beduinenst\u00e4mme wurden schon Ende 1948 vertrieben.\n\nDie Waffenruhe, die keine war\n\nDie Nachricht, dass am 18. Juli 1948 eine zweite Waffenruhe in Kraft treten sollte, kam f\u00fcr die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen zu einem ung\u00fcnstigen Zeitpunkt. Einige Operationen wurden beschleunigt und so noch vor Beginn der Waffenruhe abgeschlossen, wie es bei der Besetzung von Qula und Khirbat Shaykh Meisar der Fall war. Mittlerweile hatten die Israelis den 290 bereits besetzten und ges\u00e4uberten Orten au\u00dfer den beiden St\u00e4dten Lydda und Ramla noch weitere 68 D\u00f6rfer hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nSobald die zweite Waffenruhe in Kraft trat, wurde sie gebrochen. In den ersten zehn Tagen besetzten israelische Truppen strategisch wichtige D\u00f6rfer n\u00f6rdlich von Haifa, einige weitere Widerstandsnester, die sie eine Weile in Ruhe gelassen hatten wie die K\u00fcstend\u00f6rfer s\u00fcdlich der Stadt. Mit der Einnahme von Damun, Imwas, Tamra, Qabul und Mi'ar war die Besetzung Westgalil\u00e4as abgeschlossen.\n\nAuch im S\u00fcden gingen die K\u00e4mpfe w\u00e4hrend der zweiten Waffenruhe weiter, da die Israelis M\u00fche hatten, die \u00e4gyptischen Truppen im so genannten Faluja-Kessel zu besiegen. Die \u00e4gyptischen Milit\u00e4ranstrengungen richteten sich vor allem auf die K\u00fcste, wo ihr Vormarsch am Ende der ersten offiziellen Kriegswoche zum Stillstand gekommen war. Seit diesem Debakel sahen sie sich nach und nach an die Grenze zur\u00fcckgedr\u00e4ngt. Eine zweite Expeditionstruppe hatten sie nach S\u00fcdjerusalem geschickt, wo sie anf\u00e4ngliche Erfolge erzielte. Mitte Juli wurde allerdings ein drittes \u00e4gyptisches Kontingent im Nordnegev sowohl von den Truppen an der K\u00fcste als auch von denen in S\u00fcdjerusalem abgeschnitten und rechnete nun vergebens mit jordanischer Verst\u00e4rkung, die nach den urspr\u00fcnglichen arabischen Kriegspl\u00e4nen zu ihnen sto\u00dfen sollte.\n\nEnde Juli begannen die Israelis, diesen Kessel verst\u00e4rkt zu belagern, um eine Kapitulation zu erzwingen. Aber die \u00c4gypter hielten bis zum Jahresende stand. Durch die Aufspaltung der \u00e4gyptischen Truppenkontingente war der Nordnegev von den Bergh\u00e4ngen Hebrons bis ans Mittelmeer bei Gaza den israelischen Truppen v\u00f6llig ausgeliefert. \u00c4gyptische beziehungsweise jordanische Truppen besch\u00fctzten lediglich den Gazastreifen und das Westjordanland erfolgreich und verhinderten damit, dass noch mehr Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu den Tausenden Pal\u00e4stinensern hinzukamen, die seit Dezember 1947 bereits vertrieben worden waren.\n\nDa die zionistische F\u00fchrung merkte, dass ihre Verletzungen der Waffenruhe nicht auf Kritik stie\u00dfen, solange sie sich gegen die verbliebenen \u00bbarabischen\u00ab Enklaven innerhalb des in UN-Resolution 181 designierten j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiets richteten, setzte sie ihre Operationen auch im August und dar\u00fcber hinaus fort. Sie strebte nun eindeutig einen \u00bbj\u00fcdischen Staat\u00ab an, der sich \u00fcber den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil des Landes, wenn nicht gar \u00fcber ganz Pal\u00e4stina erstreckte und dem lediglich die Standfestigkeit der \u00c4gypter und vor allem der Jordanier im Wege stand. Folglich betrieb sie m\u00fchelos die ethnische S\u00e4uberung von D\u00f6rfern, die sie nach und nach isoliert hatte, w\u00e4hrend die UN-Beobachter, die \u00fcber die Einhaltung der Waffenruhe wachen sollten, in der N\u00e4he zuschauten.\n\nIm August nutzten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen die Waffenruhe auch, um gewisse Modifikationen der bereits besetzten Gebiete vorzunehmen. Das geschah zuweilen auf Befehl eines \u00f6rtlichen Kommandeurs, der dazu keine Genehmigung von oben brauchte, gelegentlich aber auch auf Bitten einer bestimmten Gruppe, die vielleicht mit den Zionisten kollaboriert hatte und nun an der Beute beteiligt werden wollte. Ein solcher Ort war das Drusendorf Isfiya im Karmelgebirge. Die drusischen Notabeln baten darum, die Beduinen aus dem Ort zu vertreiben, weil sie Diebe und allgemein \u00bbinkompatibel\u00ab seien, wie sie behaupteten. Der zust\u00e4ndige Kommandeur erkl\u00e4rte, er habe keine Zeit, sich um die Vertreibung von Leuten zu k\u00fcmmern, die schlie\u00dflich keine v\u00f6llig Fremden im Dorf seien. Die Beduinen von Isfiya sind heute noch dort, sie werden zwar als \u00bbminderwertige\u00ab Gemeindemitglieder diskriminiert, hatten aber das Gl\u00fcck, dass die israelische Armee zu besch\u00e4ftigt war, um der Bitte der Drusen nachzukommen. Wie diese internen Scharm\u00fctzel zeigen, hatte Israel in der relativen Ruhe, die an den Fronten mit den arabischen Armeen eingekehrt war, beschlossen, die Besatzung zu institutionalisieren.\n\nOffenbar stand die zionistische F\u00fchrung unter erheblichem Druck, den Status der besetzten Gebiete festzulegen, die legal innerhalb des UN-designierten arabischen Staates lagen. Ben Gurion bezeichnete diese Territorien immer noch als \u00bbverwaltete Gebiete\u00ab, die unter Milit\u00e4rverwaltung standen, aber nicht Teil des j\u00fcdischen Staates waren. Die israelische Regierung wollte den rechtlichen Status dieser Gebiete verschleiern, die urspr\u00fcnglich den Pal\u00e4stinensern zugesprochen waren, weil sie f\u00fcrchtete, die Vereinten Nationen w\u00fcrden eine Erkl\u00e4rung f\u00fcr ihre Besetzung verlangen \u2013 eine Bef\u00fcrchtung, die sich als v\u00f6llig unbegr\u00fcndet erwies. Aus unerkl\u00e4rlichen Gr\u00fcnden wurde die Frage nach Israels legalem (sprich: \u00bbillegalem\u00ab) Status im UN-designierten arabischen Pal\u00e4stina nie aufgeworfen, als die internationale Gemeinschaft fl\u00fcchtiges Interesse an Pal\u00e4stina nach der Mandatsverwaltung und am Schicksal seiner einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung zeigte. Bis Israel im Mai 1949 als Vollmitglied in die Vereinten Nationen aufgenommen wurde, bezeichnete man diese Gebiete abwechselnd als \u00bbverwaltet\u00ab oder \u00bbbesetzt\u00ab. Im Mai 1949 verschwanden jegliche Unterscheidungen ebenso wie die D\u00f6rfer, Felder und H\u00e4user \u2013 alles ging im j\u00fcdischen Staat Israel auf.\n\nDas Scheitern der zweiten Waffenruhe\n\nDie zweite Waffenruhe erstreckte sich \u00fcber den Sommer 1948, obwohl es aufgrund der andauernden K\u00e4mpfe auf beiden Seiten offensichtlich nur dem Namen nach eine Waffenruhe war. Allerdings gelang es den Vereinten Nationen einen israelischen Angriff auf die Golanh\u00f6hen und ihre einzige gr\u00f6\u00dfere Stadt, Qunaitra, zu verhindern, f\u00fcr den der Befehl am letzten Tag der Waffenruhe im Hauptquartier der Truppen eintraf. Selbst nach fast 60 Jahren liest er sich noch erschreckend. \u00bbIhr Befehl lautet, die Stadt zu zerst\u00f6ren\u00ab, schrieb Yigael Yadin dem zust\u00e4ndigen Kommandeur. Die Stadt blieb relativ unversehrt, bis israelische Truppen 1967 die Golanh\u00f6hen besetzten und sie ethnisch s\u00e4uberten. Yadins knapper Befehl wurde 1974 buchst\u00e4blich ausgef\u00fchrt, als israelische Truppen Qunaitra verw\u00fcsteten und den Syrern im Rahmen einer Truppenabzugsvereinbarung als v\u00f6llige Geisterstadt zur\u00fcckgaben.\n\nDer allm\u00e4hliche R\u00fcckzug der syrischen Truppen zun\u00e4chst in die Golan-Ausl\u00e4ufer, dann bis ins syrische Hinterland, best\u00e4rkte Israel 1948 in seiner Entschlossenheit, die Golanh\u00f6hen einzunehmen, aber den meisten F\u00fchrern des j\u00fcdischen Staates ging es nicht um Syrien, sondern um Pal\u00e4stina. Im August gab es noch drei Hauptgebiete Pal\u00e4stinas, die Israel noch nicht besetzt hatte, die Ben Gurion aber als wichtig f\u00fcr Israel ansah: Wadi Ara, das westliche Obergalil\u00e4a und den S\u00fcdnegev. Die beiden ersten Regionen waren dicht von Pal\u00e4stinensern besiedelt und daher unweigerlich Ziele ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen, die v\u00f6llig abseits vom Kriegsschauplatz mit den regul\u00e4ren arabischen Armeen lagen, wo die K\u00e4mpfe aufgrund der Waffenruhe im August ohnehin abgeebbt waren.\n\nIm September 1948 sah die Lage recht \u00e4hnlich aus wie im August: Die K\u00e4mpfe mit den regul\u00e4ren arabischen Armeen hatten nachgelassen, und so konnten die israelischen Truppen versuchen, die im Dezember 1947 begonnene Aufgabe zu beenden. Manche Einheiten erhielten unrealistische Befehle, um mehr als die 87 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas zu besetzen, die ohnehin schon in Reichweite Israels waren. Einer dieser Einsatzbefehle im September galt dem dritten Versuch, Wadi Ara und die Nordspitze des Westjordanlands zu besetzen, mit dem ausdr\u00fccklichen Befehl, Qalqilya und Tul-Karem einzunehmen. Das war Operation Herbst. Wieder wurde der Angriff auf Wadi Ara abgewehrt. Dieses Gebiet erhielt Israel erst im Fr\u00fchjahr 1949, als K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Jordanien es im Rahmen des Waffenstillstandsabkommens zwischen den beiden L\u00e4ndern abtrat. Es ist eine Ironie der Geschichte, dass heute viele Israelis aus Angst vor einem m\u00f6glichen Kippen der \u00bbdemografischen Balance\u00ab daf\u00fcr sind, dieses Gebiet wieder an die pal\u00e4stinensischen Beh\u00f6rden des Westjordanlands zur\u00fcckzugeben. Die Aussicht, in einem abgeriegelten Bantustan im Westjordanland zu leben, ist ebenso wenig verlockend wie eine Staatsb\u00fcrgerschaft zweiter Klasse in Israel, aber die Menschen im Wadi Ara ziehen verst\u00e4ndlicherweise die zweite M\u00f6glichkeit vor, da sie den Verdacht hegen, dass die Israelis das Territorium wie schon in der Vergangenheit ohne die jetzigen Einwohner haben wollen. Bereits jetzt hat Israel 200000 Menschen umgesiedelt, seit es mit dem Bau der Sperrmauer unweit vom Wadi in einem ebenfalls von Pal\u00e4stinensern dicht besiedelten Gebiet begonnen hat.\n\nIm September 1948 wehrte jedes einzelne der 15 D\u00f6rfer im Wadi Ara die Angreifer standhaft ab, unterst\u00fctzt von irakischen Offizieren eines Kontingents der Arabischen Liga, das bei Kriegsbeginn zum Schutz des n\u00f6rdlichen Westjordanlands entsandt wurde und in der N\u00e4he stationiert war. Diese Iraker geh\u00f6rten zu den wenigen Nachbarn Pal\u00e4stinas, die tats\u00e4chlich k\u00e4mpften und ganze pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer retteten. Hauptmann Abu Rauf Abd al-Raziq war einer der Offiziere, die bei der Verteidigung der Orte Taytaba und Qalansuwa halfen. Ritterlich hatte er sich entschlossen zu bleiben, als die anderen irakischen Soldaten einige Wochen vor Operation Herbst den Befehl zum R\u00fcckzug erhalten hatten. Major Abd al-Karim und Hauptmann Farhan von der irakischen Armee leiteten die Verteidigung von Zayta und Jat, Feldwebel Khalid Abu Hamud den Widerstand in Attil. Hauptmann Najib und Muhammad Sulayman \u00fcbernahmen diese Aufgabe in Baqa al-Gharbiyya, Khalil Bek in Ara und Mamduh Miara in Arara. Die Liste der irakischen Unteroffiziere, die Wachen organisierten und die F\u00fchrung \u00fcbernahmen, ist beeindruckend lang.\n\nIm September trafen die Israelis auch Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr Operation Snir, mit der sie erneut versuchen wollten, die Golanh\u00f6hen und die Stadt Qunaitra einzunehmen. Der Beginn der Operation war f\u00fcr den 14. September festgesetzt, aber die erste Phase verz\u00f6gerte sich bis zum 26. September und wurde schlie\u00dflich auf einen kleinen Einsatz mit dem Decknamen Operation _Bereshit_ (Genesis) reduziert; dabei ging es um den Versuch, eine syrische Stellung einzunehmen, die nach der UN-Teilungskarte innerhalb des j\u00fcdischen Staatsgebiets lag (Vorposten 223). Die syrischen Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte wehrten einen israelischen Angriff nach dem anderen ab. Im Rahmen ihrer Vorbereitungen versuchten die Israelis, Kontakt mit tscherkessischen und drusischen Soldaten in der syrischen Armee aufzunehmen und sie zur Kollaboration zu bewegen. Israel setzte seine Milit\u00e4raktionen an der syrischen Front bis weit ins Fr\u00fchjahr 1949 fort, dabei sahen die Befehle nicht nur die Besetzung von Vorposten, sondern auch von D\u00f6rfern vor. Am 1. April 1949 wurden die Befehle dahingehend revidiert, dass die Offensiven der Truppen sich nur noch gegen milit\u00e4rische Stellungen richten sollten.\n\nDie ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen gingen im September in Zentralgalil\u00e4a weiter, wo israelische Truppen pal\u00e4stinensische Enklaven im Vorfeld der letzten gro\u00dfen Operation ausradierten, die einen Monat sp\u00e4ter in Obergalil\u00e4a und S\u00fcdpal\u00e4stina erfolgen sollte. \u00d6rtliche Freiwillige und die Arabische Befreiungsarmee leisteten in mehreren D\u00f6rfern hartn\u00e4ckig Widerstand, vor allem in Ilabun. In einem Bericht schilderten die israelischen Truppen ihren gescheiterten Angriff: \u00bbHeute Nacht machten unsere Truppen einen Einfall nach Ilabun. Nachdem wir den feindlichen Widerstand \u00fcberwunden hatten, fanden wir das Dorf verlassen vor; unsere Truppen richteten einigen Schaden an, schlachteten eine Herde ab und zogen sich unter st\u00e4ndigem Schusswechsel mit dem Feind zur\u00fcck.\u00ab Die meisten Einwohner von Ilabun waren also bereits fort, obwohl der Ort noch nicht erobert war. In Tarshiha waren dagegen die meisten der \u00fcberwiegend christlichen Pal\u00e4stinenser geblieben, w\u00e4hrend sie ihr Dorf verteidigten. R\u00fcckblickend hat es den Anschein, als habe ihr Entschluss zu bleiben sie vor der Vertreibung bewahrt, aber ihr Schicksal h\u00e4tte durchaus auch anders aussehen k\u00f6nnen, wenn die Mehrheit Muslime gewesen w\u00e4ren. Tarshiha wurde schlie\u00dflich im Oktober besetzt, anschlie\u00dfend aber nicht ger\u00e4umt. W\u00e4re der Ort im September gefallen, h\u00e4tte das Ergebnis ebenfalls anders aussehen k\u00f6nnen, da es im Einsatzbefehl f\u00fcr Operation _Alef Ayn_ vom 19. September 1948 hei\u00dft: \u00bbTarshiha ist Richtung Norden zu r\u00e4umen.\u00ab\n\nAber solche Momente der Gnade waren sp\u00e4rlich und selten. Eindeutig waren sie der letzten Gruppe von D\u00f6rfern nicht verg\u00f6nnt, die im Westteil Obergalil\u00e4as, im S\u00fcden des Hebrongebiets, in Beersheba und am s\u00fcdlichen K\u00fcstenstreifen entv\u00f6lkert wurden.\nKAPITEL 8\n\nAbschluss der S\u00e4uberungen: Oktober 1948 bis Januar 1949\n\n_\u00dcber 1,5 Millionen ethnische Albaner \u2013 mindestens 90 Prozent der kosovarischen Bev\u00f6lkerung der Provinz war zwangsweise aus ihren H\u00e4usern vertrieben worden. Mindestens eine Million Menschen verlie\u00dfen die Provinz, und eine halbe Million sind offenbar Binnenvertriebene. Das ist eine Kampagne von einer Gr\u00f6\u00dfenordnung, wie Europa sie seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nicht erlebt hat._\n\nKosovo-Bericht des US State Department, 1999\n\n_1948 wurden in den Gebieten, aus denen der Staat Israel hervorging, 85 Prozent der ans\u00e4ssigen Pal\u00e4stinenser zu Fl\u00fcchtlingen. Sch\u00e4tzungen zufolge gab es Anfang 2003 mehr als sieben Millionen pal\u00e4stinensische Fl\u00fcchtlinge und Vertriebene._\n\nBadil Resource Center: Facts and figures\n\nDer Oktober 1948 begann frustrierend f\u00fcr die israelischen Truppen, die die S\u00e4uberungen durchf\u00fchrten. Galil\u00e4a war vor allem in den n\u00f6rdlichen Teilen immer noch in der Hand pal\u00e4stinensischer Freiwilliger, die Verst\u00e4rkung von al-Qawqjis ALA-Einheiten erhielten. Die Arabische Befreiungsarmee war noch in vielen D\u00f6rfern Nordgalil\u00e4as zu finden \u2013 die alle zum UN-designierten arabischen Staatsgebiet geh\u00f6rten \u2013, wo sie im Kleinen einen Guerillakrieg gegen die j\u00fcdischen Streitkr\u00e4fte zu f\u00fchren versuchten, vor allem mit Heckensch\u00fctzen, die auf Konvois und Truppen feuerten. Aber ihr Widerstand war ineffektiv und weitgehend vergebens. Im Oktober versuchten die regul\u00e4ren libanesischen Truppen ein letztes Mal erfolglos, in einer j\u00e4mmerlichen Geste arabischer Solidarit\u00e4t ihre Feuerkraft ins Spiel zu bringen und beschossen die j\u00fcdische Siedlung Manara hoch oben in Galil\u00e4a mit Granaten. Im S\u00fcden Untergalil\u00e4as besa\u00dfen die arabischen Freiwilligen nur noch ein Artilleriegesch\u00fctz in Ilabun \u2013 ein Symbol ihres bevorstehenden v\u00f6lligen Zusammenbruchs.\n\nSoweit es \u00fcberhaupt noch Widerstand gab, l\u00f6schte Operation Hiram ihn Mitte des Monats aus. Hiram war der Name des biblischen K\u00f6nigs Hiram von Tyros (Sur), das zu den Zielen dieser ehrgeizigen Expansionspl\u00e4ne geh\u00f6rte: Israels Eroberung Obergalil\u00e4as und des S\u00fcdlibanon. Mit intensiven Artillerie- und Luftangriffen besetzten j\u00fcdische Truppen beide Gebiete innerhalb von zwei Wochen.\n\nOperation Hiram\n\nDiese beiden Wochen sowie die heldenhafte Verteidigung des Wadi Ara geh\u00f6ren zu den beeindruckenden Kapiteln in der Geschichte des pal\u00e4stinensischen Widerstands w\u00e4hrend der Nakba. Die israelische Luftwaffe warf 10000 Flugbl\u00e4tter ab, die die Bev\u00f6lkerung aufriefen, sich zu ergeben, ohne allerdings Schutz vor Vertreibung zu versprechen. Keins der D\u00f6rfer kam der Aufforderung nach, vielmehr stellten sich alle fast geschlossen gegen die israelischen Truppen.\n\nZum ersten Mal seit Beginn der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen verwandelten sich pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer f\u00fcr kurze Zeit in Bollwerke, die sich gegen die Belagerung durch die \u00fcberlegenen israelischen Truppen zur Wehr setzten. Eine bis zwei Wochen lang hielten junge Einheimische und Reste der ALA mit ihren bescheidenen Waffen stand, bevor die Angreifer sie \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigten. 50 tapfere M\u00e4nner verteidigten Ramaysh, andere Deir al-Qasi, wo es allerdings \u00fcberwiegend keine Einheimischen, sondern Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus Saffuriyya waren, die sich nicht noch einmal vertreiben lassen wollten. Sie standen unter dem Kommando eines gewissen Abu Hammud von der ALA. Leider kennen wir aus den israelischen Geheimdienstakten und m\u00fcndlichen \u00dcberlieferungen nur die Namen einiger weniger Offiziere wie Abu Ibrahim, der Kfar Manda verteidigte; aber ebenso wie die irakischen Offiziere, die im Zusammenhang mit der Offensive im Wadi Ari genannt wurden, h\u00e4tten sie alle es verdient, als Helden in die pal\u00e4stinensische und allgemeine Geschichtsschreibung einzugehen, weil sie nach Kr\u00e4ften versuchten, die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen zu verhindern. F\u00fcr Israel und den Westen sind sie irgendwelche namenlose arabische Aufst\u00e4ndische oder Terroristen \u2013 das Gleiche gilt f\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser, die bis in die 1980er Jahre in der PLO k\u00e4mpften, und andere, die 1987 und 2000 die beiden Aufst\u00e4nde gegen die israelische Besatzung im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen anf\u00fchrten. Ich gebe mich keinerlei Illusionen hin, dass es mehr als das vorliegende Buch brauchen wird, um eine Realit\u00e4t zu ver\u00e4ndern, die ein kolonisiertes, vertriebenes und besetztes Volk d\u00e4monisiert und das Volk glorifiziert, das es kolonisiert, vertrieben und besetzt hat.\n\nDie Niederlage dieser kleinen Schar von K\u00e4mpfern gegen schwere Bombardierungen aus der Luft und massive Bodenangriffe war unausweichlich. Zuerst traten die ALA-Freiwilligen den R\u00fcckzug an, dann ergaben sich die Einheimischen, was oft mit Vermittlung durch die Vereinten Nationen geschah. Ein herausragendes Merkmal in dieser Phase der Nakba war jedoch, dass die ALA-Freiwilligen, die mittlerweile seit zehn Monaten in Pal\u00e4stina waren, sich erst zur\u00fcckzogen, nachdem keine Hoffnung mehr bestand, die D\u00f6rfer zu verteidigen, wobei sie bis dahin den R\u00fcckzugsbefehl ihres Hauptquartiers wiederholt ignorierten. In jenen Tagen im Oktober verloren 400 dieser Freiwilligen ihr Leben.\n\nDie massiven israelischen Bombenangriffe aus der Luft verursachten in den pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern verheerende \u00bbKollateralsch\u00e4den\u00ab. Einige Orte hatten mehr als andere unter den schweren Bombardements zu leiden: Rama, Suhmata, Malkiyye und Kfar Bir'im. \u00dcbrig geblieben ist nur Rama, die anderen drei Orte wurden besetzt und zerst\u00f6rt.\n\nDie meisten Orte in Obergalil\u00e4a eroberten die israelischen Truppen an einem einzigen Tag Ende Oktober: Deir Hanna, Ilabun, Arraba, Iqrit, Farradiyya, Mi'ilya, Khirbat Irribin, Kfar Inan, Tarbikha, Tarshiha, Mayrun, Safsaf, Sa'sa, Jish, Fassuta und Qaddita. Die Liste ist lang und umfasst noch weitere zehn Ortschaften. Die Bev\u00f6lkerung musste die D\u00f6rfer teils verlassen, teils durfte sie bleiben.\n\nF\u00fcr diese Phase stellt sich weniger die Frage, warum D\u00f6rfer zwangsger\u00e4umt wurden, als vielmehr, warum in manchen Ortschaften die Einwohner bleiben durften: Offenbar lag es fast immer an der Entscheidung des jeweiligen Kommandeurs. Wieso blieb Jish intakt, w\u00e4hrend die Nachbarorte Qaddita und Mayrun zwangsger\u00e4umt wurden? Und warum wurde Rama verschont, das nahe Safsaf aber v\u00f6llig verw\u00fcstet? Es ist schwer zu sagen, und vieles in der folgenden Darstellung beruht auf Spekulation.\n\nRama an der viel befahrenen Stra\u00dfe von Akko nach Safad quoll bereits \u00fcber von Fl\u00fcchtlingen aus anderen D\u00f6rfern. Die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe des Ortes, aber wohl auch die gro\u00dfe Drusengemeinde waren zwei Faktoren, die vermutlich die Entscheidung beeinflussten, die Bev\u00f6lkerung nicht zu vertreiben. Aber selbst in Ortschaften, deren Einwohner bleiben durften, wurden viele, manchmal Hunderte in Kriegsgefangenenlager gesperrt oder in den Libanon vertrieben. Tats\u00e4chlich erfuhr das hebr\u00e4ische Wort _tihur_ (\u00bbS\u00e4uberung\u00ab) im Oktober einen Bedeutungswandel. Nach wie vor bezeichnete es die vollst\u00e4ndige Vertreibung und Zerst\u00f6rung eines Ortes, konnte nun aber auch f\u00fcr ein anderes Vorgehen stehen, beispielsweise f\u00fcr selektive Durchsuchungen und Vertreibungen.\n\nIsraels \u00bbTeile-und-herrsche\u00ab-Politik erwies sich bei den Drusen als wirkungsvoll, denen sie nicht nur Immunit\u00e4t, sondern auch Waffen als Lohn f\u00fcr ihre Kollaboration versprach, aber die christlichen Gemeinden zeigten sich weniger \u00bbkooperativ\u00ab. Anfangs deportierten israelische Truppen sie durchweg zusammen mit den Muslimen, gingen aber dazu \u00fcber, sie in \u00dcbergangslager in der zentralen K\u00fcstenregion zu bringen. Im Oktober blieben Muslime selten lange in diesen Lagern, sondern wurden in den Libanon \u00bbtransportiert\u00ab, wie es in der Sprache der israelischen Armee hie\u00df. Christen bot man nun einen anderen Handel an. Als Gegenleistung f\u00fcr einen Treueid auf den j\u00fcdischen Staat durften sie f\u00fcr kurze Zeit in ihre Heimatorte zur\u00fcckkehren. Allerdings muss man anerkennend sagen, dass die meisten Christen es ablehnten, sich freiwillig an einer solchen Selektion zu beteiligen. Infolgedessen behandelte die Armee christliche D\u00f6rfer bald genauso wie muslimische, in denen es keine Drusen gab.\n\nStatt darauf zu warten, dass man sie deportierte, inhaftierte oder t\u00f6tete, fl\u00fcchteten viele schon vor der Besetzung. Massive Bombardierungen im Vorfeld der Besetzung beschleunigten die Flucht vieler Einwohner, deren Zahl von Fall zu Fall variierte. Aber in den meisten F\u00e4llen harrte die Mehrheit der Bev\u00f6lkerung tapfer aus, bis sie zwangsweise entwurzelt wurde. Au\u00dferdem lie\u00df die \u00bbS\u00e4uberungswut\u00ab der israelischen Truppen in den letzten Oktobertagen anscheinend etwas nach, da sie den Einwohnern gr\u00f6\u00dferer Orte schlie\u00dflich zu bleiben erlaubten. Das mag zur Erkl\u00e4rung beitragen, weshalb Tarshiha, Deir Hanna und Ilabun noch heute existieren.\n\nDie H\u00e4lfte der urspr\u00fcnglichen Bev\u00f6lkerung von Ilabun wohnt heute noch im Ort, die andere H\u00e4lfte lebt in Fl\u00fcchtlingslagern im Libanon. Diejenigen, die wieder ins Dorf zur\u00fcckkehren durften, machten Schreckliches durch. W\u00e4hrend der Besetzung hatten die Einwohner von Ilabun sich in die beiden Kirchen gefl\u00fcchtet. Ver\u00e4ngstigt dr\u00e4ngten sie sich in den kleinen Kirchenr\u00e4umen und kauerten an den Eing\u00e4ngen, w\u00e4hrend man sie zwang, sich eine lange \u00bbRede\u00ab des israelischen Einsatzleiters anzuh\u00f6ren. Er war ein sadistischer, launischer Mensch, warf den belagerten Dorfbewohnern vor, sie h\u00e4tten zwei j\u00fcdische Leichen verst\u00fcmmelt, und \u00fcbte auf der Stelle Vergeltung, indem er mehrere junge M\u00e4nner vor den Augen der entsetzten Gemeinde erschoss. Anschlie\u00dfend lie\u00df er die M\u00e4nner zwischen 10 und 50 Jahren als Kriegsgefangene abf\u00fchren und alle \u00dcbrigen vertreiben.\n\nZuerst mussten s\u00e4mtliche Einwohner den Ort verlassen und sich in einer langen Kolonne zu Fu\u00df auf den Weg zur libanesischen Grenze machen, ein Marsch, bei dem mehrere starben. Pl\u00f6tzlich \u00fcberlegte der israelische Kommandeur es sich anders und befahl den Christen, die etwa die H\u00e4lfte der Vertriebenen ausmachten, umzukehren und den m\u00fchsamen Weg durch die felsigen Berge Galil\u00e4as wieder zur\u00fcckzugehen. Insgesamt durften 750 Einwohner in ihr Dorf zur\u00fcckkehren.\n\nWarum die Bev\u00f6lkerung in manchen D\u00f6rfern bleiben durfte, ist schwer nachzuvollziehen, mindestens ebenso unbegreiflich ist, wieso die israelischen Truppen in bestimmten D\u00f6rfern ungew\u00f6hnlich brutal vorgingen, in anderen aber nicht. Warum w\u00fcteten sie beispielsweise in Sa'sa und Safsaf mit solcher Barbarei, w\u00e4hrend sie die anderen D\u00f6rfer verschonten, die sie in den letzten Oktobertagen einnahmen?\n\nKriegsverbrechen w\u00e4hrend der Operation\n\nIm Februar 1948 hatten j\u00fcdische Truppen in Sa'sa ein Massaker ver\u00fcbt, bei dem sie 15 Einwohner t\u00f6teten, darunter f\u00fcnf Kinder. Sa'sa liegt an der Hauptstra\u00dfe zum Myarun (Meron), dem h\u00f6chsten Berg Pal\u00e4stinas. Nach der Besetzung liefen die Soldaten der Brigade Sieben Amok und schossen wild auf alle, die sie in den H\u00e4usern und auf den Stra\u00dfen antrafen. Neben den 15 Toten lie\u00dfen sie zahlreiche Verwundete zur\u00fcck. Anschlie\u00dfend zerst\u00f6rten sie s\u00e4mtliche H\u00e4user bis auf einige wenige; hier zogen nach der Vertreibung der urspr\u00fcnglichen Bewohner Mitglieder des Kibbuz Sasa ein, der auf den Ruinen des Ortes entstand. Aus dem Archivmaterial l\u00e4sst sich nur schwer rekonstruieren, was 1948 in Sa'sa geschah, aber eine \u00e4u\u00dferst aktive Gemeinde von \u00dcberlebenden bem\u00fcht sich engagiert, die Augenzeugenberichte der Nachwelt zu erhalten. Die meisten der Fl\u00fcchtlinge leben in Nahr al-Barid, einem Fl\u00fcchtlingslager bei Tripoli im Libanon; manche sind im Lager Rashidiyya bei Tyros, andere, die meist demselben Clan angeh\u00f6ren, leben in Ghazzawiyya. Eine kleinere Gruppe wohnt im Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Ayn Hilwa im S\u00fcdlibanon, w\u00e4hrend einige \u00dcberlebende, die ich traf, mittlerweile in der Ortschaft Jish in Galil\u00e4a leben. Es f\u00e4llt ihnen schwer, sich an die grauenvollen Ereignisse bei der Besetzung ihres Dorfes zu erinnern. Um die Ereignisse in Sa'sa genau zu rekonstruieren, m\u00fcssen noch weitere Informationen gesammelt werden, aber die bisherigen Schilderungen deuten wie im Fall der \u00dcberlebenden von Tantura darauf hin, dass die israelischen Truppen dort ein Massaker ver\u00fcbten.\n\n\u00dcber Safsaf wissen wir mehr. Muhammad Abdullah Edghaim wurde 15 Jahre vor der Nakba geboren. Er hatte bis zur siebten Klasse die Grundschule des Dorfes besucht und gerade das erste Jahr an der h\u00f6heren Schule in Safad abgeschlossen, als die Stadt im Mai in j\u00fcdische Hand fiel. Da er nicht mehr zur Schule gehen konnte, war er zu Hause, als am 29. Oktober 1948 eine gemischte Einheit aus Juden und Drusen in sein Dorf vordrang.\n\nIhrem Angriff war schwerer Granatbeschuss vorausgegangen, dem unter anderen der bekannte S\u00e4nger Galil\u00e4as, Muhammad Mahmnud Nasir Zaghmout, zum Opfer fiel. Er starb, als eine Granate eine Gruppe aus dem Dorf traf, die in den Weinbergen westlich des Ortes arbeitete. Der Junge beobachtete, wie die Familie die Leiche des S\u00e4ngers ins Dorf holen wollte, aber wegen des Granatbeschusses aufgeben musste.\n\nDie Verteidigungskr\u00e4fte von Safsaf, unter denen sich auch ALA-Freiwillige befanden, erwarteten \u2013 aus welchen Gr\u00fcnden auch immer \u2013 den j\u00fcdischen Angriff von Osten, er kam aber von Westen und nahm das Dorf im Sturm. Am n\u00e4chsten Morgen mussten sich die Einwohner auf dem Dorfplatz sammeln. Dort vollzog sich die \u00fcbliche Prozedur, \u00bbVerd\u00e4chtige\u00ab zu identifizieren, an der dieses Mal auch drusische Soldaten beteiligt waren. Man selektierte viele aus der Bev\u00f6lkerung, suchte aus diesen ungl\u00fccklichen M\u00e4nnern 70 heraus, verband ihnen die Augen, brachte sie an eine abgelegene Stelle und erschoss sie. Israelische Archivdokumente best\u00e4tigen diesen Fall. Den \u00fcbrigen Einwohnern befahl man, das Dorf zu verlassen. Die israelischen Soldaten schossen \u00fcber ihre K\u00f6pfe hinweg, um sie zur nahen Grenze zum Libanon zu treiben, ohne dass sie auch irgendetwas von ihrer pers\u00f6nlichen Habe mitnehmen konnten.\n\nIm Unterschied zu den israelischen Milit\u00e4rarchiven sprechen die m\u00fcndlichen \u00dcberlieferungen von noch schlimmeren Gr\u00e4ueltaten. Es besteht kein Grund, an den Augenzeugenberichten zu zweifeln; es gibt viele Quellen, die die Schilderungen solcher F\u00e4lle best\u00e4tigen. \u00dcberlebende erinnern sich, dass vier Frauen und ein M\u00e4dchen vor den Augen der Einwohner vergewaltigt wurden, eine Schwangere hat man mit dem Bajonett aufgespie\u00dft.\n\nWie in Tantura mussten einige Einwohner \u2013 mehrere \u00e4ltere M\u00e4nner und f\u00fcnf Jungen \u2013 zur\u00fcckbleiben, um die Leichen zu sammeln und zu begraben. Safsaf hei\u00dft auf Arabisch \u00bbTrauerweide\u00ab. Muhammad Abdullah Edghaim, der Hauptzeuge der Gr\u00e4ueltaten, ist mittlerweile ein alter Mann und lebt immer noch im Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Ayn Hilwa. Seine kleine H\u00fctte ist umgeben von Trauerweiden, die er pflanzte, als er vor fast 60 Jahren hierher kam. Das ist alles, was von Safsaf geblieben ist.\n\nBulayda war das letzte Dorf, das im Rahmen der Operation Hiram erobert wurde. Es behauptete sich am l\u00e4ngsten, weil die Einwohner ihr Heimatdorf entschlossen verteidigten. Es lag dicht an der Grenze zum Libanon, und libanesische Soldaten kamen \u00fcber den Grenzzaun, um Seite an Seite mit den Einwohnern zu k\u00e4mpfen \u2013 wahrscheinlich der einzige bedeutende libanesische Beitrag zur Verteidigung Galil\u00e4as. Zehn Tage wehrte das Dorf wiederholte Angriffe ab. Als die Einwohner schlie\u00dflich ihre hoffnungslose Lage einsahen, fl\u00fcchteten sie, bevor die israelischen Soldaten in den Ort vordrangen: Sie wollten nicht die gleichen Gr\u00e4uel erleben wie die Bev\u00f6lkerung von Safsaf.\n\nGalil\u00e4a, ehemals ein rein pal\u00e4stinensisches Gebiet, war bis zum 31. Oktober vollst\u00e4ndig von der israelischen Armee besetzt.\n\nAufr\u00e4umaktionen\n\nIm November und Dezember 1948 fanden in Galil\u00e4a noch weitere S\u00e4uberungen statt, allerdings in Form von \u00bbAufr\u00e4umaktionen\u00ab, wie die Israelis es nannten. Im Grunde handelte es sich um \u00bbnachtr\u00e4gliche\u00ab Entscheidungen, D\u00f6rfer ethnisch zu s\u00e4ubern, deren R\u00e4umung urspr\u00fcnglich nicht vorgesehen war. Nun wurden sie der S\u00e4uberungsliste hinzugef\u00fcgt, weil Israels politische Elite den typisch \u00bbarabischen\u00ab Charakter Galil\u00e4as ausl\u00f6schen wollte. Trotz aller Bem\u00fchungen Israels, Galil\u00e4a zu \u00bbjudaisieren\u00ab \u2013 von den direkten Vertreibungen in den 1940er Jahren \u00fcber die Milit\u00e4rbesatzung in den 1960er Jahren bis hin zu den umfangreichen Enteignungen von Grundbesitz in den 1970ern und den gewaltigen offiziellen Bestrebungen einer Judaisierungsbesiedlung in den 1980ern \u2013, ist es heute immer noch das einzige Gebiet Pal\u00e4stinas, das seine nat\u00fcrliche Sch\u00f6nheit, sein orientalisches Flair und seine pal\u00e4stinensische Kultur bewahrt hat. Da die Bev\u00f6lkerung zur H\u00e4lfte pal\u00e4stinensisch ist, hindert das \u00bbdemografische Verh\u00e4ltnis\u00ab viele israelische Juden selbst zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts noch daran, diese Region als \u00bbihre\u00ab zu betrachten.\n\nDamals im Winter 1948 umfassten die israelischen Versuche, diese \u00bbBalance\u00ab zu ihren Gunsten zu ver\u00e4ndern, die Vertreibung der Bev\u00f6lkerung aus weiteren kleineren D\u00f6rfern wie Arab al-Samniyya bei Akko mit 200 Einwohnern und aus gr\u00f6\u00dferen Ortschaften wie Deir al-Qasi mit 2500 Einwohnern. Au\u00dferdem gab es noch die einzigartige Geschichte der drei Orte Iqrit, Kfar Bir'im und Ghabisiyya, die im Oktober 1948 begann und bis heute nicht abgeschlossen ist. Die Vorg\u00e4nge in Iqrit stehen stellvertretend f\u00fcr das, was auch in den beiden anderen D\u00f6rfern geschah.\n\nDas Dorf liegt hoch oben in den Bergen an der libanesischen Grenze, etwa 30 Kilometer \u00f6stlich der K\u00fcste. Ein israelisches Bataillon besetzte es am 31. Oktober 1948. Die Einwohner ergaben sich kampflos \u2013 als Maroniten erwarteten sie, in dem neuen j\u00fcdischen Staat willkommen zu sein. Der Bataillonskommandeur wies die Einwohner an, das Dorf zu verlassen, weil es f\u00fcr sie gef\u00e4hrlich sei zu bleiben, versprach ihnen aber, sie k\u00f6nnten nach zwei Wochen zur\u00fcckkehren, wenn die Milit\u00e4reins\u00e4tze vor\u00fcber seien. Am 6. November mussten die Einwohner ihre H\u00e4user verlassen und wurden mit Armeelastern nach Rama gebracht. 50 Einwohner, zu denen auch der Dorfpfarrer geh\u00f6rte, durften bleiben, um H\u00e4user und Besitz im Auge zu behalten, aber sechs Monate sp\u00e4ter kam die israelische Armee wieder und vertrieb sie ebenfalls.\n\nDas ist ein weiteres Beispiel daf\u00fcr, wie die S\u00e4uberungsmethoden variierten. Iqrit und der Nachbarort Kfar Bir'im geh\u00f6ren zu den wenigen publizierten F\u00e4llen, in denen die Einheimischen in einem langwierigen Prozess eine Wiedergutmachung durch israelische Gerichte anstrebten. Da die Einwohner Christen waren, durften sie zwar im Land, nicht aber in ihren D\u00f6rfern bleiben. Sie kapitulierten jedoch nicht, sondern begannen einen z\u00e4hen Rechtsstreit um ihr R\u00fcckkehrrecht in ihre Heimat, und verlangten, dass die Armee ihr Versprechen einhielt. Nahezu 60 Jahre sp\u00e4ter ist der Kampf um ihr gestohlenes Leben noch immer nicht beendet.\n\nAm 26. September 1949 unterstellte der Verteidigungsminister Iqrit den Bestimmungen der Notstandsverordnungen (aus der britischen Mandatszeit), um die R\u00fcckkehr zu verhindern, die der Besatzungsoffizier zugesagt hatte. Fast anderthalb Jahre sp\u00e4ter, am 28. Mai 1951, beschlossen die Einwohner von Iqrit, ihren Fall vor den Obersten Gerichtshof Israels zu bringen, der am 31. Juli die Vertreibung f\u00fcr illegal erkl\u00e4rte und von der Armee verlangte, den Menschen von Iqrit die R\u00fcckkehr in ihr Heimatdorf zu erlauben. Um das Urteil des Obersten Gerichts zu umgehen, musste die Armee nachweisen, dass sie w\u00e4hrend des Krieges 1948 einen f\u00f6rmlichen Befehl zur Vertreibung erteilt hatte, was Iqrit zu einem der 530 entv\u00f6lkerten pal\u00e4stinensischen Ortschaften gemacht h\u00e4tte, deren Zwangsr\u00e4umung israelische Gerichte nachtr\u00e4glich gebilligt hatte. Ohne Z\u00f6gern oder Skrupel fabrizierte die IDF diesen f\u00f6rmlichen Befehl, und so erhielten die ehemaligen Einwohner von Iqrit, die nun als Fl\u00fcchtlinge in Rama lebten, zu ihrer Verwunderung im September 1951 den offiziellen milit\u00e4rischen Befehl f\u00fcr ihre \u00bbformgerechte\u00ab Vertreibung mit Datum vom 6. November 1948, zugestellt drei Jahre sp\u00e4ter.\n\nUm die Angelegenheit ein f\u00fcr alle Mal zu regeln, riss die israelische Armee am Heiligabend 1951 s\u00e4mtliche H\u00e4user in Iqrit ab und verschonte nur die Kirche und den Friedhof. Im selben Jahr zerst\u00f6rte sie auch umliegende Orte, darunter Qaddita, Deir Hanna, Kfar Bir'im und Ghabisiyya, um eine R\u00fcckkehr der Einwohner zu verhindern. Die Einwohner von Kfar Bir'im und Ghabisiyya hatten ebenfalls ein eindeutiges Urteil israelischer Gerichte erwirkt. Wie in Iqrit \u00fcbte die Armee sofort \u00bbVergeltung\u00ab, indem sie die D\u00f6rfer zerst\u00f6rte und sich zynisch herausredete, sie habe in der Umgebung eine Milit\u00e4r\u00fcbung mit Bombardierungen aus der Luft durchgef\u00fchrt und dabei sei das Dorf irgendwie verw\u00fcstet worden und nun unbewohnbar.\n\nDie Zerst\u00f6rung geh\u00f6rte zu einem fortw\u00e4hrenden Kampf der Israelis gegen die \u2013 aus israelischer Sicht \u2013 \u00bbArabisierung\u00ab Galil\u00e4as. Israel Koening, der h\u00f6chste Staatsbeamte im Innenministerium, bezeichnete die Pal\u00e4stinenser in Galil\u00e4a 1976 als \u00bbKrebsgeschw\u00fcr im Staatsk\u00f6rper\u00ab, und der israelische Generalstabschef Raphael Eitan nannte sie \u00f6ffentlich \u00bbKakerlaken\u00ab. Bislang ist es trotz eines intensiven \u00bbJudaisierungsprozesses\u00ab nicht gelungen, Galil\u00e4a \u00bbj\u00fcdisch\u00ab zu machen, aber da mittlerweile so viele Israelis \u2013 Politiker wie auch Akademiker \u2013 die bisher durchgef\u00fchrten ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen akzeptieren, rechtfertigen und Politikern f\u00fcr die Zukunft empfehlen, droht den Pal\u00e4stinensern in diesem Teil Pal\u00e4stinas nach wie vor die Gefahr einer weiteren Vertreibung.\n\nDie \u00bbAufr\u00e4umaktionen\u00ab setzten sich bis April 1949 fort und f\u00fchrten gelegentlich zu Massakern, beispielsweise in Khirbat Wara al-Sawda der Fall, wo der Beduinenstamm al-Mawassi lebte. Dieses kleine Dorf in Ostgalil\u00e4a hatte w\u00e4hrend der Operation Hiram mehrere Angriffe abgewehrt, bis man es schlie\u00dflich in Ruhe gelassen hatte. Nach einem dieser Angriffe trennten einige Einwohner den Leichen israelischer Soldaten die K\u00f6pfe ab. Nachdem die allgemeinen Kampfhandlungen geendet hatten, folgte im November 1948 die Rache. Der kommandierende Offizier des 103. Bataillons, das dieses Verbrechen beging, schilderte es anschaulich in seinem Bericht. Man trieb die M\u00e4nner des Dorfes auf einem Platz zusammen, w\u00e4hrend die Soldaten alle H\u00e4user in Brand steckten. Dann wurden 14 Personen an Ort und Stelle hingerichtet und die \u00fcbrigen in ein Gefangenenlager gebracht.\n\nIsraels Antirepatriierungspolitik\n\nGegen Ende 1948 konzentrierten sich die israelischen Hauptaktivit\u00e4ten im Rahmen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung darauf, eine R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu verhindern, und zwar auf zwei Ebenen. Zum einen beschloss die israelische Regierung auf nationaler Ebene im August 1948, alle zwangsger\u00e4umten D\u00f6rfer zu zerst\u00f6ren und in neue j\u00fcdische Siedlungen oder in \u00bbNaturparks\u00ab zu verwandeln. Zum anderen bem\u00fchte sie sich auf diplomatischer Ebene, den wachsenden internationalen Druck, dass Israel die R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge erlauben solle, auszuhebeln. Beide politischen Ma\u00dfnahmen gingen Hand in Hand: Israel beschleunigte die Abrissarbeiten mit dem ausdr\u00fccklichen Ziel, jeder Diskussion \u00fcber eine R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge in ihre H\u00e4user die Grundlage zu entziehen, da diese H\u00e4user dann ja nicht mehr existierten.\n\nDie internationalen Bestrebungen, die R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu erleichtern, gingen haupts\u00e4chlich von der UN Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, Pal\u00e4stinaschlichtungskommission) aus. Diese kleine Kommission bestand nur aus drei Mitgliedern, jeweils einem aus Frankreich, der T\u00fcrkei und den Vereinigten Staaten. Die PCC forderte die uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge in ihre H\u00e4user, was schon der ermordete UN-Vermittler Graf Folke Bernadotte verlangt hatte. Ihre Haltung ging in eine Resolution der UN-Vollversammlung ein, die von der \u00fcberwiegenden Mehrheit der Mitgliedstaaten unterst\u00fctzt und am 11. Dezember 1948 verabschiedet wurde. Diese UN-Resolution 194 r\u00e4umte den Fl\u00fcchtlingen die Wahl zwischen uneingeschr\u00e4nkter R\u00fcckkehr in ihre Heimat und\/oder einer Entsch\u00e4digung ein.\n\nEs gab noch eine dritte Bestrebung gegen eine R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge, n\u00e4mlich die demografische Verteilung der Pal\u00e4stinenser in nicht ges\u00e4uberten D\u00f6rfern sowie in ehemals gemischten St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas zu kontrollieren, die zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits vollst\u00e4ndig \u00bbentarabisiert\u00ab waren. Zu diesem Zweck richtete die israelische Armee am 12. Januar 1949 eine neue Einheit ein, die Minderheiteneinheit. Sie bestand aus Drusen, Tscherkessen und Beduinen, die nur f\u00fcr eine einzige Aufgabe rekrutiert wurden: zu verhindern, dass Pal\u00e4stinenser in die H\u00e4user in ihren Heimatorten zur\u00fcckkehrten. Einige Methoden, die sie zu diesem Zweck einsetzten, sind dem Abschlussbericht \u00fcber Operation 10 zu entnehmen, den die Minderheiteneinheit am 25. Februar 1949 vorlegte:\n\nBericht \u00fcber die Durchsuchung und Identifikation in den Ortschaften Arraba und Deir Hanna. In Deir Hanna wurden Sch\u00fcsse \u00fcber die K\u00f6pfe der B\u00fcrger ( _ezrahim_ ) abgefeuert, die zur Identifikation zusammengetrieben worden waren. 80 von ihnen wurden in Haft genommen. Bei dieser Operation kam es zu F\u00e4llen von \u00bbunpassendem\u00ab Verhalten der Milit\u00e4rpolizei gegen\u00fcber den Einheimischen.\n\n\u00bbUnpassendes\u00ab Verhalten bedeutete meist, wie wir noch sehen werden, k\u00f6rperliche oder seelische Schikanen aller Art. Andere Berichte schilderten solche F\u00e4lle eingehend, w\u00e4hrend sie hier durch vage Formulierungen kaschiert sind.\n\nDie Festgenommenen deportierte man in den Libanon; falls sie in dem Gebiet Unterschlupf gefunden hatten, das Israel bis zum Fr\u00fchjahr 1949 noch besetzen sollte, wurden sie h\u00f6chstwahrscheinlich erneut vertrieben. Erst am 16. Januar 1949 kam der Befehl, die selektiven Deportationen aus dem S\u00fcdlibanon einzustellen, und die Minderheiteneinheit erhielt Anweisung, ihre T\u00e4tigkeit ausschlie\u00dflich auf Galil\u00e4a und die ehemals gemischten St\u00e4dte und Gemeinden zu beschr\u00e4nken. Der Auftrag war klar: jeglichen Versuch \u2013 und davon gab es einige \u2013 zu verhindern, dass Fl\u00fcchtlinge sich zur\u00fcck in ihren Heimatort oder ihre H\u00e4user schlichen, sei es, um dort zu wohnen oder nur ihre pers\u00f6nliche Habe zu holen. Bei den \u00bbInfiltranten\u00ab, wie die israelische Armee sie nannte, handelte es sich oft um Bauern, die heimlich die Ernte von ihren Feldern einbringen oder die Fr\u00fcchte ihrer B\u00e4ume pfl\u00fccken wollten, um die sich nun niemand mehr k\u00fcmmerte. Viele Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die sich durch die Frontlinien zu schmuggeln versuchten, fanden den Tod durch israelische Armeepatrouillen. Sie wurden \u00bberfolgreich beschossen\u00ab, wie die israelischen Geheimdienstberichte es formulierten. In einem solchen Bericht vom 4. Dezember 1948 hei\u00dft es: \u00bbErfolgreiche Sch\u00fcsse auf Pal\u00e4stinenser, die in das Dorf Blahmiyya zur\u00fcckzukehren und ihre Habe zu holen versuchten.\u00ab\n\nDas \u00bbHauptproblem\u00ab, \u00fcber das eine Geheimdiensteinheit sich beklagte, war, dass \u00bbdie Syrer auf die Fl\u00fcchtlinge schie\u00dfen, daher schie\u00dfen wir zur\u00fcck, damit die Fl\u00fcchtlinge den Jordan \u00fcberqueren k\u00f6nnen\u00ab. Auch das Haschemitenk\u00f6nigreich wies Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die \u00fcber den Jordan kamen, h\u00e4ufig ab, weil die wachsenden Fl\u00fcchtlingsstr\u00f6me auf seinem Territorium die Bev\u00f6lkerung Jordaniens bereits verdoppelt hatten und allm\u00e4hlich zur Belastung wurden. Derselbe Bericht lobte die Libanesen, weil sie Fl\u00fcchtlingen ungehinderten Zugang in ihr Land \u00bberlaubten\u00ab.\n\nDoch selbst wenn die Einwohner der D\u00f6rfer, die bleiben durften (etwa 50 D\u00f6rfer von 400 innerhalb der Grenzen, die Israel f\u00fcr sich festgelegt hatte, bis dahin allerdings noch ohne das Gebiet Wadi Ara), keine \u00bbVerhaftungs- und Deportationsaktionen\u00ab \u00fcber sich ergehen lassen mussten oder als \u00bbInfiltranten\u00ab beschossen wurden, schwebten sie weiter in Gefahr, vertrieben oder zwangsweise umgesiedelt zu werden, weil j\u00fcdische Bauern, vor allem Kibbuzniks, ihr Land oder ihren Ort f\u00fcr sich haben wollten.\n\nSo erging es am 5. November dem kleinen Dorf Dalhamiyya in der N\u00e4he des Kibbuz Ashdot Yaacov im Jordantal, das zwangsger\u00e4umt wurde, damit der Kibbuz seine Ackerfl\u00e4chen ausdehnen konnte. Noch schlimmer erging es dem Ort Raml Zayta nahe Hadera. Er wurde im April 1949 n\u00e4her zum Westjordanland umgesiedelt und 1953 ein zweites Mal verlegt, als die nachwachsende Generation aus \u00e4lteren Kibbuzim beschloss, in der N\u00e4he eine neue j\u00fcdische Siedlung aufzubauen. Den jungen Kibbuzniks gen\u00fcgte es nicht, sich das Land anzueignen, sie verlangten von der Regierung auch noch, die H\u00e4user des pal\u00e4stinensischen Dorfes aus ihrem Blickfeld zu schaffen.\n\nDie kruden Forderungen der Kibbuzniks entsprachen der insgesamt ver\u00e4nderten Sprache der Vertreiber. In den Einsatzbefehlen f\u00fcr Operation Hiram hie\u00df es:\n\nGefangene: Wagen stehen bereit, um die Fl\u00fcchtlinge ( _plitim_ ) an die libanesische und syrische Grenze zu transportieren. Kriegsgefangenenlager werden in Safad und Haifa errichtet, und ein Durchgangslager in Akko; s\u00e4mtliche muslimische Einwohner sind zu evakuieren.\n\nUnter den aufmerksamen Augen von UN-Beobachtern, die am Himmel \u00fcber Galil\u00e4a patrouillierten, begann im Oktober 1948 die letzte Phase der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung, die bis in den Sommer 1949 dauerte. Weder aus der Luft noch am Boden waren die Scharen von M\u00e4nnern, Frauen und Kindern zu \u00fcbersehen, die tagt\u00e4glich Richtung Norden str\u00f6mten. Zerlumpte Frauen und Kinder waren in diesen Menschentrecks auffallend in der \u00dcberzahl: Die jungen M\u00e4nner waren verschwunden \u2013 exekutiert, interniert oder vermisst. Mittlerweile m\u00fcssen sowohl die UN-Beobachter in der Luft als auch die j\u00fcdischen Augenzeugen am Boden desensibilisiert gewesen sein gegen die Not der Menschen, die an ihnen vor\u00fcberzogen: Wie sonst lie\u00dfe sich erkl\u00e4ren, dass sie die massiven Deportationen, die sich vor ihren Augen abspielten, stillschweigend hinnahmen?\n\nIm Oktober zogen UN-Beobachter wohl ihre Schl\u00fcsse und schrieben an den UN-Generalsekret\u00e4r \u2013 der ihren Bericht nicht ver\u00f6ffentlichte \u2013, Israels Politik bestehe darin, \u00bbAraber mit Gewalt oder Drohung aus ihren Heimatorten in Pal\u00e4stina zu vertreiben\u00ab. Vergeblich versuchten arabische Mitgliedstaaten, den Pal\u00e4stinabericht vor den Sicherheitsrat zu bringen. Nahezu 30 Jahre lang \u00fcbernahmen die Vereinten Nationen unkritisch die rhetorischen Verschleierungen des israelischen UN-Botschafters Abba Eban, der die Fl\u00fcchtlinge als \u00bbhumanes Problem\u00ab bezeichnete, f\u00fcr das man niemanden verantwortlich machen oder zur Rechenschaft ziehen k\u00f6nne. UN-Beobachter waren auch schockiert \u00fcber das Ausma\u00df der Pl\u00fcnderungen, die bis Oktober 1948 jedes Dorf und jede Stadt Pal\u00e4stinas ereilt hatten. Nachdem die Vereinten Nationen fast ein Jahr zuvor die Teilungsresolution mit so \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigender Mehrheit angenommen hatten, h\u00e4tten sie durchaus eine weitere Resolution verabschieden k\u00f6nnen, in der sie die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen verurteilten. Das geschah nie. Daf\u00fcr sollte es noch schlimmer kommen.\n\nEin Kleinimperium im Werden\n\nIn dieser letzten Phase war Israel so erfolgreich, dass man erneut von der Schaffung eines Kleinimperiums zu tr\u00e4umen begann. Die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte wurden wieder einmal in Bereitschaft versetzt, um den j\u00fcdischen Staat ins Westjordanland und in den S\u00fcdlibanon auszudehnen. Zwischen diesen Einsatzbefehlen bestand insofern ein Unterschied, als die Anspielungen auf das Westjordanland (das damals Samariyya oder das Arabische Dreieck hie\u00df) eindeutiger waren und den ersten offenkundigen, offiziellen Bruch des israelisch-transjordanischen Geheimabkommens darstellten. Der Befehl lautete, eine Eroberung des Umlands von Jenin im Norden des heutigen Westjordanlands zu versuchen und, falls sie erfolgreich verlaufen sollte, weiter nach Nablus vorzur\u00fccken. Der Angriff wurde zwar verschoben, aber das milit\u00e4rische Oberkommando blieb in den kommenden Monaten geradezu besessen von den noch nicht besetzten Gebieten, vor allem vom Westjordanland. Uns sind die Namen der verschiedenen Operationen bekannt, die Israel in diesen Regionen zwischen Dezember 1948 und M\u00e4rz 1949 plante, die bekannteste darunter war Operation \u00bbSnir\u00ab. Und als Israel und Jordanien schlie\u00dflich einen Waffenstillstand schlossen, musste Israel diese Pl\u00e4ne vorerst aufgeben.\n\nDiese letzten Operationen wurden abgeblasen, weil es Bedenken wegen des britischen Milit\u00e4rb\u00fcndnisses mit Jordanien gab, das die britische Regierung zumindest offiziell verpflichtete, einer israelischen Invasion auf jordanischem Territorium milit\u00e4risch entgegenzutreten. Was die israelischen Minister allerdings nicht wussten, war, dass das Westjordanland nach Auffassung der britischen Regierung nicht unter diese anglojordanischen B\u00fcndnisverpflichtungen fiel. Interessanterweise berichtete Ben Gurion seinem Kabinett irgendwann, dass er von franz\u00f6sischer Seite die Billigung einer solchen Operation erhalten habe, aber eine m\u00f6gliche britische Vergeltung bef\u00fcrchte. Es ist bekannt, dass die israelische Regierung diese Pl\u00e4ne im Juni 1967 reaktivierte, als sie Gamal Abdel Nassers Risikopolitik zu einem Angriff auf das gesamte Westjordanland nutzte.\n\nDie Debatte \u00fcber Zukunftspl\u00e4ne und die Notwendigkeit, den S\u00fcdlibanon zu besetzen, f\u00fchrte Ben Gurion in einem F\u00fcnferkomitee (aus Veteranen der Beratergruppe), das er in das neue Hauptquartier der israelischen Armee auf den \u00bbH\u00fcgel\u00ab eingeladen hatte. Es traf sich im Oktober und November 1948 mehrmals, was bei Ben Gurion nostalgische Erinnerungen an die R\u00e4nke fr\u00fcherer Tage geweckt haben d\u00fcrfte. Nun konsultierte Ben Gurion dieses f\u00fcnfk\u00f6pfige Gremium von Entscheidungstr\u00e4gern zur Frage einer zuk\u00fcnftigen Besetzung des Westjordanlands. Seine Kollegen brachten ein weiteres Argument gegen dessen Besetzung vor. Einer der Teilnehmer, Israels Innenminister Yitzhak Gruenbaum, erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbEs w\u00e4re unm\u00f6glich, dort das zu machen, was wir im \u00fcbrigen Pal\u00e4stina getan haben\u00ab, also ethnische S\u00e4uberungen durchzuf\u00fchren. Er f\u00fchrte weiter aus: \u00bbWenn wir Orte wie Nablus einnehmen, wird die j\u00fcdische Welt von uns verlangen, dass wir sie behalten\u00ab [und damit h\u00e4tten wir nicht nur Nablus, sondern auch die Einwohner von Nablus]. Erst 1967 sollte Ben Gurion die Schwierigkeiten erkennen, die eine Neuauflage der Massenvertreibungen von 1948 in den Gebieten, die Israel w\u00e4hrend des Junikrieges besetzte, mit sich bringen w\u00fcrde. Ironischerweise mag er es gewesen sein, der dem damaligen Generalstabschef, Yitzhak Rabin, davon abriet, auf eine derart massive Operation zu verzichten und sich mit der Deportation von \u00bbnur\u00ab 200000 Menschen zu begn\u00fcgen. Folglich empfahl er den sofortigen Abzug der israelischen Armee aus dem Westjordanland. Rabin bestand dagegen mit Unterst\u00fctzung der \u00fcbrigen damaligen Regierung darauf, die Territorien zu annektieren.\n\nPl\u00e4ne, den S\u00fcdlibanon einzunehmen, basierten auf Geheimdienstberichten, dass die Libanesen keine Offensiv-, sondern nur Defensivpl\u00e4ne besa\u00dfen. Die Israelis eroberten 13 Ortschaften im S\u00fcdlibanon und machten mehr \u00bbKriegsgefangene\u00ab, wie sie sie nannten \u2013 eine Mischung aus Dorfbewohnern und regul\u00e4ren Soldaten \u2013, als sie bew\u00e4ltigen konnten. Daher fanden auch hier Hinrichtungen statt. Am 31. Oktober 1948 exekutierten die j\u00fcdischen Truppen allein in Hula \u00fcber 80 Einwohner und in Saliha \u00fcber 100. Damals kam Shmuel Lahis, der sp\u00e4tere Generaldirektor der Jewish Agency, vor ein Milit\u00e4rgericht, weil er 35 Menschen hingerichtet hatte. Dov Yirmiya, ein Kommandeur, der an den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen von Mai bis Juni beteiligt war, geh\u00f6rte zu den wenigen IDF-Offizieren, die ehrlich entsetzt waren, als sie merkten, wohin diese Operationen f\u00fchrten. Er begann lautstark gegen Gr\u00e4ueltaten zu protestieren, die er miterlebte oder von denen er h\u00f6rte. Yirmiya brachte Lahis vor Gericht. Lahis wurde zu einer Haftstrafe von sieben Jahren verurteilt, aber schon sehr bald von Israels Staatspr\u00e4sidenten begnadigt und freigelassen und stieg sp\u00e4ter in hohe Regierungs\u00e4mter auf.\n\nAls Israel 1978 und erneut 1982 in den S\u00fcdlibanon einmarschierte, war das \u00bbKriegsgefangenenproblem\u00ab gel\u00f6st: Die IDF baute mit Hilfe der S\u00fcdlibanesischen Armee ein Gef\u00e4ngnisnetz auf, in dem sie die Gefangenen verh\u00f6rte und h\u00e4ufig folterte. Das Gef\u00e4ngnis Khiyam wurde zum Inbegriff israelischer Grausamkeit.\n\nDamals, 1948, zeichnete sich ein Muster ab, das unweigerlich zum Repertoire einer Besatzungsarmee geh\u00f6rt und bei der Besatzung von 1982 bis 2001 erneut auftauchen sollte: die Ausbeutung und N\u00f6tigung der besetzten Bev\u00f6lkerung. Der Kommandeur der israelischen Truppen im Libanon beklagte sich am 14. Dezember 1948 beim Oberkommando: \u00bbDie Soldaten im S\u00fcdlibanon verlangen von den Einwohnern, ihnen Lebensmittel zu beschaffen und zuzubereiten.\u00ab Angesichts der Einstellung, die die Israelis in sp\u00e4teren Jahren im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen an den Tag legten, kann man sich vorstellen, dass dies nur die Spitze des Eisbergs an N\u00f6tigung und Dem\u00fctigung war. Im April 1949 zogen die israelischen Truppen sich aus dem S\u00fcdlibanon zur\u00fcck, aber wie sp\u00e4ter 1978 und erneut 1982 hinterlie\u00df ihre Besatzung viel b\u00f6ses Blut und sch\u00fcrte Rachegef\u00fchle, da sie die Praktiken der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen in Pal\u00e4stina 1948 auf den S\u00fcdlibanon ausweiteten.\n\nGanz Galil\u00e4a befand sich nun in j\u00fcdischer Hand. Das Rote Kreuz erhielt die Erlaubnis, ins Land zu kommen und die Lebensbedingungen der Menschen zu begutachten, die in der Region geblieben waren \u2013 vielmehr hatten bleiben d\u00fcrfen. Israel war klar, dass es seinem Antrag auf Vollmitgliedschaft bei den Vereinten Nationen im Weg stehen w\u00fcrde, wenn es solche Inspektionen des Roten Kreuzes verhindern sollte. \u00dcberall waren die Folgen der Belagerungen, Bombardierungen und Vertreibungen offensichtlich. Im November 1948 schilderten die Rote-Kreuz-Vertreter in ihren Berichten Szenen der Verw\u00fcstung: In jedem Ort, den sie besuchten, waren die arbeitsf\u00e4higen M\u00e4nner inhaftiert worden und Frauen und Kinder ohne ihre traditionellen Ern\u00e4hrer zur\u00fcckgeblieben, und es herrschte v\u00f6lliges Chaos; die Ernte wurde nicht eingebracht, sondern verrottete auf den Feldern, und auf dem Land breiteten sich Krankheiten mit beunruhigender Geschwindigkeit aus. Als Hauptproblem nannte das Rote Kreuz Malaria, fand aber auch zahlreiche F\u00e4lle von Typhus, Rachitis, Diphtherie und Skorbut.\n\nLetzte S\u00e4uberungen im S\u00fcden und Osten\n\nAls letzte Front blieb das s\u00fcdliche Negevgebiet, das die Israelis im November 1948 erreichten. Sie dr\u00e4ngten die \u00e4gyptischen Streitkr\u00e4fte zur\u00fcck, r\u00fcckten weiter nach S\u00fcden vor und stie\u00dfen im M\u00e4rz 1949 bis zu einem Fischerdorf nahe am Roten Meer vor: Umm Rashrash, das heutige Eilat.\n\nYigal Allon wusste, dass die besten Brigaden f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung der dicht besiedelten Gebiete eingesetzt waren; nun wollte er sie umdirigieren, damit sie den Negev besetzten: \u00bbIch muss die Negev-Brigade durch die Brigade Harel ersetzen und m\u00f6chte die Brigade Acht haben. Der Feind ist stark, sitzt in befestigten Stellungen, ist gut ausger\u00fcstet und wird verbissen k\u00e4mpfen, aber wir k\u00f6nnen gewinnen.\u00ab\n\nDie Hauptsorge galt jedoch einem britischen Gegenangriff, da die Israelis zu Unrecht annahmen, die Briten seien an dieser Region interessiert oder w\u00fcrden ihrem Verteidigungsb\u00fcndnis mit \u00c4gypten nachkommen, da die israelischen Truppen zum Teil auf \u00e4gyptisches Staatsgebiet vordringen w\u00fcrden. Tats\u00e4chlich taten die Briten weder das eine noch das andere, obwohl es hier und da zu Zusammenst\u00f6\u00dfen mit der israelischen Luftwaffe kam, die erbarmungslos und vielleicht zwecklos Rafah, Gaza und El-Arish bombardierte. Somit hat die Bev\u00f6lkerung von Gaza \u2013 Alteingesessene ebenso wie Fl\u00fcchtlinge \u2013 schon am l\u00e4ngsten unter israelischen Bombenangriffen aus der Luft zu leiden, n\u00e4mlich von 1948 bis heute.\n\nWas die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen anging, so boten die letzten Operationen im S\u00fcden, wenig \u00fcberraschend, eine Gelegenheit zu weiteren Vertreibungen und Entv\u00f6lkerungsaktionen. Die beiden s\u00fcdlichen K\u00fcstenst\u00e4dte Isdud und Majdal wurden im November 1948 eingenommen und ihre Bev\u00f6lkerung nach Gaza vertrieben. Mehrere tausend Einwohner blieben in Majdal und wurden erst im Dezember 1949 vertrieben, was manche linke Israelis schockierte, da es in \u00bbFriedenszeiten\u00ab geschah.\n\nDer Dezember 1948 war der S\u00e4uberung des Negev von vielen Beduinenst\u00e4mmen, die dort lebten, vorbehalten. Den gro\u00dfen Tabarin-Stamm vertrieb die Armee nach Gaza; nur 1000 Stammesangeh\u00f6rigen erlaubte sie zu bleiben. Ein anderer Stamm, die Tayaha, wurde gespalten: eine H\u00e4lfte wurde nach Gaza deportiert, die andere H\u00e4lfte zwangsweise in Richtung Jordan vertrieben. Die al-Hajajre, durch deren Land die Eisenbahnlinie f\u00fchrte, verdr\u00e4ngten die Israelis im Dezember nach Gaza. Nur den al-Azazmeh gelang es zur\u00fcckzukehren, aber zwischen 1950 und 1954 wurden sie erneut vertrieben und waren das bevorzugte Ziel einer israelischen Kommandoeinheit, Einheit 101, die ein ehrgeiziger junger Offizier namens Ariel Sharon f\u00fchrte. Im Dezember schlossen die israelischen Truppen auch die Entv\u00f6lkerung des Verwaltungsbezirks Beersheba ab, die sie im Herbst 1948 begonnen hatten. Als sie fertig waren, hatten sie 90 Prozent der Menschen vertrieben, die seit Jahrhunderten in dieser s\u00fcdlichsten besiedelten Region Pal\u00e4stinas gelebt hatten.\n\nIm November und Dezember griffen israelische Truppen erneut das Gebiet Wadi Ara an, stie\u00dfen aber erneut auf den Widerstand von Freiwilligen, irakischen Einheiten und Einheimischen, die den Vorsto\u00df vereitelten. D\u00f6rfer, deren Namen Israelis von der Fahrt auf der belebten Route 65 zwischen Afula und Hadera kennen, schafften es, sich erfolgreich gegen eine weit \u00fcberlegene Milit\u00e4rmacht zur Wehr zu setzen: Mushayrifa, Musmus, Mu'awiya, Arara, Barta'a, Shuweika und viele andere. Der gr\u00f6\u00dfte dieser Orte ist mittlerweile zu einer Stadt angewachsen, die heute Umm al-Fahm hei\u00dft. Dort hatten die Einwohner mit etwas Anleitung von irakischen Soldaten eine Truppe organisiert, die sie die \u00bbEhrenarmee\u00ab nannten. Dieser f\u00fcnfte israelische Versuch, die D\u00f6rfer des Wadi Ara einzunehmen, erhielt den Namen _Hidush Yameinu ke-Kedem_ , \u00bbUnsere glorreiche Vergangenheit wiederherstellen\u00ab, vermutlich in der Hoffnung, dass ein so bedeutungsschwerer Deckname den angreifenden Truppen besonderen Einsatzwillen verleihen w\u00fcrde, aber auch dieser Angriff war zum Scheitern verurteilt.\n\nEinen omin\u00f6sen Namen trug auch die Operation im Gebiet Beersheba-Hebron: \u00bbPython\u00ab. Au\u00dfer der Kleinstadt Beersheba mit 5000 Einwohnern, die am 21. Oktober besetzt wurde, nahmen die israelischen Truppen hier die beiden gro\u00dfen D\u00f6rfer Qubayba und Dawaymeh ein. Habib Jarada, der heute in Gaza lebt, erinnert sich, dass die Einwohner von Beersheba mit Waffengewalt nach Hebron vertrieben wurden. Lebhaft hat er noch vor Augen, wie der B\u00fcrgermeister der Stadt den Besatzungsoffizier anflehte, die Bev\u00f6lkerung nicht zu deportieren. \u00bbWir brauchen Land, keine Sklaven\u00ab, lautete die unverbl\u00fcmte Antwort.\n\nDie Verteidigung von Beersheba \u00fcbernahmen vor allem \u00e4gyptische Freiwillige der Muslimischen Bruderschaft unter dem Kommando des libyschen Offiziers Ramadan al-Sanusi. Als die K\u00e4mpfe vorbei waren, trieben die israelischen Truppen die gefangen genommenen Soldaten und alle Einwohner, bei denen sie Waffen vermuteten, zusammen und schossen wahllos in die Menge. Bis heute erinnert Jarada sich an die Namen vieler Get\u00f6teter, unter denen sich sein Cousin Yussuf Jarada und sein Gro\u00dfvater Ali Jarada befanden. Jarada selbst kam in ein Gefangenenlager, aus dem er erst nach dem Waffenstillstand zwischen Israel und Jordanien im Sommer 1949 im Rahmen eines Gefangenenaustauschs entlassen wurde.\n\nDas Massaker in Dawaymeh\n\nZwischen Beersheba und Hebron lag das Dorf Dawaymeh. Was dort geschah, geh\u00f6rt wohl zu den schlimmsten Gr\u00e4ueltaten in den Annalen der Nakba. Das 89. Bataillon der Brigade Acht besetzte das Dorf.\n\nDie UN-Schlichtungskommission f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina (PCC), die, wie gesagt, die UN-Vermittlungsbem\u00fchungen von Graf Bernadotte fortsetzte, trat zu einer Sondersitzung zusammen, um die Vorg\u00e4nge vom 28. Oktober 1948 in diesem Dorf knapp f\u00fcnf Kilometer westlich von Hebron zu untersuchen. Die Einwohnerzahl des Ortes hatte sich durch 4000 Fl\u00fcchtlinge von urspr\u00fcnglich 2000 auf 6000 verdreifacht.\n\nIn dem UN-Bericht vom 14. Juni 1949 (zu finden auf der Internetseite unter Suchbegriff Dawaymeh) hei\u00dft es:\n\nDer Grund, weshalb \u00fcber dieses Massaker, das in mancherlei Hinsicht brutaler war als das Massaker von Deir Yassin, so wenig bekannt ist, sind Bef\u00fcrchtungen der Arabischen Legion (der Armee, die dieses Gebiet kontrolliert): Wenn man zulie\u00dfe, dass diese Nachricht sich verbreitete, h\u00e4tte es die gleiche Auswirkung auf die Moral der Landbev\u00f6lkerung wie Deir Yassin, n\u00e4mlich einen weiteren arabischen Fl\u00fcchtlingsstrom auszul\u00f6sen.\n\nWahrscheinlicher ist, dass die Jordanier berechtigte Vorw\u00fcrfe wegen ihrer Ohnmacht und Unt\u00e4tigkeit f\u00fcrchteten. Der Bericht der PCC basierte haupts\u00e4chlich auf der Aussage des Muchtars Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib. Berichte in den israelischen Milit\u00e4rarchiven erh\u00e4rten viele seiner Angaben. Der bekannte israelische Schriftsteller Amos Keinan, der an dem Massaker beteiligt war, best\u00e4tigte es in einem Interview, das er Ende der 1990er Jahre dem pal\u00e4stinensischen Schauspieler und Filmemacher Muhammad Bakri f\u00fcr den Dokumentarfilm \u00bb1948\u00ab gab.\n\nDer Muchtar erinnerte sich, dass am 28. Oktober eine halbe Stunde nach dem Mittagsgebet 20 Panzerfahrzeuge aus Richtung Qubayba ins Dorf drangen, w\u00e4hrend gleichzeitig Soldaten von der entgegengesetzten Seite angriffen. Die 20 Wachposten des Dorfes waren vor Schreck erstarrt. Die Soldaten auf den Panzerfahrzeugen er\u00f6ffneten das Feuer mit automatischen Waffen und Gesch\u00fctzen und r\u00fcckten im Halbkreis in das Dorf vor. Nach altbew\u00e4hrter Routine kesselten sie das Dorf von drei Seiten ein und lie\u00dfen die Ostflanke offen, um die 6000 Einwohner innerhalb einer Stunde hinauszujagen. Als dies nicht gelang, sprangen die Soldaten von den Fahrzeugen und schossen wahllos auf die Menschen, von denen viele Zuflucht in der Moschee oder in einem nahen H\u00f6hlenheiligtum namens Iraq al-Zagh suchten. Als der Muchtar sich am n\u00e4chsten Tag wieder ins Dorf wagte, sah er mit Entsetzen Berge von Leichen in der Moschee und viele weitere auf den Stra\u00dfen, tote M\u00e4nner, Frauen und Kinder, auch seinen Vater. Als er zu der H\u00f6hle ging, fand er den Eingang von Leichen \u00fcbers\u00e4t. Eine Z\u00e4hlung, die der Muchtar durchf\u00fchrte, ergab: 455 Vermisste, darunter 170 Kinder und Frauen.\n\nDie j\u00fcdischen Soldaten, die an dem Massaker beteiligt waren, schilderten ebenfalls grauenvolle Szenen: Babys mit gespaltenen Sch\u00e4deln, Frauen, die vergewaltigt oder lebendig in ihren H\u00e4usern verbrannt wurden, erstochene M\u00e4nner. Dabei handelte es sich keineswegs um Aussagen, die Jahre sp\u00e4ter gemacht wurden, sondern um Augenzeugenberichte, die innerhalb weniger Tage nach den Ereignissen an das Oberkommando geschickt wurden. Die Brutalit\u00e4t, die sie schildern, best\u00e4rkt mich in meiner \u00dcberzeugung, dass die oben angef\u00fchrten Darstellungen der grauenhaften Verbrechen israelischer Soldaten in Tantura, Safsaf und Sa'sa ebenfalls zutreffen, die zum gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil anhand von pal\u00e4stinensischen Zeugenaussagen und m\u00fcndlicher \u00dcberlieferung rekonstruiert wurden.\n\nSo sah das Endergebnis eines Befehls aus, den der Kommandeur des 89. Bataillons der Brigade Acht von Generalstabschef Yigael Yadin erhalten hatte: \u00bbIhre Vorbereitungen sollten als wesentlichen Teil der Operation die psychologische Kriegf\u00fchrung und die \u203aBehandlung\u2039 ( _tipur_ ) von Einwohnern umfassen.\u00ab\n\nDas Gemetzel von Dawaymeh war das letzte gro\u00dfe Massaker, das israelische Truppen bis 1956 ver\u00fcbten, als sie 49 Einwohner des Ortes Kfar Qassim, den Jordanien in dem Waffenstillstandsabkommen an Israel abgetreten hatte, ermordet hatten.\n\nEthnische S\u00e4uberung ist kein V\u00f6lkermord, geht aber mit Gr\u00e4ueltaten wie Massenmorden einher. Tausende Pal\u00e4stinenser wurden bestialisch von israelischen Soldaten aller Schichten, R\u00e4nge und Altersgruppen ermordet. Trotz der \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigenden Beweise wurde keiner dieser Israelis je wegen Kriegsverbrechen verurteilt.\n\nUnd wenn 1948 \u00fcberhaupt Anfl\u00fcge von Gewissensbissen zu finden waren wie in einem Gedicht von Natan Alterman \u2013 der 1945 die Pal\u00e4stinenser mit den Nazis verglichen hatte \u2013, so waren sie nur ein weiterer Ausdruck der Haltung \u00bbschie\u00df und weine\u00ab, ein selbstgerechter Versuch, sich auf typisch israelische Art selbst freizusprechen. Als Alterman zum ersten Mal von dem brutalen Gemetzel an unschuldigen Zivilisten bei Operation Hiram im Norden h\u00f6rte, schrieb er:\n\nAuf einem Jeep \u00fcberquerte er die Stra\u00dfe \/ ein junger Mann, Prinz der Bestien \/ ein altes Paar kauerte an der Wand \/ Und mit engelsgleichem L\u00e4cheln rief er: \/ \u00bbDie Maschinenpistole probiere ich aus\u00ab, und tat es \/ verspritzte das Blut des Alten auf der Motorhaube.\n\nZerknirschung wie die Altermans hinderte die Truppen nicht daran, ihren Auftrag zur S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas zu Ende zu bringen, eine Mission, die sie inzwischen mit wachsender Skrupellosigkeit und Grausamkeit ausf\u00fchrten. Von November 1948 bis zum Waffenstillstand mit Syrien und Libanon im Sommer 1949 wurden weitere 87 Orte besetzt, 36 davon zwangsweise ger\u00e4umt und aus den \u00fcbrigen ausgew\u00e4hlte Teile der Bev\u00f6lkerung deportiert. Anfang 1950 lie\u00dfen Energie und Zielstrebigkeit der Vertreiber allm\u00e4hlich nach, und die Pal\u00e4stinenser, die noch in Pal\u00e4stina lebten \u2013 das nun aufgeteilt war in den Staat Israel, das jordanische Westjordanland und den \u00e4gyptischen Gazastreifen \u2013, waren weitgehend vor Vertreibung sicher. Sie wurden zwar sowohl in Israel als auch in \u00c4gypten unter Milit\u00e4rverwaltung gestellt und blieben daher verwundbar, aber welchen H\u00e4rten sie auch ausgesetzt waren, so erging es ihnen doch besser als in dem ganzen Jahr der Schrecken, das man heute als die Nakba bezeichnet.\nKAPITEL 9\n\nDie Besatzung und ihr h\u00e4ssliches Gesicht\n\n_Fl\u00fcchtlinge behaupten, serbische Sicherheitskr\u00e4fte trennen systematisch albanische M\u00e4nner im \u00bbwehrf\u00e4higen Alter\u00ab \u2013 zwischen 14 und 59 Jahren \u2013 von der Bev\u00f6lkerung, wenn sie Kosovo-Albaner aus ihren H\u00e4usern vertreiben. Die Serben nutzen die Ferro-Nickel-Fabrik in Glogovac als Gef\u00e4ngnis f\u00fcr eine gro\u00dfe Zahl von Kosovo-Albanern._\n\nKosovo-Bericht des US State Department, 1999\n\n_Der Befehl lautet, jeden verd\u00e4chtigen Araber in wehrf\u00e4higem Alter zwischen 10 und 50 Jahren gefangen zu nehmen._\n\nIDF-Befehle, IDF Archives, 5943\/49\/114, 13. April 1948, \nAllgemeiner Befehl zur Behandlung \nvon Kriegsgefangenen.\n\n_Seit Beginn der Intifada im September 2000 wurden \u00fcber 2500 Kinder festgenommen. Zurzeit sind mindestens 340 pal\u00e4stinensische Kinder in israelischen Gef\u00e4ngnissen._\n\n_The People's Voice_ , 15. Dezember 2005.\n\n_Seit 1967 hat Israel 670000 Pal\u00e4stinenser inhaftiert._\n\nOffizielle Erkl\u00e4rung der Arabischen Liga, 9. Januar 2006.\n\n_Im Sinne dieses \u00dcbereinkommens ist ein Kind jeder Mensch, der das achtzehnte Lebensjahr noch nicht vollendet hat..._\n\nUN-Konvention \u00fcber die Rechte des Kindes\n\nAuch wenn Israel die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas im Wesentlichen abgeschlossen hatte, so war das Leiden der Pal\u00e4stinenser nicht zu Ende. Etwa 8000 blieben das ganze Jahr 1949 in Gefangenenlagern, andere erfuhren k\u00f6rperliche Misshandlungen, und viele Pal\u00e4stinenser waren unter der Milit\u00e4rverwaltung, der Israel sie nun unterstellte, zahlreichen Schikanen ausgeliefert. Auch wurden ihre H\u00e4user weiterhin gepl\u00fcndert, ihre Felder enteignet, ihre heiligen St\u00e4tten entweiht und ihre Grundrechte wie das Recht auf Freiz\u00fcgigkeit, Meinungsfreiheit und Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz von Israel verletzt.\n\nUnmenschliche Haftbedingungen\n\nNach den S\u00e4uberungen waren in den l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten Pal\u00e4stinas verbreitet gro\u00dffl\u00e4chige Stacheldrahtverhaue zu finden, hinter denen m\u00e4nnliche Einwohner der ger\u00e4umten D\u00f6rfer im Alter von 10 bis 50 Jahren gefangen gehalten wurden, die die Israelis bei den routinem\u00e4\u00dfig durchgef\u00fchrten \u00bbDurchsuchungen\u00ab herausgepickt und festgenommen hatten. Sp\u00e4ter brachte man sie in zentrale Gefangenenlager. Die Israelis gingen bei diesen \u00bbDurchsuchungs- und Verhaftungsaktionen\u00ab systematisch vor, f\u00fchrten sie im ganzen Land durch und gaben ihnen meist sprechende Decknamen wie Operation \u00bbKamm\u00ab oder auch Operation \u00bbDestillation\u00ab ( _ziquq_ ).\n\nDie erste dieser Operationen fand in Haifa statt, einige Wochen nach der Besetzung der Stadt. Die israelischen Geheimdiensteinheiten waren hinter \u00bbR\u00fcckkehrern\u00ab her, hinter Fl\u00fcchtlingen, die verst\u00e4ndlicherweise in ihre H\u00e4user zur\u00fcckkehren wollten, nachdem die K\u00e4mpfe nachgelassen hatten und in den St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas anscheinend wieder Ruhe und Normalit\u00e4t eingekehrt war. Andere richteten sich jedoch auch gegen \u00bbverd\u00e4chtige Araber\u00ab. Es gab sogar Befehle, so viele \u00bbverd\u00e4chtige Araber\u00ab wie m\u00f6glich aufzusp\u00fcren, ohne dass man die Art des Verdachts genau definiert h\u00e4tte.\n\nNach einem Vorgehen, das den meisten Pal\u00e4stinensern im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen bis heute vertraut sein d\u00fcrfte, verh\u00e4ngten israelische Truppen zun\u00e4chst eine Ausgangssperre \u00fcber ein Dorf oder eine Stadt. Anschlie\u00dfend durchsuchten Geheimdiensteinheiten ein Haus nach dem anderen und zerrten alle heraus, von denen sie vermuteten, dass sie sich \u00bbillegal\u00ab im Ort aufhielten, oder die sie aus sonstigen Gr\u00fcnden f\u00fcr \u00bbverd\u00e4chtige Araber\u00ab hielten. Dabei befanden sich diese Leute meist in ihren eigenen H\u00e4usern. Anschlie\u00dfend brachte man alle, die bei diesen Razzien festgenommen wurden, in ein spezielles Hauptquartier.\n\nIn Haifa war dieses Hauptquartier bei den Pal\u00e4stinensern gef\u00fcrchtet. Es lag im Viertel Hadar am Hang oberhalb des Hafens. Das Geb\u00e4ude an der Daniel Street 11 steht noch heute, aber die graue Fassade l\u00e4sst kaum erahnen, welche entsetzlichen Szenen sich 1948 dahinter abgespielt haben. Alle Festgenommenen, die zur Vernehmung hierher gebracht wurden, waren nach dem V\u00f6lkerrecht B\u00fcrger des Staates Israel. Das schlimmste Vergehen war, keinen der neu ausgegebenen Personalausweise zu besitzen; in der Regel bedeutete es: eine Gef\u00e4ngnisstrafe von bis zu anderthalb Jahren und den sofortigen Abtransport zu einem der Stacheldrahtverhaue, in denen all die \u00bbunautorisierten\u00ab oder \u00bbverd\u00e4chtigen\u00ab Araber sa\u00dfen, die man in den j\u00fcdisch besetzten Gebieten entdeckt hatte. Gelegentlich \u00e4u\u00dferte sogar das Oberkommando Bedenken wegen der Brutalit\u00e4t, mit der die Geheimdienste die internierten Pal\u00e4stinenser im Verh\u00f6rzentrum in Haifa behandelten.\n\nL\u00e4ndliche Gebiete erfuhren die gleiche Behandlung. H\u00e4ufig erinnerten die Operationen die Einwohner an die Angriffe, die ihre D\u00f6rfer erst vor wenigen Monaten oder Wochen erlebt hatten. Die Israelis f\u00fchrten in dieser Zeit noch eine weitere Ma\u00dfnahme ein, die heute zu den typischen israelischen Praktiken in den besetzten Gebieten geh\u00f6rt: Stra\u00dfensperren, an denen sie willk\u00fcrlich Kontrollen durchf\u00fchrten, um die zu erwischen, die keinen der neu eingef\u00fchrten Personalausweise besa\u00dfen. Das Ausstellen eines solchen Ausweises, der dem Inhaber eingeschr\u00e4nkte Bewegungsfreiheit an seinem Wohnort erlaubte, bot neue M\u00f6glichkeiten f\u00fcr Schikanen: Einen Personalausweis bekam man nur nach eingehender Sicherheits\u00fcberpr\u00fcfung und Zustimmung des israelischen Geheimdienstes.\n\nDie meisten Gebiete waren ohnehin gesperrt, selbst f\u00fcr die, die den erforderlichen Personalausweis besa\u00dfen. F\u00fcr das Betreten dieser Gebiete bedurfte es einer Sondergenehmigung, beispielsweise wenn Leute, die in Galil\u00e4a wohnten, die normalen Verbindungswege zur Arbeit oder zu Besuchen bei Verwandten oder Freunden benutzen wollten, etwa die Stra\u00dfe von Haifa nach Nazareth. Hier waren Genehmigungen am schwierigsten zu bekommen.\n\nTausende Pal\u00e4stinenser schmachteten das ganze Jahr 1949 in den Gefangenenlagern, in die man sie aus den provisorischen Lagern verlegt hatte. Es gab f\u00fcnf solcher Lager, die gr\u00f6\u00dften in Jalil (in der N\u00e4he der heutigen Stadt Herzliya) und in Atlit, s\u00fcdlich von Haifa. Laut Ben Gurions Tagebuch sa\u00dfen dort 9000 Gefangene.\n\nAnfangs herrschten in den Lagern chaotische Verh\u00e4ltnisse. Ende Juni 1948 beklagte sich ein Offizier: \u00bbUnser Problem ist die Konzentration gro\u00dfer Mengen arabischer Kriegsgefangener und inhaftierter Zivilisten. Wir m\u00fcssen sie an sicherere Orte verlegen.\u00ab Bis Oktober 1948 entstand unter der direkten Leitung Yigael Yadins ein Netz von Gefangenenlagern, das das Chaos beendete.\n\nBereits aus der Zeit Februar 1948 finden sich Hagana-Richtlinien zur Behandlung der Kriegsgefangenen; dort hei\u00dft es: \u00bbDie Freilassung oder Eliminierung eines Gefangenen bedarf einer Genehmigung des Geheimdienstoffiziers.\u00ab Es war also bereits ein Selektionsprozess in Gang, und es fanden Massenexekutionen statt. Die israelischen Geheimdienstoffiziere verfolgten die Gefangenen unabl\u00e4ssig von dem Moment an, in dem sie in diesen Lagern eintrafen. Daher f\u00fchlten sich die inhaftierten Pal\u00e4stinenser in diesen Gef\u00e4ngnissen alles andere als sicher, auch nachdem man sie an \u00bbsicherere\u00ab Orte gebracht hatte, wie die Armee sagte, denn als Lagerwachen waren vor allem ehemalige Angeh\u00f6rige der Irgun und der Stern-Gruppe eingesetzt. Aber diese Leute waren nicht die einzigen, die Lagerinsassen schikanierten. So wurde der ehemalige Hagana-Offizier Yisca Shadmi des Mordes an zwei pal\u00e4stinensischen Gefangenen f\u00fcr schuldig befunden. Sein Name ist in die Geschichte der Pal\u00e4stinenser in Israel eingegangen: Shadmi war im Oktober 1956 einer der Hauptt\u00e4ter bei dem Massaker in Kfar Qassim, bei dem 49 Pal\u00e4stinenser umkamen. Shadmi entging einer Strafe wegen seiner Beteiligung an diesem Massaker und stieg zu einem hochrangigen Beamten in jenen staatlichen Beh\u00f6rden auf, die f\u00fcr die Beziehungen zur pal\u00e4stinensischen Minderheit zust\u00e4ndig waren. 1958 wurde er freigesprochen. Sein Fall verdeutlicht zwei Merkmale, die Israels Umgang mit pal\u00e4stinensischen B\u00fcrgern bis heute pr\u00e4gen: zum einen, dass Leute, die der Verbrechen gegen Araber angeklagt sind, sehr wahrscheinlich in den Positionen bleiben, in denen sie weiter Einfluss auf das Leben von Pal\u00e4stinensern haben, und zum anderen, dass sie niemals zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden. Das j\u00fcngste Beispiel daf\u00fcr lieferte der Fall des Polizisten, der im Oktober 2000 dreizehn unbewaffnete Pal\u00e4stinenser ermordete und seitdem weitere 17 ums Leben brachte.\n\nEin Offizier, der ein solches Gefangenenlager besuchte, schrieb besorgt: \u00bbIn letzter Zeit gab es einige \u00e4u\u00dferst schwerwiegende Vorkommnisse bei der Behandlung von Gefangenen. Das barbarische und grausame Verhalten, das diese F\u00e4lle offenbaren, untergr\u00e4bt die Disziplin der Armee.\u00ab Dass die hier ge\u00e4u\u00dferte Sorge weniger den Opfern als vielmehr der Armee gilt, ist in der Geschichte milit\u00e4rischer \u00bbSelbstkritik\u00ab in Israel ebenfalls ein mittlerweile bekanntes Ph\u00e4nomen.\n\nSchlimmer als die Gefangenenlager waren die Arbeitslager. Der Plan, pal\u00e4stinensische Gefangene als Zwangsarbeiter einzusetzen, kam vom israelischen Milit\u00e4r und fand Unterst\u00fctzung bei den Politikern. F\u00fcr diesen Zweck baute man drei spezielle Arbeitslager, eins in Sarafand, ein weiteres in Tel-Litwinski (heute Tel-Hashomer Hospital) und ein drittes in Umm Khalid (bei Netanya). Die Beh\u00f6rden setzten die Gefangenen f\u00fcr alle Arbeiten ein, die zur St\u00e4rkung der israelischen Wirtschaft und Armee beitragen konnten.\n\nIn einem Interview mit einem ehemaligen Notabeln aus Haifa, der 1950 ein Buch \u00fcber jene Zeit ver\u00f6ffentlichte, schilderte ein \u00dcberlebender aus Tantura nach seiner Entlassung aus einem solchen Lager, was er dort durchgemacht hatte. Muhammad Nimr al-Khatibs Buch enth\u00e4lt folgenden Bericht:\n\nDie \u00dcberlebenden des Massakers von Tantura wurden in einem Verhau in der N\u00e4he eingesperrt; drei Tage ohne Essen, dann stie\u00df man sie auf Laster, befahl ihnen, sich zu setzen, was wegen der Enge gar nicht m\u00f6glich war, und drohte ihnen, sie andernfalls zu erschie\u00dfen. Sie schossen nicht, pr\u00fcgelten aber auf ihre K\u00f6pfe ein, und Blut spritzte \u00fcberall, schlie\u00dflich brachte man sie nach Umm Khalid (Netanya).\n\nDer Zeuge schilderte den Alltag der Zwangsarbeiter im Lager: Sie mussten in den Steinbr\u00fcchen arbeiten und gro\u00dfe Steine schleppen; sie lebten von einer Kartoffel am Morgen und einem halben Trockenfisch zu Mittag. Sich zu beklagen war zwecklos, da Ungehorsam mit schwerer Pr\u00fcgelstrafe beantwortet wurde. Nach 15 Tagen wurden 150 M\u00e4nner in ein zweites Lager nach Jalil verlegt, wo man sie \u00e4hnlich behandelte: \u00bbWir mussten den Schutt zerst\u00f6rter arabischer H\u00e4user wegr\u00e4umen. Eines Tages sagte uns ein Offizier in gutem Englisch, dass wir \u203aab sofort\u2039 gem\u00e4\u00df der Genfer Konvention behandelt w\u00fcrden. Und tats\u00e4chlich verbesserten sich die Bedingungen.\u00ab\n\nAl-Khatibs Interviewpartner musste nach f\u00fcnf Monaten wieder zur\u00fcck nach Umm Khalid, wo er Szenen erlebte, die geradewegs aus einer anderen Welt zu stammen schienen. Als die Wachen merkten, dass 20 Insassen ausgebrochen waren, \u00bbsteckte man uns, die Leute aus Tantura, in einen K\u00e4fig, sch\u00fcttete uns \u00d6l \u00fcber die Kleider und nahm uns die Decken weg\u00ab.\n\nNach einem ihrer ersten Besuche am 11. November 1948 berichteten Rote-Kreuz-Vertreter, dass Kriegsgefangene in den allgemeinen \u00f6rtlichen Bem\u00fchungen eingesetzt w\u00fcrden, \u00bbdie israelische Wirtschaft zu st\u00e4rken\u00ab. Diese vorsichtige Formulierung war durchaus mit Bedacht gew\u00e4hlt. Nach dem bedauerlichen Verhalten des Roten Kreuzes w\u00e4hrend des Holocaust, als es nicht an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit brachte, was in den Konzentrationslagern der Nazis vorging, obwohl es dar\u00fcber sehr wohl informiert war, war die Institution vorsichtig in ihrer Haltung und Kritik am j\u00fcdischen Staat. Aber zumindest werfen die Rote-Kreuz-Dokumente etwas Licht auf das, was den pal\u00e4stinensischen Lagerinsassen widerfuhr, von denen manche bis 1955 interniert waren.\n\nWie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, stand das israelische Verhalten gegen\u00fcber gefangenen pal\u00e4stinensischen Zivilisten in krassem Gegensatz zu der Behandlung, die israelische Gefangene durch die Arabische Legion Jordaniens erfuhren. Ben Gurion war w\u00fctend, als die israelische Presse berichtete, dass die Legion israelische Kriegsgefangene gut behandelte. In seinem Tagebuch schrieb er am 18. Juni 1948: \u00bbDas ist wahr, aber es k\u00f6nnte dazu ermuntern, isolierte Orte aufzugeben.\u00ab\n\nMisshandlungen w\u00e4hrend der Besatzung\n\nAu\u00dferhalb der Arbeits- und Gefangenenlager war das Leben in den Jahren 1948 und 1949 nicht viel leichter. Auch hier schickten Vertreter vom Roten Kreuz, die durch das Land fuhren, beunruhigende Berichte \u00fcber die Verh\u00e4ltnisse unter israelischer Besatzung an ihre Zentrale in Genf. Sie schilderten kollektive Verst\u00f6\u00dfe gegen die Grundrechte, die im April 1948 w\u00e4hrend der j\u00fcdischen Angriffe auf die gemischten St\u00e4dte begannen und sich bis weit ins Jahr 1949 fortsetzten, wobei es offenbar in Jaffa die schlimmsten \u00dcbergriffe gab.\n\nZwei Monate, nachdem die Israelis Jaffa besetzt hatten, fanden Rot-Kreuz-Vertreter viele Leichen. Als sie Jaffas Milit\u00e4rgouverneur um eine dringende Unterredung baten, gab er gegen\u00fcber dem Rotkreuzvertreter Gouy zu, dass israelische Soldaten sie wahrscheinlich erschossen haben, weil sie die Anweisungen nicht befolgt hatten. Er erkl\u00e4rte, von f\u00fcnf Uhr nachmittags bis sechs Uhr morgens herrsche allgemeine Ausgangssperre und jeder, der drau\u00dfen angetroffen w\u00fcrde \u2013 so lautet ganz klar der Befehl \u2013, \u00bbwird erschossen\u00ab.\n\nUnter dem Deckmantel von Ausgangssperren und Sperrbezirken begingen die Israelis in Jaffa noch andere Verbrechen, die beispielhaft waren f\u00fcr vieles, was auch in anderen Orten geschah. Sehr verbreitet waren Pl\u00fcnderungen, ob sie nun systematisch von offiziellen Stellen oder sporadisch von Privatpersonen begangen wurden. Die systematischen, offiziellen Pl\u00fcnderungen erfolgten auf Anordnung der israelischen Regierung und hatten die Vorratslager mit Zucker, Mehl, Gerste, Weizen und Reis im Visier, die Gro\u00dfbritannien f\u00fcr die arabische Bev\u00f6lkerung angelegt hatte. Die Beute erhielten j\u00fcdische Siedlungen. Solche Aktionen waren schon vor dem 15. Mai 1948 h\u00e4ufig vorgekommen, und die britischen Soldaten hatten einfach weggeschaut, wenn j\u00fcdische Trupps in die ihnen unterstellten Gebiete vorgedrungen waren. Im Juli schickte der Milit\u00e4rgouverneur von Jaffa einen Bericht an Ben Gurion, in dem er ihm mitteilte, wie die organisierten Enteignungen vorangingen:\n\nIn Bezug auf Ihre Anweisung, daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, \u00bbdass alle von unserer Armee, Luftwaffe und Marine ben\u00f6tigten G\u00fcter den Zust\u00e4ndigen ausgeh\u00e4ndigt und so schnell wie m\u00f6glich aus Jaffa abtransportiert werden\u00ab, kann ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass ab dem 15. Mai 1948 durchschnittlich 100 Wagenladungen pro Tag Jaffa verlassen werden. Der Hafen ist betriebsbereit. Die Lager wurden ger\u00e4umt und die Waren herausgeholt.\n\nDieselben Beamten, die diese Lebensmittellager pl\u00fcnderten, versprachen der pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung Haifas und anderer besetzter St\u00e4dte, ihre Gemeindezentren, religi\u00f6sen St\u00e4tten und s\u00e4kularen Einrichtungen nicht anzutasten. Sehr bald aber mussten die Menschen feststellen, dass es sich um falsche Versprechungen handelte, als ihre Moscheen und Kirchen entweiht und ihre Kl\u00f6ster und Schulen verw\u00fcstet wurden. Mit wachsender Verzweiflung berichtete einer der UN-Beobachter, Captain F. Marschal, seiner Organisation: \u00bbDie Juden verstie\u00dfen h\u00e4ufig gegen die mehrfach gegebene Garantie der j\u00fcdischen Beh\u00f6rden, R\u00fccksicht auf alle Geb\u00e4ude zu nehmen, die Religionsgemeinschaften geh\u00f6ren.\u00ab\n\nIn Jaffa kam es besonders h\u00e4ufig auch in Wohnh\u00e4usern zu Einbr\u00fcchen, die am helllichten Tag stattfanden. Die Pl\u00fcnderer stahlen M\u00f6bel, Kleider und alles, was f\u00fcr die ins Land str\u00f6menden j\u00fcdischen Einwanderer n\u00fctzlich sein konnte. UN-Beobachter waren \u00fcberzeugt, dass die Pl\u00fcnderungen auch als Mittel dienten, um eine R\u00fcckkehr pal\u00e4stinensischer Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu verhindern, und das passte ja durchaus in den Kurs des israelischen Oberkommandos, das nicht davor zur\u00fcckschreckte, brutale Strafaktionen anzuordnen, wenn dies seinen strategischen Zielen n\u00fctzte.\n\nOft diente die \u00bbSuche nach Waffen\u00ab den israelischen Truppen als Vorwand f\u00fcr ihre Raubz\u00fcge und Pl\u00fcnderungen. Die reale oder imagin\u00e4re Existenz von Waffen l\u00f6ste schlimme Gr\u00e4ueltaten aus, da diese Inspektionen oft mit Pr\u00fcgeln einhergingen und unweigerlich in Massenverhaftungen endeten. \u00bbViele werden ohne jeden Grund verhaftet\u00ab, schrieb Yitzhak Chizik, der Milit\u00e4rgouverneur von Jaffa, an Ben Gurion.\n\nDie Raubz\u00fcge erreichten in Jaffa ein solches Ausma\u00df, dass Yitzhak Chizik sich gen\u00f6tigt sah, in einem Schreiben vom 5. Juni 1948 an Israels Finanzminister Eliezer Kaplan zu beklagen, er habe die Pl\u00fcnderungen nicht mehr unter Kontrolle. Er protestierte auch weiter dagegen, aber als er Ende Juli merkte, dass man seine Beschwerden v\u00f6llig ignorierte, resignierte er und kapitulierte vor den st\u00e4ndigen Raubz\u00fcgen. Die meisten seiner Berichte, die in den israelischen Staatsarchiven zu finden sind, wurden zensiert, vor allem Passagen \u00fcber die Misshandlung der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung durch israelische Soldaten. In einer Textstelle, die nicht gr\u00fcndlich genug ges\u00e4ubert wurde, zeigt Chizik sich best\u00fcrzt \u00fcber die grenzenlose Brutalit\u00e4t der Soldaten: \u00bbSie h\u00f6ren nicht auf, die Leute zu verpr\u00fcgeln\u00ab, schreibt er.\n\nChizik war nicht gerade ein Engel. Er lie\u00df H\u00e4user abrei\u00dfen und wies seine Truppen an, pal\u00e4stinensische Gesch\u00e4fte in Brand zu stecken, aber das waren Strafaktionen, die er unter Kontrolle hatte und mit denen er sein Selbstbild als souver\u00e4ner Herrscher in dem ihm unterstellten Besatzungsgebiet untermauern wollte. In seinem Brief an Kaplan schrieb er, es sei bedauerlich, aber er k\u00f6nne die Haltung der Soldaten in F\u00e4llen nicht l\u00e4nger dulden, \u00bbin denen ich eindeutige Anordnungen gegeben habe, ein Haus oder einen Betrieb nicht in Brand zu stecken; sie missachten sie nicht nur, sondern machen sich auch noch vor den Arabern \u00fcber mich lustig\u00ab. Er kritisierte auch die fortw\u00e4hrenden offiziellen Konfiszierungen unter der Schirmherrschaft zweier M\u00e4nner, Yakobson und Presiz, weil sie \u00bbdie Pl\u00fcnderung vieler Dinge, die die Armee nicht braucht\u00ab, zulie\u00dfen.\n\nZur \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung dieser Beschwerden schickte das Oberkommando Abraham Margalit, der im Juni 1948 berichtete: \u00bbEs gibt viele disziplinarische Verst\u00f6\u00dfe, vor allem im Verhalten gegen\u00fcber den Arabern (Schl\u00e4ge und Folter), sowie Pl\u00fcnderungen, die mehr aus Ignoranz als aus Bosheit erwachsen.\u00ab Wie Margalit selbst erkl\u00e4rte, veranlasste diese \u00bbIgnoranz\u00ab die Soldaten dazu, spezielle R\u00e4umlichkeiten zu unterhalten, \u00bbwo sie Araber einsperrten und folterten\u00ab.\n\nDaraufhin stattete Bechor Shitrit, Israels Minderheitenminister, Jaffa noch im selben Monat einen Besuch ab. Dieser relativ gem\u00e4\u00dfigte israelische Politiker war in Tiberias geboren und hatte gewisse Sympathien f\u00fcr die M\u00f6glichkeit einer j\u00fcdisch-pal\u00e4stinensischen Koexistenz in dem neuen Staat gezeigt. Unter der britischen Mandatsverwaltung hatte er ein Richteramt bekleidet und sollte sp\u00e4ter Justizminister werden. Den Ministerposten hatte Shitrit als Vorzeige-Mizrahi in einer \u00fcberwiegend von Aschkenasim, also osteurop\u00e4ischen Juden, gebildeten Regierung erhalten und als solcher zun\u00e4chst das unbeliebteste Ressort bekommen: die Araber.\n\nShitrit unterhielt pers\u00f6nliche Kontakte zu einigen Notabeln, die nach der Besetzung in Jaffa geblieben waren und eine f\u00fchrende Rolle in der pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinde spielten, zum Beispiel Nicola Sa'ab und Ahmad Abu Laben. Im Juni 1948 h\u00f6rte er ihnen zwar aufmerksam zu, als sie ihn dringend ersuchten, zumindest etwas gegen die schlimmsten Ausw\u00fcchse der Milit\u00e4rbesatzung f\u00fcr ihre Lebensbedingungen zu unternehmen; er gab zu, dass ihre Beschwerden berechtigt waren, aber es dauerte noch geraume Zeit, bis etwas geschah.\n\nWie die Notabeln Shitrit erkl\u00e4rten, war es v\u00f6llig unn\u00f6tig, dass israelische Soldaten in H\u00e4user einbrachen, weil die Evakuierten ihnen, den Mitgliedern des \u00f6rtlichen Nationalkomitees, die Schl\u00fcssel anvertraut hatten und sie bereit waren, sie der Armee zu \u00fcbergeben; aber die Soldaten brachen lieber ein. Die Notabeln konnten nicht ahnen, dass man einige von ihnen nach Shitrits Abreise wegen \u00bbMitf\u00fchrens von illegalem Besitz\u00ab verhaften w\u00fcrde, n\u00e4mlich wegen jenen Schl\u00fcsseln zu leerstehenden H\u00e4usern, von denen sie gesprochen hatten. Drei Wochen sp\u00e4ter beschwerte sich Ahmad Abu Laben bei Shitrit, dass sich seit ihrem letzten Treffen nicht viel ge\u00e4ndert habe: \u00bbEs gibt kein Haus und keinen Betrieb, in den nicht eingebrochen wurde. Die Waren wurden aus dem Hafen und den Lagern geholt. Den Einwohnern wurden die Lebensmittelvorr\u00e4te gestohlen.\u00ab Abu Laben hatte gemeinsam mit einem j\u00fcdischen Partner eine Fabrik in der Stadt betrieben, aber das hatte ihn nicht gesch\u00fctzt: S\u00e4mtliche Maschinen wurden abtransportiert und die Fabrik wurde gepl\u00fcndert.\n\nDie offiziellen Enteignungen und privaten Pl\u00fcnderungen nahmen in allen St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas derart \u00fcberhand, dass die Ortskommandeure die Kontrolle dar\u00fcber verloren. Am 25. Juni beschloss die Regierung, in Jerusalem eine gewisse Ordnung in die Pl\u00fcnderungen und Enteignungen zu bringen. Sie \u00fcbertrug dem ortsans\u00e4ssigen David Abulafya die Zust\u00e4ndigkeit f\u00fcr \u00bbKonfiszierung und Enteignung\u00ab. Wie er Ben Gurion berichtete, war sein Hauptproblem, dass \u00bbdie Sicherheitskr\u00e4fte und Milizen weiter ohne Genehmigung konfiszieren\u00ab.\n\nGhettoisierung der Pal\u00e4stinenser Haifas\n\nDass die Israelis mehr als eine M\u00f6glichkeit hatten, Menschen einzusperren oder ihre Grundrechte zu verletzen, zeigen die Erfahrungen der kleinen Pal\u00e4stinensergemeinde, die nach der S\u00e4uberung durch j\u00fcdische Truppen am 23. April 1948 in Haifa \u00fcbrig blieb. In den Details ist ihre Geschichte zwar einzigartig, aber im Gro\u00dfen und Ganzen steht sie beispielhaft f\u00fcr die Pr\u00fcfungen und Leiden, denen die pal\u00e4stinensische Minderheit insgesamt unter j\u00fcdischer Besatzung ausgesetzt war.\n\nAm Abend des 1. Juli 1948 zitierte der israelische Milit\u00e4rkommandeur von Haifa die \u00f6rtlichen Vertreter der 3000 bis 5000 Pal\u00e4stinenser, die nach der Vertreibung von sch\u00e4tzungsweise 70000 arabischen Einwohnern der Stadt \u00fcbrig geblieben waren, in sein Hauptquartier. Bei der Besprechung wies er diese Notabeln an, die Umsiedlung dieser pal\u00e4stinensischen Gemeinde, die in verschiedenen Teilen der Stadt lebte, in das kleine, beengte Viertel Wadi Nisnas, eine der \u00e4rmsten Gegenden Haifas, zu \u00bberleichtern\u00ab. Manche, die ihre Wohnh\u00e4user an den oberen H\u00e4ngen des Karmel oder auf dem Bergr\u00fccken selbst aufgeben sollten, hatten dort seit vielen Jahren zusammen mit den j\u00fcdischen Zuwanderern gelebt. Nun ordnete der Milit\u00e4rkommandeur an, dass alle bis zum 5. Juli 1948 umzusiedeln seien. Die pal\u00e4stinensischen Vertreter und Notabeln waren zutiefst schockiert. Viele von ihnen geh\u00f6rten der Kommunistischen Partei an, die eine Teilung des Landes unterst\u00fctzt und gehofft hatte, nachdem die K\u00e4mpfe nun vor\u00fcber waren, w\u00fcrde das Leben sich unter den Auspizien eines j\u00fcdischen Staates, gegen dessen Schaffung sie nicht opponiert hatten, wieder normalisieren.\n\n\u00bbIch verstehe nicht: Ist das ein milit\u00e4rischer Befehl? Schauen wir uns doch die Lebensverh\u00e4ltnisse dieser Menschen an. Ich kann keinen Grund sehen, schon gar keinen milit\u00e4rischen, der einen solchen Schritt rechtfertigt\u00ab, protestierte Tawfiq Tubi, der sp\u00e4ter als Abgeordneter der Kommunistischen Partei in der israelischen Knesset sa\u00df. Abschlie\u00dfend erkl\u00e4rte er: \u00bbWir verlangen, dass die Menschen in ihren H\u00e4usern bleiben.\u00ab Ein anderer Sitzungsteilnehmer, Bulus Farah, rief: \u00bbDas ist Rassismus\u00ab, und bezeichnete die Umsiedlung treffend als \u00bbGhettoisierung der Pal\u00e4stinenser in Haifa\u00ab.\n\nSelbst der n\u00fcchtere Ton des Sitzungsprotokolls kann die abf\u00e4llige, gleichg\u00fcltige Reaktion des israelischen Milit\u00e4rkommandeurs nicht verbergen. Man meint f\u00f6rmlich seinen schneidigen Ton zu h\u00f6ren:\n\nIch sehe, dass Sie hier sitzen und mir Ratschl\u00e4ge geben, aber ich habe Sie hergebeten, damit Sie die Anordnungen des Oberkommandos h\u00f6ren und sie ausf\u00fchren! Mit Politik habe ich nichts zu tun und k\u00fcmmere mich nicht darum. Ich befolge lediglich Befehle ... Ich f\u00fchre Befehle aus und muss daf\u00fcr sorgen, dass dieser Befehl bis zum 5. Juli ausgef\u00fchrt ist ... Wenn Sie es nicht tun, mache ich es selbst. Ich bin Soldat.\n\nAls er mit seinem Monolog fertig war, fragte ein anderer der pal\u00e4stinensischen Notabeln, Shehadeh Shalah: \u00bbUnd wenn jemandem ein Haus geh\u00f6rt, muss er dann auch ausziehen?\u00ab Der Milit\u00e4rkommandeur antwortete: \u00bbAlle m\u00fcssen gehen.\u00ab Die Notabeln erfuhren, dass die Einwohner die Kosten der Zwangsumsiedlung selbst tragen mussten.\n\nVictor Khayat versuchte dem israelischen Kommandeur klar zu machen, dass es mehr als einen Tag dauern w\u00fcrde, alle pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohner zu informieren, und ihnen dann nicht mehr viel Zeit bliebe. Der Kommandeur antwortete, vier Tage seien \u00bbgenug Zeit\u00ab. Der Protokollant der Sitzung hielt fest, dass die pal\u00e4stinensischen Vertreter wie aus einem Mund riefen: \u00bbAber das ist sehr wenig Zeit\u00ab, worauf der Kommandeur erwiderte: \u00bbIch kann es nicht \u00e4ndern.\u00ab\n\nAber damit waren die Schikanen noch nicht beendet. Auch im Stadtteil Wadi Nisnas, auf den die pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohner nun beschr\u00e4nkt waren \u2013 und wo die Stadt Haifa heute allj\u00e4hrlich das Zusammenfallen von Hanuka, Weihnachten und Id al-Fitr als \u00bbdas Fest aller Feste des Friedens und der Koexistenz\u00ab feiert \u2013, waren sie weiter \u00dcbergriffen und Pl\u00fcnderungen ausgesetzt, meist von Angeh\u00f6rigen der Irgun und der Stern-Gruppe, aber auch die Hagana beteiligte sich aktiv an diesen \u00dcberf\u00e4llen. Ben Gurion verurteilte ihr Verhalten, unternahm aber nichts dagegen: Er begn\u00fcgte sich damit, es in seinem Tagebuch festzuhalten.\n\nVergewaltigung\n\nDa in drei verschiedenen Quellen \u00fcber Vergewaltigungen berichtet wird, wissen wir, dass es schwere Vergewaltigungsf\u00e4lle gab. Schwieriger ist es, sich eine Vorstellung \u00fcber die Zahl der Frauen und M\u00e4dchen zu verschaffen, die auf diese Weise Opfer j\u00fcdischer Soldaten wurden. Unsere erste Quelle sind internationale Organisationen wie die Vereinten Nationen und das Rote Kreuz. Sie legten nie einen Sammelbericht vor, aber es gibt knappe Schilderungen einzelner F\u00e4lle. So berichtete der Rotkreuzvertreter de Meuron kurz nach der Besetzung Jaffas, dass j\u00fcdische Soldaten ein M\u00e4dchen vergewaltigt und ihren Bruder get\u00f6tet hatten. Allgemein, merkte er an, seinen Frauen den Israelis auf Gedeih und Verderb ausgeliefert gewesen, nachdem man ihre M\u00e4nner gefangen genommen hatte. Yitzhak Chizik schrieb in dem oben erw\u00e4hnten Brief an Kaplan: \u00bbUnd von den Vergewaltigungen haben Sie wahrscheinlich schon geh\u00f6rt.\u00ab In einem Brief an Ben Gurion hatte Chizik vorher bereits berichtet, wie \u00bbeine Gruppe Soldaten in ein Haus st\u00fcrmte, den Vater t\u00f6tete, die Mutter verwundete und die Tochter vergewaltigte\u00ab.\n\nAus Orten, wo es au\u00dfenstehende Beobachter gab, ist uns nat\u00fcrlich mehr \u00fcber Vergewaltigungsf\u00e4lle bekannt, was aber nicht hei\u00dft, dass andernorts keine Frauen vergewaltigt wurden. Ein anderer Rotkreuzbericht schildert einen abscheulichen Vorfall, der am 9. Dezember 1948 begann, als zwei j\u00fcdische Soldaten das Haus von al-Hajj Suleiman Daud st\u00fcrmten, der nach seiner Vertreibung mit seiner Familie in Shaqara untergekommen war. Die Soldaten schlugen seine Frau und entf\u00fchrten seine 18-j\u00e4hrige Tochter. Erst 17 Tage sp\u00e4ter gelang es dem Vater, zu einem israelischen Leutnant vorzudringen, um sich bei ihm zu beschweren. Die Vergewaltiger geh\u00f6rten offenbar zur Brigade Sieben. Was in den 17 Tagen geschah, bis das M\u00e4dchen wieder freikam, wurde nie aufgekl\u00e4rt, und so muss man wohl das Schlimmste vermuten.\n\nDie zweite Quelle sind israelische Archive, die allerdings nur F\u00e4lle enthalten, in denen die Vergewaltiger angeklagt wurden. Offenbar wurde David Ben Gurion \u00fcber jeden dieser F\u00e4lle informiert und trug sie in sein Tagebuch ein. Alle paar Tage findet sich dort eine Rubrik: \u00bbVergewaltigungsf\u00e4lle\u00ab. Einer dieser Eintr\u00e4ge schildert den Zwischenfall, von dem Chizik ihm berichtet hatte: \u00bbEin Fall in Akko, wo Soldaten ein M\u00e4dchen vergewaltigen wollten. Sie t\u00f6teten den Vater und verwundeten die Mutter, und die Offiziere deckten sie. Mindestens ein Soldat vergewaltigte das M\u00e4dchen.\u00ab\n\nJaffa war offenbar eine Brutst\u00e4tte f\u00fcr Grausamkeiten und Kriegsverbrechen israelischer Truppen. Vor allem das 3. Bataillon \u2013 unter demselben Kommandeur, unter dessen F\u00fchrung die Soldaten bereits Massaker in Khisas und Sa'sa ver\u00fcbt und Safad und Umgebung ethnisch ges\u00e4ubert hatten \u2013 f\u00fchrte sich so wild auf, dass man bei den meisten Vergewaltigungsf\u00e4llen in der Stadt eine Verbindung zu seinen Soldaten vermutete und das Oberkommando es f\u00fcr das Beste hielt, sie aus der Stadt abzuziehen. In anderen Einheiten kamen in den ersten drei bis vier Monaten der Besatzung nicht weniger \u00dcbergriffe auf Frauen vor. Die schlimmste Phase war gegen Ende der ersten Waffenruhe (8. Juli 1948), als sogar Ben Gurion \u00fcber die Verhaltensmuster \u2013 besonders die privaten Pl\u00fcnderungen und die Vergewaltigungsf\u00e4lle \u2013, die sich unter den Soldaten in den besetzten St\u00e4dten abzeichneten, so besorgt war, dass er beschloss, bestimmte Armeeeinheiten nicht nach Nazareth zu lassen, nachdem seine Truppen die Stadt im \u00bbZehn-Tage-Krieg\u00ab eingenommen hatten.\n\nUnsere dritte Quelle sind m\u00fcndliche Berichte von T\u00e4tern wie auch von Opfern. Etwas \u00fcber die Fakten zu erfahren ist im Fall der T\u00e4ter sehr schwierig und im Fall der Opfer nahezu unm\u00f6glich. Aber schon jetzt haben ihre Schilderungen dazu beigetragen, einige der unmenschlichsten Verbrechen w\u00e4hrend des Krieges zu erhellen, den Israel gegen das pal\u00e4stinensische Volk gef\u00fchrt hat.\n\nDie T\u00e4ter k\u00f6nnen offenbar erst aus dem sicheren Abstand der Jahre \u00fcber ihre Taten sprechen. So kam k\u00fcrzlich ein besonders abscheulicher Fall ans Licht. Am 12. August 1949 nahm ein Zug Soldaten, der im Kibbutz Nirim im Negev, nicht weit von Beit Hanun, am Nordrand des heutigen Gazastreifens stationiert war, ein zw\u00f6lfj\u00e4hriges M\u00e4dchen gefangen und sperrte es in seiner Milit\u00e4rbasis in der N\u00e4he des Kibbuz ein. In den n\u00e4chsten Tagen missbrauchten die Soldaten das M\u00e4dchen als Sexsklavin, rasierten ihm den Kopf, vergewaltigten es kollektiv und ermordeten es schlie\u00dflich. Auch diese Vergewaltigung f\u00fchrte Ben Gurion in seinem Tagebuch auf, aber die Herausgeber strichen den Eintrag bei der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung. Am 29. Oktober 2003 berichtete die israelische Tageszeitung _Ha'aretz_ aufgrund von Aussagen der Vergewaltiger \u00fcber den Vorfall: An der barbarischen Folterung und Hinrichtung des M\u00e4dchens hatten sich 22 Soldaten beteiligt. Als ihnen daraufhin der Prozess gemacht wurde, verh\u00e4ngte das Gericht als h\u00e4rteste Strafe eine zweij\u00e4hrige Gef\u00e4ngnisstrafe f\u00fcr den Soldaten, der das M\u00e4dchen letztlich get\u00f6tet hatte.\n\nWie m\u00fcndliche Berichte enth\u00fcllten, kam es auch bei der Besetzung der l\u00e4ndlichen Gebiete Pal\u00e4stinas immer wieder zu Vergewaltigungen: von Tantura im Mai \u00fcber Qula im Juni bis zu zahlreichen Misshandlungen und Vergewaltigungen in den D\u00f6rfern, die w\u00e4hrend der Operation Hiram eingenommen wurden. Viele dieser F\u00e4lle konnten UN-Vertreter in Gespr\u00e4chen mit Frauen erh\u00e4rten, die bereit waren, \u00fcber ihre Erlebnisse zu sprechen. Noch Jahre sp\u00e4ter zeigte sich in Interviews mit einigen dieser M\u00e4nner und Frauen aus den D\u00f6rfern, dass es ihnen offenkundig schwer fiel, \u00fcber Namen und Einzelheiten solcher F\u00e4lle zu sprechen; die Interviewer hatten den Eindruck, dass alle mehr wussten, als sie sagen wollten oder konnten.\n\nAugenzeugen schilderten auch, wie abgefeimt und dem\u00fctigend Soldaten die Frauen ihres gesamten Schmucks beraubten. Anschlie\u00dfend schikanierten sie diese Frauen auch k\u00f6rperlich, was in Tantura mit Vergewaltigungen endete. Najiah Ayyub berichtete: \u00bbIch sah, dass die Soldaten, die uns umstellt hatten, die Frauen zu fassen versuchten, aber von ihnen zur\u00fcckgesto\u00dfen wurden. Als sie sahen, dass die Frauen sich nichts gefallen lie\u00dfen, h\u00f6rten sie auf. Als wir am Strand waren, holten sie zwei Frauen, versuchten sie auszuziehen und behaupteten, sie m\u00fcssten sie durchsuchen.\u00ab\n\nTradition, Scham und Traumatisierung sind die kulturellen und psychischen Barrieren, die verhindern, dass wir umfassendere Erkenntnisse \u00fcber die Vergewaltigungen pal\u00e4stinensischer Frauen gewinnen, die j\u00fcdische Truppen im Zuge der Pl\u00fcnderungen zwischen 1948 und 1949 auf dem Land und in den St\u00e4dten Pal\u00e4stinas begingen. Vielleicht wird man im Laufe der Zeit dieses Kapitel in der Chronik der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas durch Israel vervollst\u00e4ndigen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nTeilen der Beute\n\nAls der Sturm des Krieges sich gelegt und der neu gegr\u00fcndete Staat Israel mit seinen Nachbarn Waffenstillstandsabkommen geschlossen hatte, lockerte die israelische Regierung ihr Besatzungsregime etwas, setzte den Pl\u00fcnderungen allm\u00e4hlich ein Ende und h\u00f6rte auf, die verbliebenen kleinen Gruppen von Pal\u00e4stinensern in den St\u00e4dten zu ghettoisieren. Im August 1948 entstand ein neues Gremium, das sich um die Folgen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung k\u00fcmmern sollte, der \u00bbAusschuss f\u00fcr arabische Angelegenheiten\u00ab. Wie schon zuvor erwies sich Bechor Shitrit gemeinsam mit Israels erstem Au\u00dfenminister Moshe Sharett, als humanere Stimme unter seinen Kollegen in diesem Ausschuss, in dem auch einige ehemalige Mitglieder der Beratergruppe sa\u00dfen. Dass ihm Yaacov Shimoni, Gad Machnes, Ezra Danin und Yossef Weitz angeh\u00f6rten, die alle federf\u00fchrend an den Vertreibungspl\u00e4nen mitgewirkt hatten, h\u00e4tte die im Land verbliebenen Pal\u00e4stinenser sicher beunruhigt, wenn sie es gewusst h\u00e4tten.\n\nIm August befasste sich dieser neue Ausschuss haupts\u00e4chlich mit dem wachsenden internationalen Druck auf Israel, die R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu erlauben. Er entschloss sich zu der Taktik, f\u00fcr ein Umsiedlungsprogramm einzutreten, das seiner Ansicht nach jeder Konfrontation in dieser Frage vorgreifen w\u00fcrde, da es bei den Hauptspielern in der internationalen Gemeinschaft entweder Unterst\u00fctzung finden oder sie veranlassen w\u00fcrde, diese Frage ganz fallen zu lassen, was noch besser w\u00e4re. Das israelische Angebot sah vor, alle pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge in Syrien, Jordanien und dem Libanon anzusiedeln. Der Vorschlag kam nicht \u00fcberraschend, da man ihn bereits 1944 in einer Sitzung der Jewish Agency besprochen hatte. Ben Gurion meinte: \u00bbDie Umsiedlung von Arabern ist einfacher als die Umsiedlung anderer. Rundherum sind arabische Staaten ... Und es ist klar, wenn die [pal\u00e4stinensischen] Araber umgesiedelt werden, d\u00fcrfte das ihre Lage verbessern und nicht umgekehrt.\u00ab Moshe Sharett stellte fest: \u00bbWenn der j\u00fcdische Staat gegr\u00fcndet wird \u2013 ist es sehr wahrscheinlich, dass das Resultat eine Umsiedlung von Arabern sein wird.\u00ab Obwohl die USA und Gro\u00dfbritannien damals positiv auf diese Politik reagierten \u2013 die alle nachfolgenden Regierungen Israels als g\u00e4ngige Argumentation beibehalten haben \u2013, waren weder sie noch der Rest der Welt offenbar interessiert, allzu viel M\u00fche darauf zu verwenden bzw. f\u00fcr die Umsetzung der UN-Resolution 194 einzutreten, die eine uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehr der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge verlangte. Wie Israel gehofft hatte, geriet das Schicksal der Fl\u00fcchtlinge, ganz zu schweigen von ihren Rechten, schon bald aus dem Blickfeld.\n\nAber R\u00fcckkehr oder Umsiedlung war nicht die einzige Frage. Au\u00dferdem gab es noch das Problem der Gelder, die die 1,3 Millionen Pal\u00e4stinenser noch als B\u00fcrger des Mandatsgebiets Pal\u00e4stina in Banken und Institutionen angelegt hatten, die die israelischen Beh\u00f6rden nach Mai 1948 alle konfisziert hatten. Israels Umsiedlungsvorschlag regelte auch nicht die Frage, was mit den pal\u00e4stinensischen Verm\u00f6genswerten geschehen sollte, die sich nun in israelischer Hand befanden. Dem Ausschuss geh\u00f6rte auch David Horowitz an, der erste Pr\u00e4sident der Nationalbank, und er sch\u00e4tzte den Gesamtwert des \u00bbvon den Arabern hinterlassenen\u00ab Verm\u00f6gens auf 100 Millionen Pfund. Um eine Verstrickung in internationale Pr\u00fcfungen und Untersuchungen zu vermeiden, schlug er als L\u00f6sung vor: \u00bbVielleicht k\u00f6nnen wir es an amerikanische Juden verkaufen?\u00ab\n\nEin weiteres Problem war das Ackerland, das die Pal\u00e4stinenser hatten im Stich lassen m\u00fcssen. Wieder war es Bechor Shitrit, der naiv in der Ausschusssitzung laut dar\u00fcber nachdachte: \u00bbEs sind vermutlich eine Million Dunam Ackerland. Nach V\u00f6lkerrecht k\u00f6nnen wir nichts verkaufen, also vielleicht sollten wir es den Arabern abkaufen, die nicht zur\u00fcckkommen wollen.\u00ab Yossef Weitz fiel ihm ohne Umst\u00e4nde ins Wort: \u00bbMit dem Ackerland wird nicht anders verfahren als mit dem ganzen Grund, auf dem die D\u00f6rfer standen.\u00ab Weitz empfahl, die L\u00f6sung m\u00fcsse das gesamte Territorium abdecken: alle Dorffl\u00e4chen, ob Ackerland oder Wohngebiete, sowie die st\u00e4dtischen Areale.\n\nIm Gegensatz zu Shitrit wusste Weitz Bescheid. Seine offizielle Position als Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung beim J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds und des ad hoc gebildeten \u00bbTransferkomitees\u00ab waren miteinander verschmolzen, sobald die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen begonnen hatten. Weitz hatte jede einzelne Eroberung in den l\u00e4ndlichen Gebieten genauestens verfolgt, entweder pers\u00f6nlich oder durch loyale Beamte wie seinen engen Mitarbeiter Yossef Nachmani. W\u00e4hrend die j\u00fcdischen Truppen f\u00fcr die Vertreibung der Menschen und die Zerst\u00f6rung ihrer H\u00e4user zust\u00e4ndig waren, hatte Weitz daf\u00fcr gesorgt, dass die D\u00f6rfer unter Treuhandverwaltung des J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds kamen.\n\nDieser Vorschlag erschreckte Shitrit noch mehr, da er bedeutete, dass Israel sich das Dreifache der einen Million Dunam Land, an die er urspr\u00fcnglich gedacht hatte, seiner Ansicht nach illegal aneignen w\u00fcrde. Weitz' n\u00e4chster Vorschlag war noch alarmierender f\u00fcr jemanden, der f\u00fcr V\u00f6lkerrecht oder Legalit\u00e4t sensibel war. Der Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung des J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbAlles, was wir brauchen, sind 400 Traktoren, jeder Traktor kann 3000 Dunam bearbeiten \u2013 nicht nur bearbeiten, um Nahrungsmittel zu produzieren, sondern auch um zu verhindern, dass jemand auf sein Land zur\u00fcckkehrt. Land minderer Qualit\u00e4t sollte an den privaten oder \u00f6ffentlichen Sektor verkauft werden.\u00ab\n\nShitrit versuchte es noch einmal: \u00bbSagen wir wenigstens, dass diese Enteignung im Tausch gegen das Verm\u00f6gen erfolgt, das die Juden aus der arabischen Welt verloren haben, als sie nach Pal\u00e4stina eingewandert sind.\u00ab Die Zahl der j\u00fcdischen Einwanderer war damals recht begrenzt, aber die Vorstellung eines \u00bbTauschs\u00ab gefiel sp\u00e4ter dem israelischen Au\u00dfenministerium so gut, dass seine Propagandamaschinerie sie h\u00e4ufig in ihren vergeblichen Versuchen einsetzte, die Debatte \u00fcber das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge abzuw\u00fcrgen. Im August 1948 lie\u00df man Shitrits Idee jedoch fallen, weil sie die Gefahr barg, Israel mit Zwangsumsiedlungen in Verbindung zu bringen. Yaacov Shimoni warnte: \u00d6ffentlich eine solche wechselseitige Enteignung zu erkl\u00e4ren w\u00fcrde unweigerlich die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Vertreibungen \u2013 er nannte sie \u00bbTransfer\u00ab \u2013 lenken, die Israel in Pal\u00e4stina betrieben hatte.\n\nAllm\u00e4hlich wurde Ben Gurion ungeduldig. Ihm war klar, dass so heikle Angelegenheiten wie die Schaffung vollendeter Tatsachen, um drohenden internationalen Sanktionen zuvorzukommen \u2013 zum Beispiel H\u00e4user abzurei\u00dfen, damit niemand Israel zwingen konnte, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Eigent\u00fcmer zur\u00fcckkehren zu lassen \u2013, keine Aufgabe f\u00fcr ein so schwerf\u00e4lliges Gremium wie den Ausschuss f\u00fcr arabische Angelegenheiten war. Also beschloss er, Danin und Weitz in einen Ausschuss aus zwei Personen zu berufen, der von nun an alle Entscheidungen \u00fcber pal\u00e4stinensische Verm\u00f6gen und Grundbesitz treffen sollte \u2013 Entscheidungen, die vor allem Zerst\u00f6rung und Enteignung bedeuteten.\n\nF\u00fcr eine kurze Zeit zeigte die amerikanische Regierung ausnahmsweise einmal Interesse an diesem Thema. In einem atypischen Vorgehen dominierten Vertreter des US-Au\u00dfenministeriums die Politik in der Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage, w\u00e4hrend das Wei\u00dfe Haus sich offenbar bedeckt hielt. Das unvermeidliche Ergebnis war eine wachsende Unzufriedenheit mit der israelischen Grundhaltung. Die US-Experten sahen keine legale Alternative zur R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge und waren \u00e4u\u00dferst irritiert \u00fcber Israels Weigerung, \u00fcber diese M\u00f6glichkeit auch nur zu diskutieren. Im Mai 1949 \u00fcbermittelte das US-Au\u00dfenministerium der israelischen Regierung eine energische Botschaft, dass es in der R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge eine Vorbedingung f\u00fcr Frieden sehe. Als die israelische Ablehnung kam, drohte die US-Administration Israel mit Sanktionen und hielt einen zugesagten Kredit zur\u00fcck. Daraufhin schlug Israel zun\u00e4chst vor, 75000 Fl\u00fcchtlinge aufzunehmen und f\u00fcr weitere 25000 eine Familienzusammenf\u00fchrung zu erlauben. Als Washington das nicht f\u00fcr ausreichend hielt, bot die israelische Regierung an, den Gazastreifen mit seinen 90000 Einheimischen und 200000 Fl\u00fcchtlingen einzugliedern. Beide Vorschl\u00e4ge waren eher d\u00fcrftig, aber mittlerweile f\u00fchrte ein Personalwechsel im US-Au\u00dfenministerium im Fr\u00fchjahr 1949 zu einem Kurswechsel in der amerikanischen Pal\u00e4stinapolitik, die nun die Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage ausklammerte, wenn nicht gar v\u00f6llig ignorierte.\n\nIn dieser kurzen Periode amerikanischen Drucks (von April bis Mai 1949) bestand Ben Gurions Reaktion im Grunde darin, die Ansiedlung j\u00fcdischer Einwanderer auf konfisziertem Land und in ger\u00e4umten H\u00e4usern zu intensivieren. Als Sharett und Kaplan aus Angst vor einer internationalen Verurteilung eines solchen Vorgehens Einw\u00e4nde erhoben, schuf Ben Gurion wieder ein exklusives Gremium, das schon bald Hunderttausende j\u00fcdischer Einwanderer aus Europa und der arabischen Welt ermunterte, Besitz von leerstehenden H\u00e4usern der Pal\u00e4stinenser in St\u00e4dten und Gemeinden zu nehmen und Siedlungen auf den Tr\u00fcmmern zwangsger\u00e4umter D\u00f6rfer zu errichten.\n\nDie Aneignung pal\u00e4stinensischer Verm\u00f6gen sollte eigentlich nach einem systematischen nationalen Programm erfolgen, aber Ende September gab Ben Gurion die Idee einer geordneten \u00dcbernahme in gr\u00f6\u00dferen St\u00e4dten wie Jaffa, Jerusalem und Haifa auf. Als ebenso unm\u00f6glich erwies es sich, den Ansturm gieriger Bauern und staatlicher Stellen auf die enteigneten D\u00f6rfer und L\u00e4ndereien zu koordinieren. F\u00fcr die Verteilung von Land war der J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds (JNF) zust\u00e4ndig. Nach dem Krieg 1948 erhielten andere Gremien \u00e4hnliche Befugnisse, unter denen der Verm\u00f6gensverwalter der wichtigste war (dazu unten mehr). Der JNF musste feststellen, dass er als Hauptverteiler der Kriegsbeute Konkurrenz bekommen hatte. Im Endergebnis setzte er sich zwar durch, aber es brauchte seine Zeit. Alles in allem hatte Israel 3,5 Millionen Dunam Land [1 Dunam = 10 Ar] in Pal\u00e4stina \u00fcbernommen. In diese Sch\u00e4tzung von 1948 flossen s\u00e4mtliche H\u00e4user und Felder der zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer ein. Es dauerte eine Weile, bis sich eine klare zentralisierte Politik herauskristallisierte, wie man diese Fl\u00e4chen am besten nutzen sollte. Ben Gurion z\u00f6gerte eine endg\u00fcltige \u00dcbernahme durch private oder \u00f6ffentliche j\u00fcdische Institutionen hinaus, solange die Vereinten Nationen noch \u00fcber das Schicksal der Fl\u00fcchtlinge diskutierten, zun\u00e4chst 1949 in Lausanne und sp\u00e4ter in einer Reihe von Aussch\u00fcssen, die sich ergebnislos mit der Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage befassten. Ihm war klar, dass eine f\u00f6rmliche, rechtsverbindliche \u00dcbernahme pal\u00e4stinensischer Verm\u00f6gen durch Israel Probleme verursachen w\u00fcrde, nachdem die UN-Vollversammlung am 11. Dezember 1948 Resolution 194 verabschiedet hatte, die ein uneingeschr\u00e4nktes R\u00fcckkehrrecht f\u00fcr alle pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge forderte.\n\nUm internationale Ver\u00e4rgerung \u00fcber eine kollektive Enteignung zu vermeiden, setzte die israelische Regierung bis zu einer endg\u00fcltigen Entscheidung einen \u00bbVerm\u00f6gensverwalter\u00ab f\u00fcr die neu erworbenen Verm\u00f6genswerte ein. Wie es typisch f\u00fcr das fr\u00fchere zionistische Vorgehen war, hielt die Politik an dieser \u00bbpragmatischen\u00ab L\u00f6sung fest, bis eine \u00bbstrategische\u00ab Entscheidung \u00fcber eine \u00c4nderung folgte (d.h. bis der Status der enteigneten Verm\u00f6gen umdefiniert wurde). Die israelische Regierung schuf also das Amt des Verm\u00f6gensverwalters, um m\u00f6gliche negative Auswirkungen der UN-Resolution 194 abzuwehren, die allen Fl\u00fcchtlingen die R\u00fcckkehr und\/oder eine Entsch\u00e4digung zugestand. Indem die israelische Regierung alle Privatverm\u00f6gen und das gesamte Gemeineigentum der vertriebenen Pal\u00e4stinenser ihrer Verwaltung unterstellte, konnte sie diese Verm\u00f6genswerte sp\u00e4ter unter dem fadenscheinigen Vorwand, niemand habe Anspr\u00fcche darauf erhoben, an \u00f6ffentliche oder private j\u00fcdische Gruppen oder Personen verkaufen, was sie denn auch tat. Sobald der konfiszierte Grundbesitz pal\u00e4stinensischer Eigent\u00fcmer unter staatliche Verwaltung gestellt war, wurde er au\u00dferdem zu Staatsland, das rechtm\u00e4\u00dfig der j\u00fcdischen Nation geh\u00f6rte und somit nicht an Araber verkauft werden durfte.\n\nDieser rechtliche Taschenspielertrick erm\u00f6glichte \u00bbtaktische\u00ab Interimsl\u00f6sungen, solange keine endg\u00fcltige Entscheidung \u00fcber die Verteilung des Landes gefallen war, etwa Teile des Landes der IDF, neuen Einwanderern oder (zu g\u00fcnstigen Konditionen) den Kibbuzbewegungen zu \u00fcberlassen. In dem Gerangel um die Beute sah sich der JNF einem harten Wettbewerb mit allen diesen \u00bbKlienten\u00ab ausgesetzt. Anfangs schlug er sich gut und brachte fast alle zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer mit s\u00e4mtlichen H\u00e4usern und L\u00e4ndereien an sich. Im Dezember 1948 verkaufte der Verm\u00f6gensverwalter von den insgesamt 3,5 Millionen Dunam Land eine Million Dunam zu einem Sonderpreis direkt an den JNF. Eine weitere Viertel Million Dunam gab er 1949 an den JNF weiter.\n\nGeldmangel setzte dann der Uners\u00e4ttlichkeit des JNF Grenzen. Was der JNF nicht kaufte, teilten sich die drei Kibbuzbewegungen, die Moschawim-Bewegung und private Immobilienh\u00e4ndler nur zu gern. Als gierigste unter ihnen erwies sich die linke Kibbuzbewegung Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir, die zur Mapam geh\u00f6rte, also der Vereinigten Arbeiterpartei links von Israels Regierungspartei Mapai. Die Mitglieder von Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir gaben sich nicht mit dem Land zufrieden, von dem die Bev\u00f6lkerung bereits vertrieben war, sondern wollten auch Fl\u00e4chen, deren pal\u00e4stinensische Eigent\u00fcmer die Angriffe \u00fcberlebt hatten und verbissen daran festhielten. Folglich verlangten sie nun, dass diese Leute ebenfalls vertrieben wurden, obwohl die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen offiziell beendet waren. Alle diese Mitwerber mussten allerdings hinter den Anspr\u00fcchen der israelischen Armee zur\u00fcckstehen, die gro\u00dfe Areale f\u00fcr Milit\u00e4rlager und Trainingszwecke beanspruchte. Dennoch befand sich 1950 noch immer die H\u00e4lfte der enteigneten L\u00e4ndereien in der Hand des JNF.\n\nIn der ersten Januarwoche 1949 besiedelten j\u00fcdische Kolonisten die Ortschaften Kuwaykat, Ras al-Naqara, Birwa, Safsaf, Sa'sa und Lajjun. Auf dem Gebiet anderer Orte wie Malul und Jalama im Norden errichteten die IDF Milit\u00e4rst\u00fctzpunkte. In mancherlei Hinsicht sahen die neuen Siedlungen nicht viel anders aus als die Armeest\u00fctzpunkte: neue Festungen, wo fr\u00fcher Bauern Ackerbau und Viehzucht betrieben hatten.\n\nDie Israelis gestalteten die gesamte Kulturlandschaft Pal\u00e4stinas um. Sie nahmen den St\u00e4dten ihren arabischen Charakter, indem sie gro\u00dfe Teile zerst\u00f6rten, darunter den weitl\u00e4ufigen Park in Jaffa und Gemeindezentren in Jerusalem. Diese Transformation war von dem Wunsch getrieben, Geschichte und Kultur einer Nation auszul\u00f6schen und durch eine vorfabrizierte andere Version zu ersetzen, aus der s\u00e4mtliche Spuren der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung getilgt waren.\n\nHaifa war ein solcher Fall. Bereits am 1. Mai 1948 (am 23. April war Haifa besetzt worden) schrieben offizielle zionistische Vertreter an Ben Gurion, ihnen b\u00f6te sich die \u00bbhistorische Chance\u00ab, Haifas arabischen Charakter zu ver\u00e4ndern. Daf\u00fcr sei es lediglich notwendig \u00bb227 H\u00e4user abzurei\u00dfen\u00ab, wie sie erkl\u00e4rten. Ben Gurion besuchte die Stadt, um das geplante Abrissgebiet selbst zu inspizieren, und ordnete auch den Abriss der Markthalle an, die zu den sch\u00f6nsten Bauwerken ihrer Art geh\u00f6rte. \u00c4hnliche Entscheidungen fielen auch in Tiberias, wo ebenso wie in Jaffa und Jerusalem fast 500 H\u00e4user abgerissen wurden. Die Sensibilit\u00e4t, die Ben Gurion hier hinsichtlich der Moscheen an den Tag legte, war ungew\u00f6hnlich \u2013 eine Ausnahme, die die Regel best\u00e4tigte. Israels offizielle Pl\u00fcnderungen machten nicht vor heiligen St\u00e4tten Halt, schon gar nicht vor Moscheen, die zu den neu erworbenen Verm\u00f6genswerten geh\u00f6rten.\n\nEntweihung heiliger St\u00e4tten\n\nBis 1948 waren alle heiligen St\u00e4tten in Pal\u00e4stina religi\u00f6se islamische Stiftungen (Waqf), die sowohl vom Osmanischen Reich als auch von der britischen Mandatsverwaltung anerkannt wurden. Ihre Leitung lag beim Obersten muslimischen Rat Pal\u00e4stinas, einem Gremium religi\u00f6ser W\u00fcrdentr\u00e4ger, an dessen Spitze al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni stand. Nach 1948 konfiszierte Israel alle diese Stiftungen mit s\u00e4mtlichen dazugeh\u00f6rigen Verm\u00f6genswerten, transferierte sie zun\u00e4chst an den Verm\u00f6gensverwalter, dann an den Staat und verkaufte sie schlie\u00dflich an j\u00fcdische \u00f6ffentliche Institutionen oder Privatpersonen.\n\nAuch die christlichen Kirchen waren gegen diesen Landraub nicht gefeit. Ein gro\u00dfer Teil des kirchlichen Grundbesitzes in den Ortschaften wurde ebenso konfisziert wie die Waqf-Stiftungen, auch wenn eine ganze Reihe Kirchen im Gegensatz zur \u00fcberwiegenden Mehrzahl der Moscheen intakt blieben. Viele Kirchen und Moscheen riss man nie ab, sondern lie\u00df sie als \u00bbalte\u00ab historische Ruinen verfallen, \u00dcberreste einer \u00bbVergangenheit\u00ab, die an Israels Zerst\u00f6rungskraft erinnern sollten. Unter diesen heiligen St\u00e4tten befanden sich jedoch einige der imposantesten architektonischen Sch\u00e4tze Pal\u00e4stinas, die f\u00fcr immer verloren gingen: Masjad al-Khayriyya verschwand unter der Stadt Givatayim, und die Tr\u00fcmmer der Kirche von Birwa liegen unter den \u00c4ckern der j\u00fcdischen Siedlung Ahihud begraben. Auch die Moschee in Sarafand an der K\u00fcste bei Haifa (nicht zu verwechseln mit dem Sarafand im pal\u00e4stinensischen Binnenland, wo sich ein gro\u00dfer britischer Milit\u00e4rst\u00fctzpunkt befand) war ein Zeugnis islamischer Baukunst. Sie war hundert Jahre alt, als der israelische Staat am 25. Juli 2000 die Genehmigung f\u00fcr ihren Abriss erteilte, ohne einer Petition an den damaligen Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten, Ehud Barak, Beachtung zu schenken, die ihn eindringlich bat, diesen Akt staatlichen Vandalismus nicht zuzulassen.\n\nR\u00fcckblickend erwies sich jedoch der Missbrauch ihrer heiligen St\u00e4tten als besonders schmerzlich f\u00fcr eine pal\u00e4stinensische Gemeinde, die in ihrer \u00fcberwiegenden Mehrheit Trost und Halt in ihrer Religion und Tradition fand. Die Israelis machten aus den Moscheen in Majdal und Qisarya Restaurants und in Beersheba einen Laden. In Ayn Hawd beherbergt die ehemalige Moschee heute eine Bar, in Zib ist sie Teil einer Ferienanlage und geh\u00f6rt der staatlichen Nationalparkverwaltung. Einige Moscheen blieben intakt, bis die israelischen Beh\u00f6rden glaubten, die Zeit habe sie von der Verpflichtung entbunden, sie als heilige St\u00e4tten zu sch\u00fctzen. So wurde die Moschee von Ayn al-Zaytun noch 2004 in eine Milchviehfarm umgewandelt. Der j\u00fcdische Besitzer entfernte den Stein mit der Jahreszahl der Grundsteinlegung und bedeckte die W\u00e4nde mit hebr\u00e4ischen Graffiti. Dagegen geriet die israelische Regierung im August 2005 unter scharfe Kritik von Medien, \u00d6ffentlichkeit und Politikern, als sie beschloss, die Synagogen in den ger\u00e4umten israelischen Siedlungen im Gazastreifen den Pal\u00e4stinensern zu \u00fcberlassen. Als es unweigerlich zur Zerst\u00f6rung dieser Synagogen kam \u2013 Betonbauten, aus denen die Siedler vor der R\u00e4umung alle religi\u00f6sen Gegenst\u00e4nde entfernt hatten \u2013, wurde in Israel ein allgemeiner Aufschrei der Entr\u00fcstung laut.\n\nWas die noch erhaltenen muslimischen Sakralbauten und christlichen Kirchen angeht, so sind sie oft nicht zug\u00e4nglich. Die Kirche und die Moschee in Suhmata sind noch heute zu sehen, aber wer dort beten oder sie besichtigen m\u00f6chte, muss das Gel\u00e4nde j\u00fcdischer Bauernh\u00f6fe \u00fcberqueren und l\u00e4uft Gefahr, sich eine Anzeige wegen unbefugten Betretens einzuhandeln. Das Gleiche gilt f\u00fcr den Besuch der Moschee Balad al-Shaykh bei Haifa; und auch zu der Moschee von Khalsa, die heute in der Rei\u00dfbrettstadt Qiryat Shemona steht, ist Muslimen der Zugang verwehrt. Die Einwohner von Kerem Maharal weigern sich bis heute, den Zutritt zu der sch\u00f6nen Moschee aus dem 19. Jahrhundert zu erlauben, die fr\u00fcher im Ortszentrum von Ijzim, einem der reichsten Orte Pal\u00e4stinas, stand.\n\nManchmal ist beh\u00f6rdliche Manipulation im Spiel, um den Zugang zu heiligen St\u00e4tten zu verwehren, wie es bei der Hittin-Moschee der Fall war. Der \u00dcberlieferung nach baute Saladin dieses erstaunliche Bauwerk 1187 mitten im Ort zum Andenken an seinen Sieg \u00fcber die Kreuzfahrer. Vor nicht allzu langer Zeit wollte der 73-j\u00e4hrige Abu Jamal aus Deir Hanna mit einem Sommerlager f\u00fcr pal\u00e4stinensische Kinder dazu beitragen, die Moschee zu alter Pracht zu restaurieren und als Kultst\u00e4tte wiederzuer\u00f6ffnen. Aber das Bildungsministerium legte ihn herein: Leitende Beamte versprachen Abu Jamal, wenn er das Ferienlager absage, werde das Ministerium Geld f\u00fcr die Restaurierungsarbeiten bereitstellen. Als er auf das Angebot einging, riegelte das Ministerium das Gel\u00e4nde mit Stacheldraht ab wie eine Hochsicherheitsanlage. Anschlie\u00dfend trugen Kibbuzniks aus der Umgebung s\u00e4mtliche Steine des Geb\u00e4udes ab, einschlie\u00dflich des Grundsteins, und nutzen das Land nun als Weide f\u00fcr ihre Schafe und K\u00fche.\n\nDie folgende Liste vermittelt einen knappen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber Vorf\u00e4lle aus dem letzten Jahrzehnt: J\u00fcdische Fanatiker sprengten 1993 die Nabi-Rubin-Moschee. Im Februar 2000 wurde die Wadi-Hawarith-Moschee verw\u00fcstet, nachdem muslimische Freiwillige gerade zwei Wochen zuvor die Restaurierung des Geb\u00e4udes abgeschlossen hatten. Einige restaurierte Moscheen fielen schierem Vandalismus zum Opfer. Der Maqam Shaykh Shehadehs in dem zerst\u00f6rten Dorf Ayn Ghazal brannte 2002 nieder, und die Araba'in-Moschee in Baysan wurde im M\u00e4rz 2004 durch Brandstiftung zerst\u00f6rt. \u00c4hnliche Anschl\u00e4ge richteten im Juni 2004 erhebliche Sch\u00e4den an den Moscheen al-Umari und al-Bahr in Tiberias an. In Jaffa bewarfen die Leute die Hasan-Beik-Moschee mit Steinen, und einmal wurde sie durch einen Schweinekopf entweiht, den man mit dem Namen des Propheten versehen und in den Hof geworfen hatte. Bulldozer beseitigten 2003 s\u00e4mtliche Spuren der al-Salam-Moschee (\u00bbFriedensmoschee) in Zarughara, die man erst ein halbes Jahr zuvor wiederaufgebaut hatte, und 2005 verw\u00fcsteten Unbekannte den Maqam Shaykh Sam'ans bei Kfar Saba.\n\nAndere Moscheen widmete man in j\u00fcdische Gottesh\u00e4user um wie in den ikonoklastischen Zeiten des Mittelalters. Die Moscheen in Wadi Unayn und Yazur sind heute ebenso Synagogen wie die Moscheen im Maqam von Samakiyya in Tiberias und in den D\u00f6rfern Kfar Inan und Daliyya. Auch die Mosche von Abbasiyya in der N\u00e4he des Ben-Gurion-Flughafens diente einige Zeit als Synagoge, steht aber inzwischen leer. Heute sind die W\u00e4nde mit Graffiti beschmiert wie \u00bbT\u00f6tet die Araber!\u00ab In der Lifta-Moschee am Westrand von Jerusalem befindet sich inzwischen eine Mikweh (ein rituelles j\u00fcdisches Frauenbad).\n\nIn j\u00fcngster Zeit sind Moscheen sogenannter \u00bbnicht anerkannter D\u00f6rfer\u00ab in Israel ins Visier geraten; das ist die neueste Erscheinungsform der Enteignung, die w\u00e4hrend der Nakba begann. Da Grund und Boden in Israel nach geltendem Recht zum gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil dem \u00bbj\u00fcdischen Volk\u00ab geh\u00f6rt, aus dem pal\u00e4stinensische Staatsb\u00fcrger ausgeschlossen sind, bleibt pal\u00e4stinensischen Bauern sehr wenig Raum, zu expandieren oder neue D\u00f6rfer zu bauen. Der Staat strich 1965 s\u00e4mtliche Strukturentwicklungspl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr st\u00e4dtische und l\u00e4ndliche Gebiete der Pal\u00e4stinenser. Daraufhin begannen Pal\u00e4stinenser und vor allem die Beduinen im S\u00fcden, \u00bbillegale\u00ab D\u00f6rfer zu bauen, die selbstverst\u00e4ndlich auch Moscheen haben. Wohnh\u00e4user und Moscheen dieser D\u00f6rfer sind st\u00e4ndig vom Abriss bedroht. Die israelischen Beh\u00f6rden spielen mit den Einwohnern ein \u00e4u\u00dferst zynisches Spiel: Sie stellen sie vor die Wahl, ihre H\u00e4user oder ihre Moschee zu verlieren. In einem solchen Dorf, Husayniyya (benannt nach einem 1948 zerst\u00f6rten Ort), rettete ein langwieriger Rechtsstreit die Moschee, nicht aber das Dorf. In Kutaymat boten die Beh\u00f6rden im Oktober 2003 an, 13 H\u00e4user statt der Moschee stehen zu lassen, die sie abrissen.\n\nZementierung der Besatzung\n\nAls der internationale Druck nachlie\u00df und Israel klare Regeln f\u00fcr die Verteilung der Beute aufgestellt hatte, schuf der Ausschuss f\u00fcr arabische Angelegenheiten formale Grundlagen f\u00fcr die offizielle staatliche Haltung gegen\u00fcber den Pal\u00e4stinensern, die auf dem Territorium des neuen Staates geblieben und nun B\u00fcrger Israels waren. Diese insgesamt 150000 Pal\u00e4stinenser wurden nun zu \u00bbisraelischen Arabern\u00ab erkl\u00e4rt \u2013 als ob es sinnvoll w\u00e4re, von \u00bbsyrischen Arabern\u00ab oder \u00bbirakischen Arabern\u00ab statt von \u00bbSyrern\u00ab oder \u00bbIrakern\u00ab zu sprechen \u2013 und von keinem anderen als Menachem Begin unter Milit\u00e4rverwaltung gestellt, die auf den Notstandsverordnungen der britischen Mandatsverwaltung von 1945 basierte. Diese Bestimmungen, die mit den \u00bbN\u00fcrnberger Rassengesetzen\u00ab von 1935 vergleichbar sind, schafften Grundrechte wie Meinungs-, Bewegungs- und Organisationsfreiheit und Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz f\u00fcr \u00bbisraelische Araber\u00ab praktisch ab. Sie lie\u00dfen ihnen zwar das aktive und passive Wahlrecht f\u00fcr das israelische Parlament, allerdings mit starken Einschr\u00e4nkungen. Offiziell blieben diese Bestimmungen bis 1966 in Kraft, gelten aber im Grunde nach wie vor.\n\nDer Ausschuss f\u00fcr arabische Angelegenheiten tagte auch weiterhin, und noch 1956 bef\u00fcrworteten einige seiner prominenteren Mitglieder ernsthaft Pl\u00e4ne, die \u00bbAraber\u00ab aus Israel zu vertreiben. Bis 1953 gab es weiter massive Vertreibungen. Das letzte Dorf, das mit Waffengewalt entv\u00f6lkert wurde, war Umm al-Faraj bei Nahariyya. DieArmee marschierte dort ein, trieb alle Einwohner hinaus und zerst\u00f6rte das Dorf. Die Beduinen im Negev waren bis 1962 Vertreibungen ausgesetzt, als man den Stamm der al-Hawashli zwang, das Gebiet zu verlassen. Mitten in der Nacht schaffte man 750 Menschen auf Lastwagen fort, riss ihre H\u00e4user ab, konfiszierte die 8000 Dunam Land, die ihnen geh\u00f6rten, und gab sie Familien, die mit den israelischen Beh\u00f6rden kollaborierten. Die meisten Pl\u00e4ne, die der Ausschuss diskutierte, wurden aus verschiedenen Gr\u00fcnden nie umgesetzt. Dem pal\u00e4stinensischen Historiker Nur Masalha ist es zu verdanken, dass sie ans Licht der \u00d6ffentlichkeit kamen.\n\nH\u00e4tten nicht einige liberale israelische Politiker gegen diese Pl\u00e4ne opponiert und h\u00e4tte sich die pal\u00e4stinensische Minderheit in einigen F\u00e4llen, wo solche Vertreibungspl\u00e4ne in Gang gesetzt wurden, nicht als so standhaft erwiesen, dann w\u00e4re auch der \u00bbRest\u00ab des pal\u00e4stinensischen Volkes, der heute noch innerhalb der Grenzen des j\u00fcdischen Staates lebt, schon lange der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung zum Opfer gefallen. Aber wenngleich diese Gefahr abgewendet schien, mussten diese Menschen doch einen unsch\u00e4tzbar hohen Preis f\u00fcr ein Leben in relativer Sicherheit zahlen: den Verlust nicht nur ihres Landes, sondern mit ihm auch der Seele der pal\u00e4stinensischen Geschichte und Zukunft. Unter den Auspizien des JNF setzte sich die Aneignung pal\u00e4stinensischen Landes durch den Staat seit den 1950er Jahren kontinuierlich fort.\n\nDer Landraub: 1950 bis 2000\n\nNachdem die zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer eingeebnet waren, entschied die Siedlungsabteilung des J\u00fcdischen Nationalfonds, ob an ihrer Stelle eine j\u00fcdische Siedlung oder ein zionistischer Wald entstehen sollte. Im Juni 1948 hatte der Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung, Yossef Weitz, der israelischen Regierung berichtet: \u00bbWir haben begonnen die D\u00f6rfer zu r\u00e4umen, den Schutt zu beseitigen und sie zur Kultivierung und Besiedlung vorzubereiten. Auf einigen von ihnen werden Parks angelegt.\u00ab W\u00e4hrend er den Fortgang der Abrissarbeiten beobachtete, berichtete Weitz stolz, dass ihn der Anblick der Traktoren, die ganze D\u00f6rfer zerst\u00f6rten, unger\u00fchrt lasse. In der breiten \u00d6ffentlichkeit verbreitete man indes ein v\u00f6llig anderes Bild: Neue j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu \u00bbschaffen\u00ab, war von Parolen begleitet wie \u00bbdie W\u00fcste erbl\u00fchen lassen\u00ab, und das Aufforstungsprogramm des JNF wurde als \u00f6kologische Mission angepriesen, das Land zu begr\u00fcnen.\n\nDie Aufforstung hatte keine Priorit\u00e4t. Die Auswahl erfolgte eigentlich nicht nach einer klaren Strategie, sondern aufgrund von Ad-hoc-Entscheidungen. Zun\u00e4chst gab es die verlassenen Felder, die man sofort abernten konnte; dann gab es fruchtbares Ackerland, das in naher Zukunft Ertr\u00e4ge abwerfen konnte und an \u00bbalte\u00ab j\u00fcdische Siedlungen ging oder f\u00fcr Neugr\u00fcndungen vorgesehen wurde. Der JNF hatte, wie erw\u00e4hnt, gro\u00dfe M\u00fche, die Konkurrenz durch die Kibbuzbewegungen abzuwehren. Sie fingen schon an, die Felder benachbarter D\u00f6rfer zu bestellen, bevor sie die Genehmigung erhalten hatten, sie zu \u00fcbernehmen, und erhoben dann Besitzanspr\u00fcche aufgrund der bereits geleisteten Arbeit. In der Regel herrschte die Einstellung vor, zuerst den bestehenden j\u00fcdischen Siedlungen Land zuzuweisen, als n\u00e4chstes Fl\u00e4chen f\u00fcr den Bau neuer Siedlungen auszuweisen und erst an dritter Stelle Areale aufzuforsten.\n\nDie Knesset verabschiedete 1950 das Gesetz \u00fcber Verm\u00f6gen Abwesender, w\u00e4hrend der Verm\u00f6gensverwalter eine gewisse Ordnung in die Handhabung der Beute brachte, aber den JNF noch nicht zum alleinigen Eigent\u00fcmer machte. Auf dem Weg zur alleinigen Verf\u00fcgungsgewalt \u00fcber die neuen W\u00e4lder Israels \u2013 fast ausnahmslos auf den Ruinen pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer angelegt, die bei der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung 1948 zerst\u00f6rt wurden \u2013 errang der JNF einen Sieg \u00fcber das Landwirtschaftsministerium, das selbstverst\u00e4ndlich die Kontrolle \u00fcber die Aufforstung anstrebte. Der Staat erkannte jedoch die Vorteile, die es hatte, dem JNF nicht nur die Forstverwaltung Israels zu \u00fcbertragen, sondern ihn \u00bbim Namen des j\u00fcdischen Volkes\u00ab zum Haupttreuh\u00e4nder der gesamten L\u00e4ndereien zu machen. Von nun an war der JNF daf\u00fcr zust\u00e4ndig, \u00fcber die \u00bbJ\u00fcdischerhaltung\u00ab auch solcher L\u00e4ndereien zu wachen, die ihm nicht geh\u00f6rten, indem er jegliche Transaktionen mit Nichtjuden, namentlich mit Pal\u00e4stinensern, untersagte.\n\nHier ist nicht der Ort, n\u00e4her darauf einzugehen, auf welchen komplexen Wegen der JNF darum rang, seine Beute zu behalten. Sein vorrangiges Instrument war jedoch die Gesetzgebung. Das 1953 verabschiedete JNF-Gesetz machte ihn zum unabh\u00e4ngigen Grundbesitzer im Namen des j\u00fcdischen Staates. Dieses und eine F\u00fclle weiterer Gesetze wie das Gesetz \u00fcber Israels Landbesitz und das Gesetz \u00fcber die israelische Landverwaltung (Israel Land Authority, ILA), beide von 1960, st\u00e4rkten diese Position. Alle waren Verfassungsgesetze, die festlegten, dass der JNF kein Land an Nichtjuden verkaufen oder verpachten durfte, und schrieben endg\u00fcltig den Anteil des JNF am gesamten staatlichen Grundbesitz fest (13 Prozent); aber dahinter verbarg sich eine wesentlich komplexere Realit\u00e4t, die es dem JNF erm\u00f6glichte, seine Politik als \u00bbH\u00fcter des Landes der Nation\u00ab auch in Bereichen umzusetzen, die nicht seiner direkten Kontrolle unterstanden: Denn er spielte eine entscheidende, einflussreiche Rolle in der Leitung der ILA, die Eigent\u00fcmerin von 80 Prozent des staatlichen Grund und Bodens wurde (der Rest geh\u00f6rte dem JNF, der Armee und dem Staat).\n\nDie gesetzliche \u00dcbernahme des Landes und seine \u00dcberf\u00fchrung in JNF-Besitz fand seinen Abschluss 1967, als die Knesset ein letztes Gesetz verabschiedete, das Gesetz \u00fcber landwirtschaftliche Siedlungen, das auch die Unterverpachtung von j\u00fcdischem Land des JNF an Nichtjuden verbot (bis dahin waren nur der Verkauf und die unmittelbare Verpachtung untersagt). Au\u00dferdem stellte das Gesetz sicher, dass Wasserquoten, die JNF-Land zugeteilt sind, nicht auf Nicht-JNF-Land transferiert werden k\u00f6nnen (da Wasser in Israel knapp ist, sind ausreichende Quoten f\u00fcr die Landwirtschaft lebenswichtig).\n\nDieser b\u00fcrokratische Prozess, der sich \u00fcber fast zwei Jahrzehnte (1949\u20131967) erstreckte, bewirkte im Ergebnis, dass die gesetzlichen Regelungen, die Verkauf, Verpachtung und Unterverpachtung von JNF-Land an Nichtjuden verboten, in ihrer Geltung auf den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil des staatlichen Grundbesitzes (\u00fcber 90 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che Israels, die zu 7 Prozent in Privatbesitz ist) ausgedehnt wurden. Hauptziel dieser Gesetzgebung war zu verhindern, dass Pal\u00e4stinenser in Israel ihren eigenen Grund und Boden oder den ihres Volkes durch Kauf wieder erwarben. Aus diesem Grund erlaubte Israel der pal\u00e4stinensischen Minderheit nie, auch nur eine einzige l\u00e4ndliche Siedlung oder ein Dorf zu bauen, geschweige denn eine neue Gemeinde oder Stadt (abgesehen von drei Beduinensiedlungen, die der Staat Anfang der 1960er Jahre faktisch anerkannte, nachdem sich dort sesshaft gewordene St\u00e4mme niedergelassen hatten). Gleichzeitig konnte Israels j\u00fcdische Bev\u00f6lkerung, die eine wesentlich niedrigere Wachstumsrate besitzt, auf diesem Land so viele Siedlungen, D\u00f6rfer und St\u00e4dte bauen, wie und wo sie wollte \u2013 au\u00dfer in ausgewiesenen Forstgebieten.\n\nDie pal\u00e4stinensische Minderheit in Israel, die nach der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung 17 Prozent der Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung ausmachte, ist gezwungen, sich mit nur 3 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che zu begn\u00fcgen. Sie darf nur auf 2 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che bauen und wohnen, da das \u00fcbrige eine Prozent als landwirtschaftliche Fl\u00e4che ausgewiesen ist und nicht bebaut werden darf. Auf diesen 2 Prozent der Fl\u00e4che Israels leben heute also 1,3 Millionen Menschen. Selbst seit in den 1990er Jahren die Privatisierung von Land begonnen hat, ist diese JNF-Politik noch immer g\u00fcltig und schlie\u00dft somit die Pal\u00e4stinenser von den Vorteilen aus, die eine \u00d6ffnung des Grundst\u00fccksmarktes der breiten \u00d6ffentlichkeit, also Israels Juden, bietet. Man hat sie aber nicht nur gehindert, sich auf ihrem eigenen Land auszubreiten, sondern ihnen auch noch viel Grund und Boden genommen, der ihnen vor dem Krieg 1948 geh\u00f6rte: In den 1970er Jahren wurde viel Land konfisziert, um neue j\u00fcdische Siedlungen in Galil\u00e4a zu bauen, und Anfang der 2000er Jahre enteignete man weitere Fl\u00e4chen f\u00fcr den Bau der Sperrmauer und eine neue Autobahn. Nach Sch\u00e4tzungen einer Studie sind 70 Prozent des Grund und Bodens, der Pal\u00e4stinensern in Israel geh\u00f6rte, mittlerweile entweder konfisziert oder f\u00fcr sie unzug\u00e4nglich gemacht worden.\n\nIn Galil\u00e4a begann nach 1967 die \u2013 bislang \u2013 letzte Enteignungswelle, die mit der Konfiszierung von Land im Westjordanland vergleichbar ist; sie verfolgte das doppelte Ziel, j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu bauen und die Pal\u00e4stinenser langsam, aber sicher aus diesen Gebieten zu verdr\u00e4ngen.\n\nAnfang der 1960er Jahre, noch vor der endg\u00fcltigen Aufteilung des Landes zwischen ILA und JNF, startete der Nationalfonds die Operation _Sof-Sof_ (\u00bbendg\u00fcltig\u00ab) in dem Bestreben, den Pal\u00e4stinensern in Galil\u00e4a auch die Bodenfl\u00e4chen zu nehmen, die noch in ihrem Besitz waren. Der JNF bot an, dieses Land zu kaufen oder gegen Grundst\u00fccke minderer Qualit\u00e4t zu tauschen. Aber die Einwohner der D\u00f6rfer lehnten ab \u2013 ihre Standhaftigkeit ist eines der wahrhaft heldenhaften Kapitel im Kampf gegen die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungsaktionen der Zionisten. Daraufhin begann der JNF an den Eing\u00e4ngen zu diesen \u00bbverstockten\u00ab D\u00f6rfern spezielle milit\u00e4rische Vorposten zu errichten, um die Einwohner psychisch unter Druck zu setzen. Aber selbst mit diesen drastischen Mitteln erreichte der JNF nur in wenigen F\u00e4llen sein Ziel. Arnon Soffer, ein Geografieprofessor an der Universit\u00e4t Haifa, der enge Verbindungen zu Regierungsstellen besitzt, erkl\u00e4rte:\n\nWir waren m\u00f6rderisch, aber es war keine Bosheit um der Bosheit willen. Wir handelten aus einem Gef\u00fchl existenzieller Bedrohung heraus. Und f\u00fcr dieses Gef\u00fchl gab es objektive Gr\u00fcnde. Wir waren \u00fcberzeugt, ohne j\u00fcdische Territorialkontinuit\u00e4t, vor allem entlang der landesweiten Wasserleitung [dem Aqu\u00e4dukt, das vom See von Galil\u00e4a in den S\u00fcden des Landes f\u00fchrt], w\u00fcrden die Araber das Wasser vergiften.\n\nDass es entlang der gesamten Strecke des Aqu\u00e4dukts weder Z\u00e4une noch Wachposten gibt, l\u00e4sst Zweifel an der Ernsthaftigkeit der hier ge\u00e4u\u00dferten Sorge aufkommen. Die Notwendigkeit einer \u00bbTerritorialkontinuit\u00e4t\u00ab klingt dagegen durchaus aufrichtig: Schlie\u00dflich war sie 1948 die Haupttriebkraft f\u00fcr Israels massive Vertreibungen.\n\nDie Enteignung des pal\u00e4stinensischen Landes beschr\u00e4nkte sich nicht darauf, die rechtm\u00e4\u00dfigen Eigent\u00fcmer zu vertreiben und zu verhindern, dass sie zur\u00fcckkehren und es wieder in ihren Besitz bringen konnten. Untermauert wurde sie durch die Neuerfindung pal\u00e4stinensischer Ortschaften als rein j\u00fcdischer oder \u00bbalthebr\u00e4ischer\u00ab Siedlungen.\nKAPITEL 10\n\nDer Memorizid an der Nakba\n\n_Nationalistische Extremisten versuchen auch, s\u00e4mtliche greifbaren Spuren auszul\u00f6schen, die zuk\u00fcnftige Generationen daran erinnern k\u00f6nnten, dass in Bosnien jemals andere V\u00f6lker als die Serben lebten. Historische Moscheen, Kirchen und Synagogen sowie Nationalbibliotheken, Archive und Museen wurden in Brand gesteckt, in die Luft gesprengt und abgerissen ... Sie wollen auch die Erinnerung an die Vergangenheit eliminieren._\n\nSevdalinka.net\n\n_\u00dcber 700000 Oliven- und Orangenb\u00e4ume wurden von den Israelis zerst\u00f6rt. Das ist ein Akt schieren Vandalismus durch einen Staat, der behauptet, Umweltschutz zu betreiben. Wie abscheulich und besch\u00e4mend._\n\nRonnie Kasrils, Wasser- und Forstminister S\u00fcdafrikas, \nin einer Rede in London, 30. November 2002\n\nDie Neuerfindung Pal\u00e4stinas\n\nAls Grundbesitzer war der J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds ebenso wie andere Stellen, die staatliches Land in Israel besitzen \u2013 Israel Land Authority, Armee und Regierung \u2013, daran beteiligt, auf dem Areal zerst\u00f6rter pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer neue j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu gr\u00fcnden. Die Enteignung ging damit einher, die eroberten, zerst\u00f6rten und nun neu geschaffenen Orte umzubenennen. Bei dieser Aufgabe halfen Arch\u00e4ologen und Bibelkundler als Freiwillige in einer offiziellen Namensfindungskommission, die mit der Hebr\u00e4isierung der pal\u00e4stinensischen Geografie betraut war.\n\nDiese Namensfindungskommission war bereits eine \u00e4ltere Einrichtung: Sie entstand 1920 als ad hoc gebildete Expertengruppe, die hebr\u00e4ische Namen f\u00fcr die von den Juden gekauften Areale und sp\u00e4ter auch f\u00fcr L\u00e4ndereien und Orte festlegte, die w\u00e4hrend der Nakba gewaltsam eingenommen wurden. Im Juli 1949 rief Ben Gurion diese Gruppe erneut zusammen und machte sie zu einer Unterabteilung des JNF. Die Namensfindungskommission arbeitete allerdings nicht in einem Vakuum. Manche der pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer befanden sich unweigerlich auf den Ruinen von Siedlungen fr\u00fcherer und sogar antiker Kulturen, auch der Hebr\u00e4er. Die postulierten \u00bbhebr\u00e4ischen\u00ab St\u00e4tten reichten zur\u00fcck in eine so graue Vorzeit, dass kaum eine Chance bestand, ihre genaue Lage zu bestimmen, aber hinter der Hebr\u00e4isierung der Ortsnamen zwangsger\u00e4umter D\u00f6rfer standen nat\u00fcrlich keine wissenschaftlichen, sondern ideologische Motive. Die Darstellung, die diese Enteignung begleitete, war ganz einfach: \u00bbIm Laufe der Fremdherrschaft \u00fcber Eretz Israel wurden die urspr\u00fcnglichen hebr\u00e4ischen Namen ausgel\u00f6scht, verf\u00e4lscht und nahmen zuweilen verfremdete Formen an.\u00ab Das arch\u00e4ologische Bestreben, die Landkarte \u00bbAltisraels\u00ab wieder herzustellen, war im Grunde nichts anderes als ein systematischer wissenschaftlicher, politischer und milit\u00e4rischer Versuch, das Terrain zu entarabisieren: seine Ortsnamen, seine Geografie und vor allem seine Geschichte.\n\nWie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, konfiszierte der JNF in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren eifrig weiter Land, aber dabei blieb es nicht. Nach dem Junikrieg 1967 erhielt er vom Verm\u00f6gensverwalter f\u00fcr Grundbesitz Abwesender auch Land im Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem. Anfang der 1980er Jahre \u00fcbergab der JNF dieses Land an Elad, die Nichtregierungsorganisation der Siedler, die sich damals wie heute f\u00fcr die \u00bbJudaisierung\u00ab Ostjerusalems einsetzt. Diese Organisation richtete ihr Augenmerk auf Silwan und erkl\u00e4rte unverhohlen, dass sie den Ort von seinen angestammten pal\u00e4stinensischen Einwohnern s\u00e4ubern wollte. Unterst\u00fctzung erhielt sie im Jahr 2005 von der Stadtverwaltung Jerusalem, die dort drei Dutzend H\u00e4user unter dem Vorwand \u00bbillegaler Baut\u00e4tigkeit und Expansion\u00ab abrei\u00dfen lie\u00df.\n\nDie gr\u00f6\u00dfte Herausforderung, vor die der JNF sich Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts gestellt sieht, besteht in der Regierungspolitik zur Privatisierung von Grundbesitz, die sich unter Benjamin Netanyahu (1996\u20131999) und Ariel Sharon (2001\u20132003; 2003\u20132006) beschleunigte und den JNF in seinen Machtbefugnissen einzuschr\u00e4nken drohte. Diese beiden Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten des rechten Fl\u00fcgels waren jedoch hin- und hergerissen zwischen Zionismus und Kapitalismus, und wie viel Land ihre Nachfolger in den H\u00e4nden des JNF belassen werden, wird erst die Zukunft zeigen. Was sich allerdings nicht \u00e4ndern wird, ist die Tatsache, dass der JNF Israels W\u00e4lder fest im Griff hat.\n\nIn diesen W\u00e4ldern herrscht durchg\u00e4ngig eine so effektive Verleugnung der Nakba vor, dass sie sich zur Hauptarena f\u00fcr den Kampf pal\u00e4stinensischer Fl\u00fcchtlinge entwickelt haben, die das Andenken an die darunter begrabenen D\u00f6rfer bewahren wollen. Sie nehmen es mit einer Organisation \u2013 dem JNF \u2013 auf, die behauptet, unter den Kiefern und Zypressen, die sie dort gepflanzt hat, gebe es nur \u00d6dland.\n\nPraktischer Kolonialismus und der JNF\n\nAls der J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds auf dem Areal der ausradierten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer seine Nationalparks anzulegen begann, lag die Entscheidung, was er dort anpflanzte, ausschlie\u00dflich bei ihm. Fast von Anfang an entschied er sich \u00fcberwiegend f\u00fcr Nadelgeh\u00f6lze statt f\u00fcr die heimische Flora Pal\u00e4stinas. Teils handelte es sich dabei um einen Versuch, dem Land ein europ\u00e4isches Aussehen zu verleihen, auch wenn dieses Ziel nirgendwo in offiziellen Dokumenten auftaucht. Au\u00dferdem sollte \u2013 wie unverhohlen erkl\u00e4rt wurde \u2013 die Anpflanzung von Kiefern und Zypressen die aufstrebende Holzindustrie des Landes unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nSehr bald verschmolzen die drei Ziele miteinander: das Land j\u00fcdisch zu erhalten, ihm ein europ\u00e4isches Aussehen zu verleihen und es zu begr\u00fcnen. Daher wachsen in den W\u00e4ldern ganz Israels heute nur zu 11 Prozent heimische Arten, und nur 10 Prozent aller W\u00e4lder bestanden schon vor 1948. Zuweilen gelingt es der heimischen Flora \u00fcberraschend, sich wieder durchzusetzen. Nicht nur auf den eingeebneten Tr\u00fcmmern der H\u00e4user, sondern auch auf Feldern und ehemaligen Olivenhainen pflanzte man Kiefern an. So gab sich der JNF in der neuen Rei\u00dfbrettstadt Migdal Ha-Emeq alle erdenkliche M\u00fche, die Ruinen des pal\u00e4stinensischen Dorfes Mujaydil am Ostrand der Stadt mit einem kleinen Nadelw\u00e4ldchen zu bedecken. Solche \u00bbgr\u00fcnen Lungen\u00ab sind in vielen Neubaust\u00e4dten Israels zu finden, die auf zerst\u00f6rten pal\u00e4stinensischen Orten stehen (Tirat Hacarmel auf Tirat Haifa, Qiryat Shemona auf Khalsa, Ashkelon auf Majdal usw.). Aber diese spezielle Kiefernsorte kam mit den Bodenverh\u00e4ltnissen nicht zurecht und war trotz wiederholter Behandlungen st\u00e4ndig von Krankheiten befallen. Einige Verwandte fr\u00fcherer Einwohner bemerkten bei sp\u00e4teren Besuchen in Mujaydil, dass bei manchen Kiefern die St\u00e4mme buchst\u00e4blich in zwei Teile gespalten und in der Mitte Olivenb\u00e4ume gewachsen waren, die der 60 Jahre zuvor angepflanzten fremden Flora trotzten.\n\nIn Israel und der gesamten j\u00fcdischen Welt gilt der JNF als \u00e4u\u00dferst verantwortungsbewusste \u00f6kologische Institution; sein Ruf beruht darauf, dass er emsig B\u00e4ume pflanzte, heimische Flora und Landschaften wiederherstellte und den Weg zu einer F\u00fclle von Naturparks und Erholungsgebieten mit Picknick- und Spielpl\u00e4tzen ebnete. Auf der ausf\u00fchrlichen Internetseite des JNF k\u00f6nnen Israelis sich mit einem Klick auf verschiedene Icons einen \u00dcberblick verschaffen oder sie orientieren sich an den Informationstafeln, die an den Eing\u00e4ngen dieser Parks und an verschiedenen Stellen entlang der Wege in den Erholungsgebieten stehen. Diese Texte begleiten und informieren Besucher auf Schritt und Tritt, auch wenn sie nur Entspannung und Erholung suchen.\n\nJNF-Parks bieten nicht nur Parkpl\u00e4tze, Rast- und Spielpl\u00e4tze und Zugang zur Natur, sie enthalten auch sichtbare Zeugen einer bestimmten Geschichte: Ruinen eines Hauses, Reste von Befestigungsanlagen, Obstb\u00e4ume, Feigenkakteen ( _sabra_ ) und vieles mehr. So gibt es hier auch viele Feigen- und Mandelb\u00e4ume. Die meisten Israelis halten sie f\u00fcr \u00bbwilde\u00ab Feigen und \u00bbwilde\u00ab Mandeln, wenn sie die B\u00e4ume nach dem Winter als Fr\u00fchlingsboten in voller Bl\u00fcte stehen sehen. Aber sie wurden als Nutzb\u00e4ume von Menschen gepflanzt, gehegt und gepflegt. \u00dcberall dort, wo Mandel- und Feigenb\u00e4ume, Olivenhaine oder Feigenkakteen zu finden sind, stand fr\u00fcher ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf: Diese B\u00e4ume, die Jahr f\u00fcr Jahr neu erbl\u00fchen, sind alles, was von ihnen geblieben ist. In der N\u00e4he der heute nicht mehr bestellten Terrassen, unter den Schaukeln und Picknicktischen und den europ\u00e4ischen Nadelw\u00e4ldern liegen die H\u00e4user und Felder der Pal\u00e4stinenser begraben, die israelische Truppen 1948 vertrieben haben. Besucher, die sich nur an den Hinweistafeln des JNF orientieren, merken gar nicht, dass hier fr\u00fcher Menschen lebten \u2013 Pal\u00e4stinenser, die heute als Fl\u00fcchtlinge in den besetzten Gebieten, als B\u00fcrger zweiter Klasse in Israel oder als Lagerinsassen jenseits der pal\u00e4stinensischen Grenzen vegetieren.\n\nDie wahre Aufgabe des JNF war und ist also, diese sichtbaren \u00dcberreste Pal\u00e4stinas zu kaschieren, indem er darauf B\u00e4ume pflanzt und eine Geschichte erz\u00e4hlt, die ihre Existenz leugnet. Sowohl auf der Internetseite des JNF wie auch in den Parks verbreitet die modernste audiovisuelle Ausr\u00fcstung die offizielle zionistische Darstellung, die jeden Ort in den Kontext der nationalen Metageschichte des j\u00fcdischen Volkes und Eretz Israels stellt. Diese Version leiert nach wie vor die altbekannten Mythen herunter \u2013 von Pal\u00e4stina, das vor der Ankunft des Zionismus ein \u00bbleeres\u00ab, \u00bb\u00f6des\u00ab Land war \u2013, mit denen der Zionismus jede Geschichte verdr\u00e4ngt, die der von ihm erfundenen j\u00fcdischen Vergangenheit widerspricht.\n\nAls Israels \u00bbgr\u00fcne Lungen\u00ab dienen diese Erholungsgebiete weniger dem Andenken an die Geschichte als ihrer vollst\u00e4ndigen Ausl\u00f6schung. Die Beschriftungen, mit denen der JNF die heute noch sichtbaren \u00dcberreste aus der Zeit vor 1948 versieht, verleugnen bewusst die Ortsgeschichte. Das entspringt nicht etwa einer Notwendigkeit, eine andere, eigenst\u00e4ndige Geschichte zu erz\u00e4hlen, sondern zielt darauf ab, jegliche Erinnerung an die pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer zunichte zu machen, an deren Stelle sich nun diese \u00bbgr\u00fcnen Lungen\u00ab befinden. So sind die Informationen, die der JNF an diesen Orten pr\u00e4sentiert, ein hervorragendes Beispiel f\u00fcr die \u00fcberall herrschenden Verleugnungsmechanismen, die bei Israelis im Darstellungsbereich wirksam sind. Sie sind zutiefst in der Volksmentalit\u00e4t verwurzelt und funktionieren gerade dar\u00fcber, pal\u00e4stinensische Gedenkst\u00e4tten traumatischer Erlebnisse durch Freizeit- und Vergn\u00fcgungseinrichtungen f\u00fcr Israelis zu ersetzen. Was die JNF-Texte als \u00bb\u00f6kologisches Engagement\u00ab darstellen, ist also nur ein weiteres Bestreben offizieller israelischer Stellen, die Nakba zu verleugnen und das Ausma\u00df der pal\u00e4stinensischen Trag\u00f6die zu kaschieren.\n\nDie JNF-Erholungsgebiete in Israel\n\nAuf seiner offiziellen Internetseite stellt sich der JNF als Einrichtung dar, die daf\u00fcr gesorgt hat, die W\u00fcste erbl\u00fchen zu lassen und der historischen arabischen Landschaft ein europ\u00e4isches Aussehen zu verleihen. Stolz verk\u00fcndet er, dass diese W\u00e4lder und Parks auf \u00bbd\u00fcrren, w\u00fcsten\u00e4hnlichen Fl\u00e4chen\u00ab angelegt wurden: \u00bbIsraels W\u00e4lder und Parks waren nicht immer schon hier. Die ersten j\u00fcdischen Siedler fanden Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts ein \u00f6des Land ohne das kleinste Flecken Schatten vor.\u00ab\n\nDer JNF hat Israels \u00bbgr\u00fcne Lungen\u00ab nicht nur geschaffen, sondern ist auch f\u00fcr ihre Erhaltung zust\u00e4ndig. Wie er erkl\u00e4rt, sollen die W\u00e4lder allen B\u00fcrgern Israels Erholung bieten und ihnen ein \u00bbUmweltbewusstsein\u00ab vermitteln. Sie erfahren allerdings nicht, dass des auch zu den Hauptaufgaben des JNF geh\u00f6rt, in diesen \u00bbW\u00e4ldern\u00ab jegliche Zeichen des Gedenkens zu verhindern, ganz zu schweigen von Besuchen pal\u00e4stinensischer Fl\u00fcchtlinge, deren H\u00e4user unter diesen B\u00e4umen und Spielpl\u00e4tzen begraben liegen.\n\nVier der gr\u00f6\u00dferen und beliebteren Ausflugsziele, die auf der JNF-Internetseite angef\u00fchrt sind \u2013 Birya-Wald, Ramat-Menashe-Wald, Jerusalemer Wald und Sataf \u2013 versinnbildlichen gegenw\u00e4rtig besser als jeder andere Ort in Israel sowohl die Nakba als auch deren Leugnung.\n\nDer Wald von Birya\n\nDer Wald von Birya erstreckt sich \u00fcber insgesamt 20000 Dunam in der Region Safad. Es ist das gr\u00f6\u00dfte von Menschen angelegte Waldgebiet und ein sehr beliebtes Ausflugsziel. Dieses Areal birgt die H\u00e4user und Felder von mindestens sechs pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern. Aber wer den Text auf der Internetseite liest und sich vergegenw\u00e4rtigt, was er enth\u00e4lt und was nicht, findet die D\u00f6rfer Dishon, Alma, Qaddita, Amqa, Ayn al-Zaytun oder Biriyya kein einziges Mal erw\u00e4hnt. Sie verschwinden hinter Schilderungen der Reize und Attraktionen dieses Waldes: \u00bbKein Wunder, dass sich in diesem riesigen Waldgebiet eine F\u00fclle interessanter und faszinierender Stellen findet: Geh\u00f6lze, Bustans, Quellen und eine alte Synagoge [ein kleines St\u00fcck Mosaikboden, der von einer alten Synagoge stammen mag oder auch nicht, da die orthodoxen Juden von Safad dieses Gel\u00e4nde im Laufe der Jahrhunderte nutzten]\u00ab. Bustans \u2013 die Obstg\u00e4rten, die pal\u00e4stinensische Bauern um ihre Bauernh\u00f6fe anlegten \u2013 sind eines der vielen Mysterien, die der JNF unternehmungslustigen Besuchern an vielen Stellen verspricht. Diese deutlich erkennbaren \u00dcberreste pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer erscheinen als Bestandteil der Natur und ihrer wunderbaren Geheimnisse. An einer Stelle gibt sich der JNF sogar stolz als Sch\u00f6pfer der Terrassen aus, die dort fast \u00fcberall zu finden sind. Einige davon wurden tats\u00e4chlich \u00fcber den urspr\u00fcnglichen Terrassen neu angelegt, die schon Jahrhunderte vor der zionistischen \u00dcbernahme existierten.\n\nPal\u00e4stinensische Bustans werden also der Natur zugeschrieben und die Geschichte Pal\u00e4stinas auf eine biblische und talmudische Vergangenheit zur\u00fcckgef\u00fchrt. Dieses Schicksal erfuhr auch eines der bekanntesten D\u00f6rfer, Ayn al-Zaytun, das im Mai 1948 zwangsger\u00e4umt wurde, wobei viele Einwohner einem Massaker zum Opfer fielen. Ayn al-Zaytun wird sogar namentlich erw\u00e4hnt:\n\nEin Zeitun hat sich zu einem der attraktivsten Fleckchen des Erholungsgebiets entwickelt, da es gro\u00dfe Picknicktische und ausreichend Parkm\u00f6glichkeiten f\u00fcr Behinderte bietet. An dieser Stelle befand sich fr\u00fcher die Siedlung Ein Zeitun, in der seit dem Mittelalter durchg\u00e4ngig bis ins 18. Jahrhundert Juden lebten. Es gab vier vergebliche [j\u00fcdische] Besiedlungsversuche. Am Parkplatz sind biologische Toiletten und Spielpl\u00e4tze. Neben dem Parkplatz steht ein Denkmal f\u00fcr die gefallenen Soldaten des Sechstagekriegs.\n\nFantasievoll mischt der Text Geschichte und Touristentipps und l\u00f6scht dabei die bl\u00fchende pal\u00e4stinensische Gemeinde, die j\u00fcdische Truppen innerhalb weniger Stunden ausradierten, vollst\u00e4ndig aus der kollektiven Erinnerung Israels.\n\nDie Internetseite des JNF geht detailliert auf die Geschichte von Ayn Zaytun ein; in dieser Darstellung, die eine virtuelle oder reale Reise in dieses Waldgebiet begleitet, f\u00fchrt sie den Leser zur\u00fcck in die angebliche talmudische Stadt des 3. Jahrhunderts, \u00fcberspringt ein ganzes Jahrtausend pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer und Gemeinden und konzentriert sich schlie\u00dflich auf die letzten drei Jahre der Mandatszeit, als die j\u00fcdische Untergrundbewegung in diesem Gebiet, versteckt vor den wachsamen Augen der Briten, ihre Truppen trainierte und Waffenlager anlegte.\n\nRamat Menashe Park\n\nS\u00fcdlich von Biriyya liegt der Ramat Menashe Park auf den Ruinen von Lajjun, Mansi, Kafrayn, Butaymat, Hubeiza, Daliyat al-Rawha, Sabbarin, Burayka, Sindiyana und Umm al-Zinat. Mitten im Park befinden sich die \u00dcberreste des zerst\u00f6rten Dorfes Daliyat al-Rawha, auf denen heute der Kibbuz Ramat Menashe der sozialistischen Bewegung Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir steht. Noch immer sind die Reste der gesprengten H\u00e4user eines der D\u00f6rfer, Kafrayn, zu erkennen. Die JNF-Internetseite r\u00fcckt die Mischung von Natur und menschlicher Besiedlung in dem Waldgebiet ins Blickfeld, indem sie erw\u00e4hnt, dass es dort \u00bbsechs D\u00f6rfer\u00ab gibt. Allerdings verwendet sie das im Hebr\u00e4ischen v\u00f6llig atypische Wort _kfar_ f\u00fcr \u00bbDorf\u00ab, meint damit aber die Kibbuzim im Wald, nicht die sechs D\u00f6rfer darunter \u2013 ein sprachlicher Kniff, der den hier betriebenen metaphorischen Palimpsest verst\u00e4rken soll: Die Ausl\u00f6schung der Geschichte eines Volkes, um sie durch die eines anderen Volkes zu \u00fcberschreiben.\n\nNach den Angaben auf der JNF-Internetseite ist die Sch\u00f6nheit und Attraktivit\u00e4t dieses Park \u00bbohnegleichen\u00ab. Das liegt vor allem an der Landschaft mit ihren Bustans und Ruinen \u00bbder Vergangenheit\u00ab, aber hinter alledem steht eine meisterhafte Anlage, die bestrebt ist, die Konturen der nat\u00fcrlichen Szenerie zu erhalten. Auch hier verdankt die Natur ihren \u00bbbesonderen Reiz\u00ab den zerst\u00f6rten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfern, deren Existenz der Park kaschiert. Sowohl der virtuelle als auch der reale Rundgang, den der JNF durch den Park ausweist, f\u00fchrt Besucher behutsam von einer Stelle zur anderen, die durchweg arabische Namen tragen: Es sind die Namen der zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfer, hier aber als landschaftliche oder geografische Orte pr\u00e4sentiert, die nichts von einer fr\u00fcheren menschlichen Besiedlung verraten. Dass man problemlos von einem Punkt zum anderen gelangt, ist laut JNF einem Stra\u00dfennetz zu verdanken, das in der \u00bbbritischen Zeit\u00ab angelegt wurde. Warum machten sich die Briten die M\u00fche, hier Stra\u00dfen zu asphaltieren? Offensichtlich um bessere Verbindungen (und Kontrolle) zwischen _bestehenden_ D\u00f6rfern zu schaffen, aber das l\u00e4sst sich aus dem Text nur schwer, wenn \u00fcberhaupt, erschlie\u00dfen.\n\nDieses System der Ausl\u00f6schung kann jedoch niemals ganz wasserdicht sein. So findet sich auf der JNF-Internetseite ein Hinweis, der auf den Informationstafeln im Park nicht erw\u00e4hnt ist. Unter den vielen Ruinen, die auf dem Gel\u00e4nde verstreut sind, empfiehlt der JNF den \u00bbDorfbrunnen\u00ab ( _'Ein ha-Kfar_ ) als \u00bbruhigstes Fleckchen des Parks\u00ab. Ein Dorfbrunnen ist normalerweise mitten im Dorf, unweit vom Dorfplatz wie hier in Kafrayn, dessen Ruinen heute nicht nur \u00bbSeelenfrieden\u00ab vermitteln, sondern auch dem Vieh aus dem nahen Kibbuz Mishmar Ha-Emek als Rastplatz auf ihrem Weg auf die unterhalb gelegenen Weiden dienen.\n\nBegr\u00fcnung Jerusalems\n\nDie beiden letzten Beispiele kommen aus dem Umland Jerusalems. Die Westh\u00e4nge der Stadt bedeckt der \u00bbJerusalemer Wald\u00ab, der auf eine Idee von Yossef Weitz zur\u00fcckgeht. Er beklagte sich 1956 beim B\u00fcrgermeister von Jerusalem \u00fcber den \u00f6den Anblick der westlichen Stadth\u00fcgel. Acht Jahre zuvor hatten noch die H\u00e4user und Felder lebendiger pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer die H\u00e4nge \u00fcberzogen. Weitz Bem\u00fchungen trugen 1967 schlie\u00dflich Fr\u00fcchte: Der JNF beschloss auf 4500 Dunam Land eine Million B\u00e4ume zu pflanzen, die \u00bbJerusalem mit einem Gr\u00fcng\u00fcrtel umgeben\u00ab, wie es auf der Internetseite hei\u00dft. An einem S\u00fcdzipfel reicht der Wald an die Ruinen des Dorfes Ayn Karim heran und bedeckt das zerst\u00f6rte Dorf Beit Mazmil. Am Westrand erstreckt er sich \u00fcber den Feldern und H\u00e4usern des zerst\u00f6rten Ortes Beit Horish, dessen Einwohner erst 1949 vertrieben wurden, und weiter \u00fcber Deir Yassin, Zuba, Sataf, Jura und Beit Umm al-Meis.\n\nHier verspricht die JNF-Internetseite den Besuchern einmalige Landschaften und besondere Erlebnisse in einem Wald, dessen historische \u00dcberreste \u00bbvon intensiver landwirtschaftlicher T\u00e4tigkeit zeugen\u00ab. Vor allem weist sie auf die verschiedenen Terrassen hin, die entlang der Westh\u00e4nge zu finden sind: Wie in allen anderen Naturparks sind diese Terrassen immer \u00bbalt\u00ab \u2013 selbst wenn sie erst vor zwei bis drei Generationen von den Einwohnern pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer angelegt wurden.\n\nDer letzte Landschaftspunkt ist das zerst\u00f6rte pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf Sataf an einem der sch\u00f6nsten Fleckchen hoch oben in den Jerusalemer Bergen. Die gr\u00f6\u00dfte Attraktion ist hier laut JNF-Internetseite die Rekonstruktion \u00bbalten\u00ab (hebr\u00e4isch _kadum_ ) Ackerbaus \u2013 das Adjektiv \u00bbalt\u00ab taucht in Verbindung mit jedem Detail dieses Ortes auf: Wege sind \u00bbalt\u00ab, Stufen sind \u00bbalt\u00ab und so weiter. Sataf war ein pal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf, das 1948 zwangsger\u00e4umt und gr\u00f6\u00dftenteils zerst\u00f6rt wurde. F\u00fcr den JNF sind die \u00dcberreste des Dorfes nur eine Station unter vielen auf den faszinierenden Rundwanderungen, die er f\u00fcr Besucher in dieser \u00bbalten St\u00e4tte\u00ab angelegt hat. Die Mischung aus pal\u00e4stinensischen Terrassenanlagen und vier oder f\u00fcnf fast vollst\u00e4ndig erhaltenen pal\u00e4stinensischen Geb\u00e4uden inspirierte den JNF zu einer Wortsch\u00f6pfung: \u00bbBustanof\u00ab (aus \u00bbBustan\u00ab und dem hebr\u00e4ischen Wort f\u00fcr Panorama, _nof_ , also etwa \u00bbBustanorama\u00ab oder \u00bbGartenblick\u00ab) \u2013 ein Konzept, das es nur beim JNF gibt.\n\nDie Bustans bieten Aussicht auf eine herrliche Landschaft und sind beliebt bei jungen Akademikern aus Jerusalem, die hierher kommen, um \u00bbalte\u00ab, \u00bbbiblische\u00ab Ackerbaumethoden zu erleben, die vielleicht sogar \u00bbbiblisches\u00ab Obst und Gem\u00fcse hervorbringen. Es versteht sich von selbst, dass diese Methoden keineswegs \u00bbbiblisch\u00ab, sondern ebenso pal\u00e4stinensisch sind wie die Bustans, die Felder und das Dorf.\n\nIn Sataf verspricht der JNF abenteuerlustigen Besuchern einen \u00bbGeheimgarten\u00ab und eine \u00bbversteckte Quelle\u00ab auf den Terrassen, die von \u00bbmenschlicher Besiedlung vor 6000 Jahren mit der Hochbl\u00fcte zur Zeit des Zweiten Tempels zeugen\u00ab. So beschrieb man die Terrassen allerdings nicht, als man 1949 j\u00fcdische Einwanderer aus arabischen L\u00e4ndern herschickte, um das pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf wieder zu besiedeln und in die H\u00e4user zu ziehen, die stehen geblieben waren. Erst als diese neuen Siedler sich als widerspenstig erwiesen, beschloss der JNF aus dem Dorf eine Touristenattraktion zu machen.\n\nIsraels Namensfindungskommission suchte 1949 nach biblischen Verbindungen zu diesem Ort, fand aber in j\u00fcdischen Quellen keinerlei Hinweise. Schlie\u00dflich kamen sie auf die Idee, den Weinberg, der den Ort umgab, mit den Weinbergen der biblischen Psalmen und des Hohenliedes in Verbindung zu bringen. Sie erfanden sogar einen Ortsnamen, der zu ihrer Vorstellung passte: \u00bbBikura\u00ab, die fr\u00fche Frucht des Sommers, gaben ihn aber wieder auf, da die Israelis sich bereits an den Namen Sataf gew\u00f6hnt hatten.\n\nDie Darstellungen und Informationen, die der JNF auf seiner Internetseite und auf den Hinweistafeln vor Ort bietet, sind auch anderswo weithin verbreitet. In Israel gab es f\u00fcr den heimischen Tourismus schon immer eine F\u00fclle von Reiseliteratur, in der Umweltbewusstsein, zionistische Ideologie und Ausl\u00f6schung der Vergangenheit oft Hand in Hand gehen. Einschl\u00e4gige Enzyklop\u00e4dien, Reisef\u00fchrer und Bildb\u00e4nde sind heute anscheinend sogar beliebter und gefragter denn je. So \u00bb\u00f6kologisiert\u00ab der JNF die Verbrechen von 1948, damit Israel eine Version der Geschichte erz\u00e4hlen und eine andere ausl\u00f6schen kann. Walid Khalidi sagte treffend: \u00bbEs ist eine Plattit\u00fcde der Geschichtsschreibung, dass die Sieger im Krieg mit der Beute und ihrer Version des Geschehens davonkommen.\u00ab\n\nTrotz dieser bewussten Sch\u00f6nf\u00e4rberei der Geschichte ist das Schicksal der D\u00f6rfer, die unter den Erholungsgebieten in Israel begraben liegen, aufs Engste mit der Zukunft der pal\u00e4stinensischen Familien verkn\u00fcpft, die fr\u00fcher dort lebten und nun, fast 60 Jahre sp\u00e4ter, noch immer in Fl\u00fcchtlingslagern und weit entfernten Diasporagemeinden wohnen. Die L\u00f6sung des pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblems bleibt der Schl\u00fcssel zu jeder gerechten und dauerhaften L\u00f6sung des Pal\u00e4stinakonflikts: Seit ann\u00e4hernd 60 Jahren sind die Pal\u00e4stinenser als Nation standhaft bei ihrer Forderung geblieben, dass man ihre Rechte anerkennt, vor allem ihr R\u00fcckkehrrecht, das die Vereinten Nationen ihnen 1948 zugestanden haben. Auch weiterhin k\u00e4mpfen sie gegen eine offizielle israelische Politik der Verleugnung und Antirepatriierung, die sich im Laufe der Zeit offenbar nur noch verh\u00e4rtet hat.\n\nZwei Faktoren haben es bisher geschafft, alle Chancen auf eine gerechte L\u00f6sung des Pal\u00e4stinakonflikts zunichte zu machen: die zionistische Ideologie ethnischer \u00dcberlegenheit und der \u00bbFriedensprozess\u00ab. Aus der \u00dcberlegenheitsideologie erw\u00e4chst Israels anhaltende Leugnung der Nakba; im Friedensprozess ist der mangelnde internationale Wille festzustellen, der Region Gerechtigkeit widerfahren zu lassen \u2013 zwei Hindernisse, die das Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblem perpetuieren und einem gerechten, umfassenden Frieden im Land im Weg stehen.\nKAPITEL 11\n\nDie Leugnung der Nakba und der \u00bbFriedensprozess\u00ab\n\n_Die Vollversammlung der Vereinten Nationen beschlie\u00dft, dass Fl\u00fcchtlingen, die in ihre Heimat zur\u00fcckkehren und in Frieden mit ihren Nachbarn leben wollen, die R\u00fcckkehr zum fr\u00fchestm\u00f6glichen Zeitpunkt erlaubt werden soll; dass eine Entsch\u00e4digung gezahlt werden soll f\u00fcr das Eigentum derer, die sich nicht zur R\u00fcckkehr entschlie\u00dfen, sowie f\u00fcr den Verlust oder die Besch\u00e4digung von Eigentum, f\u00fcr die nach V\u00f6lkerrecht und Billigkeitsrecht die Regierungen oder zust\u00e4ndigen Beh\u00f6rden Wiedergutmachung leisten sollen._\n\nUN GA Resolution 194(III), 11. Dezember 1948\n\n_Die US-Regierung unterst\u00fctzt die R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die Demokratisierung und den Schutz der Menschenrechte im ganzen Land._\n\nBureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, \nUS State Department, 2003\n\nDie Pal\u00e4stinenser, die Israel nicht aus dem Land getrieben hatte, unterstanden ab Oktober 1948 der Milit\u00e4rverwaltung, im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen befanden sie sich unter der Besatzung anderer arabischer Staaten, und die \u00fcbrige pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung hatte verstreut in den arabischen Nachbarl\u00e4ndern Zuflucht in provisorischen Zeltlagern gefunden, die internationale Hilfsorganisationen bereitgestellt hatten.\n\nMitte 1949 schalteten sich die Vereinten Nationen mit einem Versuch ein, mit den bitteren Fr\u00fcchten ihres Friedensplans von 1947 fertig zu werden. Eine ihrer ersten Fehlentscheidungen bestand darin, nicht die Internationale Fl\u00fcchtlingsorganisation (International Refugee Organization, IRO) einzubeziehen, sondern f\u00fcr die pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge eine eigene Organisation zu schaffen. Hinter der Entscheidung, die IRO au\u00dfen vor zu lassen, standen Israel und die zionistischen j\u00fcdischen Organisationen im Ausland: Die IRO hatte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg den j\u00fcdischen Fl\u00fcchtlingen in Europa geholfen, und die zionistischen Organisationen wollten unbedingt verhindern, dass jemand zwischen den beiden F\u00e4llen Verbindungen herstellte oder sogar Vergleiche zog. Au\u00dferdem empfahl die IRO die R\u00fcckkehr immer als erste Option, auf die Fl\u00fcchtlinge Anspruch hatten.\n\nSo entstand 1950 die Unites Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA). Sie war nicht der R\u00fcckkehr der Fl\u00fcchtlinge verpflichtet, die die UN-Vollversammlung in Resolution 194 vom 11.Dezember 1948 festgelegt hatte, sondern hatte lediglich die Aufgabe, die etwa eine Million pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge in den Lagern mit Arbeit und Hilfsgeldern zu versorgen. Au\u00dferdem betraute man sie mit dem Bau dauerhafterer Unterk\u00fcnfte und Schulen und der Einrichtung von Gesundheitszentren. Die UNRWA sollte sich also allgemein um die Alltagsbelange der Fl\u00fcchtlinge k\u00fcmmern.\n\nUnter diesen Umst\u00e4nden dauerte es nicht lange, bis sich wieder eine pal\u00e4stinensische Nationalbewegung herausbildete. Ihr zentrales Anliegen war das R\u00fcckkehrrecht, au\u00dferdem war sie bestrebt, die UNRWA als Bildungsagentur und sogar als Tr\u00e4ger der Sozialund Gesundheitsdienste abzul\u00f6sen. Getrieben von dem Wunsch, das Schicksal in die eigenen H\u00e4nde zu nehmen, vermittelte dieser aufkeimende Nationalismus der Bev\u00f6lkerung nach der Vertreibung und Zerst\u00f6rung, die sie 1948 erlebt hatten, eine neue Orientierung und Identit\u00e4t. Diese Nationalgef\u00fchle sollten 1968 ihre Verk\u00f6rperung in der PLO finden, deren F\u00fchrung aus den Fl\u00fcchtlingslagern hervorging und deren Ideologie sich auf die Forderung nach moralischer und faktischer Wiedergutmachung des Unrechts st\u00fctzte, das Israel dem pal\u00e4stinensischen Volk 1948 angetan hatte.\n\nDie PLO und jede andere Gruppierung, die sich der pal\u00e4stinensischen Sache annehmen wollte, musste gegen zwei manifeste Formen von Verleugnung k\u00e4mpfen. Die erste praktizierten die internationalen Friedensvermittler, die durchg\u00e4ngig die Anliegen und Belange der Pal\u00e4stinenser aus allen zuk\u00fcnftigen Friedensregelungen ausklammerten, wenn nicht gar v\u00f6llig eliminierten. Die zweite Form der Verleugnung war die kategorische Weigerung der Israelis, die Nakba anzuerkennen und sich rechtlich und moralisch f\u00fcr die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen, die sie 1948 betrieben hatten, zur Verantwortung ziehen zu lassen.\n\nDie Nakba und die Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage blieben durchg\u00e4ngig von der Friedensagenda ausgeschlossen. Um das zu verstehen, muss man sich verdeutlichen, wie tiefgreifend die Verleugnung der 1948 begangenen Verbrechen bis heute in Israel ist, und sie in einen Zusammenhang stellen mit einer ehrlich empfundenen Angst einerseits und einem tief verwurzelten antiarabischen Rassismus andererseits, die beide massiv manipuliert werden.\n\nErste Friedensbem\u00fchungen\n\nTrotz des Fiaskos von 1948 hatten die Vereinten Nationen in den ersten beiden Jahren nach der Nakba offenbar noch eine gewisse Energie, eine Kl\u00e4rung der Pal\u00e4stinafrage anzustreben. Sie initiierten eine Reihe diplomatischer Bem\u00fchungen, durch die sie dem Land Frieden zu bringen hofften und die im Fr\u00fchjahr 1949 in einer Friedenskonferenz in Lausanne gipfelten. Grundlage dieser Konferenz bildete die UN-Resolution 194, und im Mittelpunkt stand die Forderung nach dem R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Fl\u00fcchtlinge. F\u00fcr das UN-Vermittlungsgremium, die Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), war die Basis f\u00fcr einen Frieden die uneingeschr\u00e4nkte R\u00fcckkehr der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge, eine Zweistaatenl\u00f6sung, die das Land zu gleichen Teilen zwischen den beiden Seiten aufteilte, und ein internationales Sonderregime f\u00fcr Jerusalem.\n\nAlle Beteiligten akzeptierten diesen umfassenden Ansatz: die USA, die Vereinten Nationen, die arabische Welt, die Pal\u00e4stinenser und der israelische Au\u00dfenminister Moshe Sharett. Aber Israels Ministerpr\u00e4sident David Ben Gurion und K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Jordanien, die fest entschlossen waren, den Rest Pal\u00e4stinas unter sich aufzuteilen, torpedierten die Friedensbem\u00fchungen. Ein Wahljahr in den USA und der Beginn des Kalten Krieges in Europa erm\u00f6glichten es den beiden sich durchzusetzen und daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, dass die Friedenschancen bald wieder begraben wurden. Damit vereitelten sie den einzigen Versuch in der Geschichte des Konflikts, durch ein umfassendes Herangehen einen echten Frieden in Pal\u00e4stina\/Israel zu schaffen.\n\nAuf dem Weg zu einer Pax Americana\n\nNach dem Scheitern der Konferenz von Lausanne lie\u00dfen die Friedensbem\u00fchungen rasch nach: Fast zwei Jahrzehnte, von 1948 bis 1967, herrschte offensichtlich Flaute. Erst nach dem Krieg im Juni 1967 geriet die Misere der Region wieder ins Blickfeld der Welt. Zumindest schien es so. Dieser Krieg endete mit der vollst\u00e4ndigen Kontrolle Israels \u00fcber das gesamte ehemalige Mandatsgebiet Pal\u00e4stina. Sofort nach Israels verheerendem Blitzkrieg begannen Friedensbem\u00fchungen, die anfangs offener und intensiver gef\u00fchrt wurden als zuvor in Lausanne. Erste Initiativen gingen von der britischen, franz\u00f6sischen und sowjetischen UN-Delegation aus, aber schon bald nahmen die Amerikaner im Rahmen ihrer erfolgreichen Versuche, die Sowjetunion von jeder Nahostagenda auszuschlie\u00dfen, wieder die Z\u00fcgel in der Hand.\n\nDie amerikanischen Bem\u00fchungen setzten in der Suche nach m\u00f6glichen L\u00f6sungen ausschlie\u00dflich auf die bestehenden Machtverh\u00e4ltnisse. Und da Israels \u00dcberlegenheit nach 1948 und erst recht nach dem Junikrieg v\u00f6llig au\u00dfer Frage stand, diente jeder Friedensvorschlag, den Israel vorlegte, unweigerlich als Grundlage f\u00fcr die Pax Americana, die nun \u00fcber den Nahen Osten kam. Somit blieb es dem israelischen \u00bbFriedenslager\u00ab \u00fcberlassen, die \u00bbgemeinsamen\u00ab Erkenntnisse zu liefern, auf denen die n\u00e4chsten Schritte und Richtlinien f\u00fcr eine Regelung basierten. Alle zuk\u00fcnftigen Friedensvorschl\u00e4ge kamen also diesem Lager entgegen, das angeblich den gem\u00e4\u00dfigten Fl\u00fcgel in Israels Haltung zum Frieden in Pal\u00e4stina darstellte.\n\nNach 1967 nutzte Israel die geopolitische Realit\u00e4t, die der Junikrieg geschaffen hatte, um neue Leitlinien aufzustellen; sie spiegelten allerdings auch die innenpolitische Debatte wider, die nach dem \u00bbSechstagekrieg\u00ab, wie die israelische PR ihn nannte (und dabei bewusst biblische Ankl\u00e4nge heraufbeschwor), in Israel zwischen dem rechten \u00bbGro\u00dfisrael\u00ab-Fl\u00fcgel und der linken \u00bbPeace-Now\u00ab-Bewegung entbrannt war. Die ersteren waren die sogenannten \u00bbBefreier\u00ab, die in den von Israel 1967 besetzten Gebieten das \u00bbzur\u00fcckeroberte Kernland\u00ab des j\u00fcdischen Staates sahen. Die Letzteren bezeichnete man als \u00bbTreuh\u00e4nder\u00ab, die an den besetzten pal\u00e4stinensischen Territorien festhalten wollten, um sie als Verhandlungskapital in zuk\u00fcnftigen Friedensgespr\u00e4chen einzusetzen. Als das Gro\u00dfisrael-Lager anfing in den besetzten Territorien j\u00fcdische Siedlungen zu errichten, hatte das Treuh\u00e4nder-Lager offenbar keinerlei Probleme mit dem Bau von Siedlungen in bestimmten Gebieten, die damit sofort unverhandelbar wurden: Gro\u00dfjerusalem und bestimmte Siedlungsbl\u00f6cke in der N\u00e4he der Grenze von 1967. Seitdem schrumpften die Gebiete, \u00fcber die das Friedenslager anfangs Verhandlungen angeboten hatte, nach und nach, da der israelische Siedlungsbau im Laufe der Jahre in den \u00bbbefreiten\u00ab Gebieten immer mehr zunahm.\n\nSobald die amerikanischen Regierungsstellen, die f\u00fcr die Ausrichtung der amerikanischen Pal\u00e4stinapolitik zust\u00e4ndig waren, diese Leitlinien \u00fcbernommen hatten, priesen sie sie als \u00bbKonzessionen\u00ab, \u00bbvern\u00fcnftige Schritte\u00ab und \u00bbflexible Positionen\u00ab der israelischen Seite. Das war der erste Schritt Israels, die pal\u00e4stinensische Sicht gleich welcher Art und politischen Ausrichtung in die Zange zu nehmen und v\u00f6llig zu eliminieren. Der zweite Schritt bestand darin, diese Sicht im Westen als \u00bbterroristisch, unvern\u00fcnftig und unflexibel\u00ab hinzustellen.\n\nAusschluss der Ereignisse von 1948 \naus dem Friedensprozess\n\nDie erste der drei israelischen Leitlinien \u2013 oder besser: Axiome \u2013 war, dass der israelisch-pal\u00e4stinensische Konflikt seinen Ausgang 1967 genommen habe: Um ihn zu l\u00f6sen, bed\u00fcrfe es lediglich eines Abkommens, das den zuk\u00fcnftigen Status des Westjordanlands und des Gazastreifens regele. Da diese Gebiete nur 22 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas ausmachen, reduzierte Israel also mit einem Schlag jede Friedensregelung auf einen kleinen Teil des urspr\u00fcnglichen pal\u00e4stinensischen Stammlandes. Nicht nur das: Israel verlangte \u2013 und verlangt bis heute \u2013 weitere territoriale Kompromisse, die entweder dem von den USA favorisierten realpolitischen Ansatz oder den Grenzen entsprechen, auf die sich die beiden politischen Lager Israels verst\u00e4ndigt hatten.\n\nIsraels zweites Axiom ist, dass alle sichtbaren Posten in diesen Gebieten, n\u00e4mlich im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen, sich noch weiter teilen lie\u00dfen und diese Teilbarkeit ein Schl\u00fcssel zum Frieden sei. F\u00fcr Israel bezieht sich die Teilung der sichtbaren Posten nicht nur auf das Territorium, sondern auch auf Menschen und nat\u00fcrliche Ressourcen.\n\nDas dritte israelische Axiom besagt, dass nichts, was vor 1967 geschah, einschlie\u00dflich der Nakba und der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung, jemals verhandelbar sei. Was das bedeutet, ist klar: Es schlie\u00dft die Fl\u00fcchtlingsfrage vollst\u00e4ndig aus den Friedensverhandlungen aus und umgeht das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Pal\u00e4stinenser als \u00bbaussichtslos\u00ab. Dieses letzte Axiom setzt das Ende der israelischen Besatzung mit dem Ende des Konflikts gleich und ergibt sich ganz logisch aus den beiden vorigen Axiomen. F\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser bilden die Ereignisse von 1948 selbstverst\u00e4ndlich den Kern des Problems, und nur eine Wiedergutmachung des damals begangenen Unrechts kann den Konflikt in der Region beenden.\n\nUm diese axiomatischen Leitlinien umzusetzen, die ganz eindeutig die Pal\u00e4stinenser aus dem Blickfeld verdr\u00e4ngen, brauchte Israel einen potenziellen Partner. Durch Vermittlung des damaligen US-Au\u00dfenministers Henry Kissinger machten sie daher K\u00f6nig Hussein von Jordanien folgende Vorschl\u00e4ge: \u00bbDas israelische Friedenslager unter F\u00fchrung der Arbeitspartei betrachtet die Pal\u00e4stinenser als nicht existent und zieht es vor, die Territorien, die Israel 1967 besetzt hat, mit den Jordaniern zu teilen.\u00ab Aber der jordanische K\u00f6nig fand den Anteil, der ihm zugedacht war, unzureichend. Wie sein Gro\u00dfvater wollte auch K\u00f6nig Hussein das gesamte Gebiet einschlie\u00dflich Ostjerusalem mit seinen muslimischen Heiligt\u00fcmern f\u00fcr sich haben.\n\nDiese sogenannte jordanische Option fand Unterst\u00fctzung bei den Amerikanern, bis im Dezember 1987 die erste Intifada ausbrach, der pal\u00e4stinensische Volksaufstand gegen die israelische Besatzung und Unterdr\u00fcckung. Dass der Jordanien-Weg nicht zu Ergebnissen f\u00fchrte, lag in den ersten Jahren an mangelnder israelischer Gro\u00dfz\u00fcgigkeit und in sp\u00e4teren Jahren an K\u00f6nig Husseins Ambivalenz und an der Tatsache, dass er nicht im Namen der Pal\u00e4stinenser verhandeln konnte, da die PLO panarabisch und global Legitimit\u00e4t besa\u00df.\n\n\u00c4gyptens Pr\u00e4sident Anwar Sadat schlug in seiner Friedensinitiative 1977 Israels rechtem Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten Menachem Begin (im Amt von 1977 bis 1982) einen \u00e4hnlichen Kurs vor: Israel sollte die Kontrolle \u00fcber die besetzten pal\u00e4stinensischen Gebiete behalten, den Pal\u00e4stinensern darin aber Autonomie gew\u00e4hren. Im Grunde handelte es sich dabei um eine weitere Teilungsvariante, durch die Israel 80 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas behalten und die restlichen 20 Prozent indirekt kontrolliert h\u00e4tte.\n\nDer erste Pal\u00e4stinenseraufstand 1987 machte jeden Gedanken an eine Autonomie-Option zunichte, da Jordanien sich aus k\u00fcnftigen Verhandlungen zur\u00fcckzog. Diese Entwicklung f\u00fchrte dazu, dass das israelische Friedenslager sich durchrang, die Pal\u00e4stinenser als Verhandlungspartner f\u00fcr eine k\u00fcnftige Regelung zu akzeptieren. Anfangs versuchte Israel \u2013 immer mit amerikanischer Unterst\u00fctzung \u2013 einen Frieden mit der pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrung in den besetzten Gebieten auszuhandeln, die als offizielle Delegation an der Friedenskonferenz 1991 in Madrid teilnehmen durfte. Diese Konferenz hatte die US-Regierung den arabischen Staaten als Gegenleistung zugestanden, weil sie Washington im ersten Golfkrieg gegen den Irak unterst\u00fctzt hatten. Durch Israels unverhohlene Hinhaltetaktik f\u00fchrten die Verhandlungen in Madrid zu nichts.\n\nDie Regierung Yitzhak Rabin brachte Israels \u00bbFriedensaxiome\u00ab erneut auf die Tagesordnung \u2013 derselbe Yitzhak Rabin, der 1948 als junger Offizier aktiv an den ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen mitgewirkt hatte und der nun auf einer Plattform, die eine Wiederaufnahme der Friedensbem\u00fchungen versprach, zum Ministerpr\u00e4sidenten gew\u00e4hlt worden war. Rabins Tod \u2013 einer seiner eigenen Leute ermordete ihn am 4. November 1995 \u2013 kam zu fr\u00fch, als dass sich beurteilen lie\u00dfe, wie sehr er sich seit 1948 ver\u00e4ndert hatte: Noch 1987 hatte er als Verteidigungsminister seinen Soldaten befohlen, Pal\u00e4stinensern, die w\u00e4hrend der ersten Intifada seine Panzer mit Steinen bewarfen, die Knochen zu brechen; als Ministerpr\u00e4sident hatte er vor dem Oslo-Abkommen Hunderte Pal\u00e4stinenser deportieren lassen und auf das Oslo-II-Abkommen von 1994 gedr\u00e4ngt, das die Pal\u00e4stinenser des Westjordanlands effektiv in mehrere Bantustans sperrte.\n\nIm Mittelpunkt der Friedensbem\u00fchungen Rabins standen die Oslo-Vereinbarungen, die im September 1993 in Gang kamen. Auch diese Verhandlungen basierten wieder auf einem zionistischen Konzept: Die Nakba fehlte v\u00f6llig. Architekten der Oslo-Formel waren israelische Intellektuelle, die selbstverst\u00e4ndlich Israels \u00bbFriedenslager\u00ab angeh\u00f6rten und seit 1967 eine wichtige Rolle in der israelischen \u00d6ffentlichkeit gespielt hatten. Sie hatten sich in einer au\u00dferparlamentarischen Bewegung mit dem Namen Peace Now organisiert und mehrere politische Parteien auf ihre Seite gebracht. Aber Peace Now wich der Frage nach den Ereignissen von 1948 und dem Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblem immer aus. Als die Bewegung dies auch nun wieder tat, fand sie offenbar in Yassir Arafat einen pal\u00e4stinensischen Partner f\u00fcr einen Frieden, der die Ereignisse von 1948 und seine Opfer begrub. Die falschen Hoffnungen, die Israel mit den Oslo-Vereinbarungen weckte, sollten f\u00fcr das pal\u00e4stinensische Volk harte Folgen haben, umso mehr als Arafat in die Falle tappte, die Oslo ihm stellte.\n\nDas Ergebnis war ein Teufelskreis der Gewalt. Verzweifelte pal\u00e4stinensische Reaktionen auf die israelische Unterdr\u00fcckung in Form von Selbstmordanschl\u00e4gen gegen israelische Soldaten und Zivilisten f\u00fchrten zu einer noch h\u00e4rteren israelischen Vergeltungspolitik, die wiederum mehr junge Pal\u00e4stinenser \u2013 von denen viele aus Fl\u00fcchtlingsfamilien stammten \u2013 veranlasste, sich Guerillagruppen anzuschlie\u00dfen, die in Selbstmordanschl\u00e4gen das einzige verbliebene Mittel sahen, um die besetzten Gebiete zu befreien. Eine leicht einzusch\u00fcchternde israelische W\u00e4hlerschaft brachte wieder eine rechte Regierung an die Macht, deren Politik sich letztlich kaum von der vorhergehenden \u00bbOslo\u00ab-Regierung unterschied. Netanyahu (1996\u20131999) scheiterte mit seiner Regierung in jeder Hinsicht, und so kam 1999 wieder die Arbeitspartei und mit ihr das \u00bbFriedenslager\u00ab an die Macht, dieses Mal mit Ehud Barak an der Spitze. Als Barak innerhalb eines Jahres bereits eine Wahlniederlage drohte, weil er sich in fast jedem Bereich seiner Regierungspolitik als allzu ehrgeizig erwiesen hatte, erschien ein Frieden mit den Pal\u00e4stinensern als einziger Weg, seine politische Zukunft zu retten.\n\nDas R\u00fcckkehrrecht\n\nWas f\u00fcr Barak nicht mehr als ein taktischer Schritt war, um seine Haut zu retten, sahen die Pal\u00e4stinenser \u2013 f\u00e4lschlich \u2013 als H\u00f6hepunkt der Oslo-Verhandlungen. Als US-Pr\u00e4sident Clinton Ministerpr\u00e4sident Barak und Pr\u00e4sident Arafat im Sommer 2000 zu einem Gipfeltreffen nach Camp David einlud, erwarteten die Pal\u00e4stinenser dort echte Verhandlungen \u00fcber eine Beendigung des Konflikts. Ein solches Versprechen war tats\u00e4chlich in die Oslo-Grundlagen eingebettet: Das Originaldokument von September 1993 versprach der pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrung, wenn sie sich mit einer \u00dcbergangszeit von f\u00fcnf bis zehn Jahren einverstanden erkl\u00e4re (in der Israel sich teilweise aus den besetzten Gebieten zur\u00fcckziehen w\u00fcrde), k\u00e4men in der letzten Phase der neuen Friedensverhandlungen die Kernpunkte des Konflikts auf den Tisch. Nach Ansicht der Pal\u00e4stinenser war diese letzte Phase nun gekommen, und somit war es an der Zeit, \u00fcber die \u00bbdrei Kernpunkte des Konflikts\u00ab zu diskutieren: das R\u00fcckkehrrecht, Jerusalem und die Zukunft der israelischen Siedlungen.\n\nEine gespaltene PLO \u2013 die Organisation hatte all jene verloren, die Oslo durchschaut hatten, darunter auch die radikaleren islamischen Bewegungen, die seit Ende der 1980er Jahre entstanden waren \u2013 musste einen Gegenvorschlag f\u00fcr einen Friedensplan vorlegen. Leider f\u00fchlte sie sich au\u00dferstande, diese Aufgabe selbst zu erledigen, und suchte Rat bei so unwahrscheinlichen Stellen wie dem Adam Smith Institute in London. Unter dessen Anleitung setzte eine naive pal\u00e4stinensische Verhandlungsdelegation die Nakba und Israels Verantwortung daf\u00fcr ganz oben auf die pal\u00e4stinensische Agenda.\n\nDie pal\u00e4stinensische F\u00fchrung hatte nat\u00fcrlich den Geist des US-Friedensplans v\u00f6llig falsch interpretiert: Nur Israel durfte die Themen einer Friedensagenda festlegen, einschlie\u00dflich der Frage einer permanenten Besiedlung. Und so kam in Camp David ausschlie\u00dflich der israelische Plan auf den Verhandlungstisch und fand uneingeschr\u00e4nkt die Unterst\u00fctzung der Amerikaner. Israel bot an, sich aus Teilen des Westjordanlands und des Gazastreifens zur\u00fcckzuziehen und den Pal\u00e4stinensern etwa 15 Prozent der urspr\u00fcnglichen Fl\u00e4che Pal\u00e4stinas zu \u00fcberlassen. Dieses Gebiet sollte jedoch aufgeteilt werden in separate Kantone, die durch israelische Stra\u00dfen, Siedlungen, Kasernen und Sperrmauern getrennt w\u00e4ren.\n\nVon entscheidender Bedeutung war, dass der israelische Plan Jerusalem ausschloss: Es sollte nie eine pal\u00e4stinensische Hauptstadt Jerusalem geben. Auch f\u00fcr das Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblem bot er keine L\u00f6sung an. Die Definition des zuk\u00fcnftigen pal\u00e4stinensischen Staates, die der israelische Vorschlag enthielt, lief also auf eine v\u00f6llige Verzerrung des Staats- und Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitsbegriffs hinaus, wie er nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg allgemein akzeptiert und vom j\u00fcdischen Staat mit internationaler Unterst\u00fctzung 1948 f\u00fcr sich in Anspruch genommen wurde. Selbst der mittlerweile gebrechliche Arafat \u2013 der sich bis dahin offenbar immer auf Kosten der _sulta_ (tats\u00e4chlichen Macht), die er nie besa\u00df, mit _salata_ (symbolischer Macht) begn\u00fcgt hatte, die ihm zugefallen war \u2013, erkannte, dass das israelische Diktat die pal\u00e4stinensischen Forderungen jeglichen Inhalts beraubte und verweigerte die Unterschrift.\n\nFast vier Jahrzehnte lang hatte Arafat eine Nationalbewegung verk\u00f6rpert, deren Hauptziel im Streben nach rechtlicher und moralischer Anerkennung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung bestand, die Israel 1948 begangen hatte. Die Vorstellungen, wie es dazu kommen sollte, hatten sich im Laufe der Zeit ebenso ver\u00e4ndert wie die Strategie und ganz eindeutig die Taktik, aber das Gesamtziel war gleich geblieben, zumal die UN-Resolution 194 die Forderung auf ein R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Fl\u00fcchtlinge bereits 1948 international anerkannt hatte. Im Jahr 2000 die Camp-David-Vorschl\u00e4ge zu unterzeichnen w\u00e4re einem Verrat an den wenigen Errungenschaften gleich gekommen, die die Pal\u00e4stinenser f\u00fcr sich erstritten hatten. Als Arafat das verweigerte, bestraften ihn die Amerikaner und die Israelis umgehend und stellten ihn als Kriegstreiber hin.\n\nDiese Dem\u00fctigung, die Ariel Sharon im September 2000 noch durch den provokativen Besuch im Haram al-Sharif (Tempelbergbezirk) in Jerusalem unterstrich, l\u00f6ste den Ausbruch der zweiten Intifada aus. Wie bei der ersten Intifada handelte es sich zun\u00e4chst um nicht militante Volksproteste. Aber die Welle t\u00f6dlicher Gewalt, mit der Israel darauf zu reagieren beschloss, lie\u00df die Proteste zu einem bewaffneten Kampf eskalieren, zu einem \u00e4u\u00dferst ungleichen Minikrieg, der bis heute tobt. Die Welt schaut zu, wie die st\u00e4rkste Milit\u00e4rmacht der Region mit Apache-Hubschraubern, Panzern und Bulldozern eine unbewaffnete, wehrlose Bev\u00f6lkerung von Zivilisten und verarmten Fl\u00fcchtlingen angreift, unter denen kleine Gruppen schlecht ausger\u00fcsteter Milizen tapfer, aber ineffektiv Widerstand zu leisten versuchen.\n\nBarouds Buch _Searching Jenin_ enth\u00e4lt Augenzeugenberichte von der israelischen Invasion im Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Jenin zwischen dem 3. und 15. April 2002 und von dem Massaker, das israelische Truppen dort begingen \u2013 ein eindringliches Zeugnis f\u00fcr die Feigheit der internationalen Gemeinschaft, die Abgebr\u00fchtheit Israels und den Mut der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge. Rafidia al-Jamal, eine 35-j\u00e4hrige Mutter von f\u00fcnf Kindern, schildert in dem Buch, wie ihre 27-j\u00e4hrige Schwester Fadwa get\u00f6tet wurde:\n\nAls die Armee kam, bezog sie Stellung auf den D\u00e4chern hoher H\u00e4user und postierte sich oben auf Moscheen. Meine Schwester ist Krankenschwester. Sie war zur Arbeit in einem der Feldlazarette eingeteilt, die in jedem Viertel eingerichtet wurden, das von der Invasion betroffen war.\n\nGegen vier Uhr morgens h\u00f6rten wir eine Granate detonieren. Meine Schwester musste sofort ins Lazarett gehen, um bei der Versorgung der Verwundeten zu helfen. Deshalb verlie\u00df sie das Haus \u2013 zumal wir Leute hatten um Hilfe rufen h\u00f6ren. Meine Schwester trug ihre wei\u00dfe Tracht, und ich war noch im Nachthemd. Ich schlang mir ein Tuch um den Kopf und ging mit ihr, als sie die Stra\u00dfe \u00fcberquerte. Bevor wir aufbrachen, bat ich sie, sich zum Gebet zu waschen. Sie besa\u00df einen tiefen Glauben, besonders in solchen Zeiten. Als die Granate einschlug, hatten wir keine Angst, wir wussten nur, dass Leute Hilfe brauchten.\n\nAls wir nach drau\u00dfen gingen, waren da schon einige Nachbarn. Wir fragten sie, wer verwundet sei. W\u00e4hrend wir mit ihnen sprachen, prasselten israelische Kugeln wie ein Hagelschauer auf uns nieder. Ich wurde an der linken Schulter verletzt. Israelische Soldaten waren oben auf der Moschee postiert, und von da kamen die Kugeln. Ich sagte meiner Schwester Fadwa, dass ich verletzt sei. Wir standen unter einer Stra\u00dfenlaterne, es war also deutlich an unserer Kleidung zu erkennen, wer wir waren. Aber als sie mir zu helfen versuchte, sackte ihr Kopf auf mich herunter. Kugeln durchsiebten sie. Fadwa fiel auf mein Bein, und ich lag auf dem Boden. Die Kugel brach mir das Bein. Als ihr Kopf auf mir lag, sagte ich ihr: \u00bbBete\u00ab, denn ich wusste, dass sie sterben w\u00fcrde. Aber ich hatte nicht gedacht, dass sie so schnell sterben w\u00fcrde \u2013 sie konnte ihr Gebet nicht zu Ende sprechen.\n\nAm 20. April beschloss der UN-Sicherheitsrat in Resolution 1405, eine Ermittlungsgruppe in das Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Jenin zu senden. Als die israelische Regierung die Kooperation verweigerte, entschied UN-Generalsekret\u00e4r Kofi Annan, die Mission aufzugeben.\n\nF\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser war das einzige positive Ergebnis der Camp-David-Episode, dass es ihrer F\u00fchrung zumindest f\u00fcr kurze Zeit gelang, eine lokale, regionale und in gewissem Ma\u00dfe auch globale \u00d6ffentlichkeit auf die Katastrophe von 1948 aufmerksam zu machen. Nicht nur in Israel, sondern auch in den Vereinigten Staaten und sogar in Europa musste man Menschen, denen aufrichtig an der Pal\u00e4stinafrage lag, daran erinnern, dass es bei diesem Konflikt nicht nur um die Zukunft der besetzten Gebiete ging, sondern im Kern um die Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die Israel 1948 durch ethnische S\u00e4uberungen aus Pal\u00e4stina vertrieben hatte. Diese Aufgabe war nach Oslo sogar noch schwieriger, weil dort der Eindruck entstanden war, dass man dieses Problem mit Billigung einer schlecht gef\u00fchrten pal\u00e4stinensischen Diplomatie und Strategie einfach beiseite geschoben hatte.\n\nDie Nakba war tats\u00e4chlich so effektiv von der Agenda des Friedensprozesses ausgeklammert worden, dass die Israelis das Gef\u00fchl hatten, vor ihnen habe sich eine B\u00fcchse der Pandora ge\u00f6ffnet, als sie pl\u00f6tzlich in Camp David zur Sprache kam. Die schlimmsten Bef\u00fcrchtungen der israelischen Verhandlungsf\u00fchrer betrafen die drohende M\u00f6glichkeit, dass Israels Verantwortung f\u00fcr die Katastrophe von1948 zu einem verhandelbaren Thema werden k\u00f6nnte. Es bedarf keiner Erw\u00e4hnung, dass sie dieser \u00bbGefahr\u00ab sofort begegneten. Die israelischen Medien und die Knesset formulierten unverz\u00fcglich einen Konsens aller politischen Lager: Kein israelischer Verhandlungsteilnehmer durfte \u00fcber das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge in das Gebiet, das bis 1948 ihre Heimat war, auch nur diskutieren. Umgehend verabschiedete das Parlament ein entsprechendes Gesetz, und noch als Barak das Flugzeug nach Camp David bestieg, verpflichtete er sich \u00f6ffentlich, sich daran zu halten.\n\nHinter diesen drakonischen Ma\u00dfnahmen der israelischen Regierung, jedes Gespr\u00e4ch \u00fcber das R\u00fcckkehrrecht zu verhindern, steht eine tief sitzende Angst vor einer Debatte \u00fcber die Ereignisse von 1948, da Israels \u00bbBehandlung\u00ab der Pal\u00e4stinenser in jener Zeit zwangsl\u00e4ufig beunruhigende Fragen nach der moralischen Legitimit\u00e4t des gesamten zionistischen Projekts aufwerfen w\u00fcrde. F\u00fcr Israelis ist es daher von entscheidender Bedeutung, einen starken Verleugnungsmechanismus aufrechtzuerhalten, der ihnen nicht nur hilft, die von den Pal\u00e4stinensern in den Friedensverhandlungen gestellten Forderungen abzuwehren, sondern auch \u2013 und vor allem \u2013 jede eingehende Debatte \u00fcber den Charakter und die moralischen Grundlagen des Zionismus zu vereiteln.\n\nDie Pal\u00e4stinenser als Opfer israelischer Taten anzuerkennen ist f\u00fcr Israelis in mindestens zweierlei Hinsicht zutiefst beunruhigend. Da eine solche Anerkennung bedeutet, sich dem historischen Unrecht zu stellen, das Israel mit der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas 1948 begangen hat, stellt sie die Gr\u00fcndungsmythen des Staates Israel in Frage und wirft eine F\u00fclle ethischer Fragen auf, die unausweichliche Folgen f\u00fcr die Zukunft des Staates haben.\n\nDie Pal\u00e4stinenser als Opfer anzuerkennen ist mit tief verwurzelten \u00c4ngsten verkn\u00fcpft, da es von den Israelis verlangt, ihre Wahrnehmung der \u00bbVorg\u00e4nge\u00ab von 1948 in Frage zu stellen. Aus Sicht der meisten Israelis \u2013 und nach der Darstellung, die die israelische Mainstream- und Popul\u00e4rgeschichtsschreibung immer wieder verbreitet \u2013 konnte Israel sich 1948 als unabh\u00e4ngiger Nationalstaat auf einem Teil des Mandatsgebiets Pal\u00e4stina etablieren, weil es den fr\u00fchen Zionisten gelungen war, \u00bbein leeres Land zu besiedeln\u00ab und \u00bbdie W\u00fcste erbl\u00fchen zu lassen\u00ab.\n\nDie Unf\u00e4higkeit der Israelis, das Trauma anzuerkennen, das die Pal\u00e4stinenser erlitten haben, tritt noch sch\u00e4rfer hervor, wenn man sie mit der nationalen pal\u00e4stinensischen Schilderung der Nakba als traumatischer Erfahrung kontrastiert, mit der sie bis heute leben. H\u00e4tte der \u00bbnat\u00fcrliche\u00ab, \u00bbnormale\u00ab Ausgang eines langen, blutigen Konflikts die Pal\u00e4stinenser zu Opfern gemacht, h\u00e4tte Israel nicht so gro\u00dfe Angst, der anderen Seite den Opferstatus zuzugestehen: Beide Seiten w\u00e4ren \u00bbOpfer der Umst\u00e4nde\u00ab \u2013 an dieser Stelle l\u00e4sst sich aber auch jeder andere schwammige, unverbindliche Begriff einsetzen, der Menschen, vor allem Politikern, aber auch Historikern dazu dient, sich von der moralischen Verantwortung freizusprechen, die sie sonst tragen w\u00fcrden. Aber was die Pal\u00e4stinenser verlangen und was f\u00fcr viele von ihnen zu einer Conditio sine qua non wurde, ist, dass man sie als Opfer eines _fortdauernden_ Unrechts anerkennt, das Israel bewusst an ihnen begangen hat. Das zu akzeptieren w\u00fcrde nat\u00fcrlich f\u00fcr israelische Juden ihren eigenen Opferstatus besch\u00e4digen. Es h\u00e4tte politische Auswirkungen auf internationaler Ebene, w\u00fcrde aber auch \u2013 was vielleicht weitaus entscheidender w\u00e4re \u2013 moralische und existenzielle Auswirkungen auf die Psyche israelischer Juden zeitigen: Sie m\u00fcssten sich eingestehen, dass sie zum Spiegelbild ihres schlimmsten Alptraums geworden sind.\n\nIn Camp David h\u00e4tte Israel sich allerdings keine Sorgen zu machen brauchen. Nach den Angriffen vom 11. September 2001 in den Vereinigten Staaten, nach dem Ausbruch der zweiten Intifada in Pal\u00e4stina ein Jahr zuvor und nach den Selbstmordanschl\u00e4gen, die Israels schreckliche Repressionen zu provozieren halfen, l\u00f6ste sich jeglicher mutige Versuch, diese Debatte zu er\u00f6ffnen, nahezu spurlos in Nichts auf, und die fr\u00fcheren Verleugnungspraktiken kehrten um so schlimmer zur\u00fcck.\n\nDer Friedensprozess erfuhr 2003 durch die Roadmap und die etwas k\u00fchnere Initiative der Genfer Vereinbarungen angeblich eine Wiederbelebung. Die Roadmap war das politische Produkt des Nahostquartetts, eines selbst ernannten Vermittlergremiums von USA, UNO, EU und Russland. Dieses bot einen Friedensfahrplan an, der uneingeschr\u00e4nkt die israelische Position \u00fcbernahm, wie Ariel Sharon (Ministerpr\u00e4sident von 2001 und erneut von 2003 bis zu seinem Ausscheiden aus dem Amt 2006) sie mit seiner Politik verk\u00f6rperte. Indem Sharon den israelischen R\u00fcckzug aus Gaza im August 2005 als Medienspektakel inszenierte, gelang es ihm, dem Westen vorzugaukeln, er habe gute Absichten. Aber noch heute kontrolliert die Armee den Gazastreifen von au\u00dfen (und aus der Luft, da sie ihre \u00bbgezielten T\u00f6tungen\u00ab fortsetzt, die Israels Variante der Todesschwadrone darstellen) und wird vermutlich auch im Westjordanland weiter die vollst\u00e4ndige Kontrolle behalten, selbst wenn in Zukunft aus einigen Gebieten israelische Siedler und Soldaten abgezogen werden. Symptomatisch ist auch, dass die Friedensagenda des Nahostquartetts die Fl\u00fcchtlinge von 1948 nicht einmal erw\u00e4hnt.\n\nDie Genfer Vereinbarungen sind mehr oder weniger das beste Angebot, mit dem das israelisch-j\u00fcdische Friedenslager Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts aufwarten konnte. Den Vorschlag erarbeiteten Politiker, die nicht mehr an der Macht waren, als sie ihr Programm vorstellten. Daher l\u00e4sst sich schwer einsch\u00e4tzen, wie tragf\u00e4hig es in der politischen Umsetzung w\u00e4re, auch wenn sie ihre Initiative mit gro\u00dfem PR-Rummel starteten. Die Genfer Vereinbarungen erkennen das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Pal\u00e4stinenser an, sofern ihre \u00bbR\u00fcckkehr\u00ab sich auf das Westjordanland und den Gazastreifen beschr\u00e4nkt. Die ethnische S\u00e4uberung r\u00e4umen sie zwar nicht ein, schlagen aber eine Entsch\u00e4digung vor. Da die Territorien, die das Dokument f\u00fcr einen \u00bbpal\u00e4stinensischen Staat\u00ab vorsieht, eine der am dichtesten besiedelten Regionen der Welt umfasst \u2013 den Gazastreifen \u2013, unterl\u00e4uft es sofort seine eigene Behauptung, eine praktikable L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr die R\u00fcckkehr pal\u00e4stinensischer Fl\u00fcchtlinge zu bieten.\n\nSo merkw\u00fcrdig es klingen mag, sicherte die pal\u00e4stinensische Seite bei den Genfer Vereinbarungen die Anerkennung Israels als j\u00fcdischen Staat zu und erkl\u00e4rte sich damit bereit, die gleiche Politik zu billigen, die Israel in der Vergangenheit betrieben hat, um die j\u00fcdische Majorit\u00e4t um jeden Preis zu erhalten, \u2013 selbst ethnische S\u00e4uberungen. Die gutwilligen Verfasser der Genfer Vereinbarungen st\u00e4rken somit die Festung Israel, die das gr\u00f6\u00dfte Hindernis auf dem Weg zu einem Frieden in Pal\u00e4stina ist.\nKAPITEL 12\n\nFestung Israel\n\n_Die Bedeutung des Abkopplungsplans [vom Gazastreifen] beruht darauf, den Friedensprozess einzufrieren. Und wenn man diesen Prozess einfriert, verhindert man die Gr\u00fcndung eines pal\u00e4stinensischen Staates, und man verhindert eine Diskussion \u00fcber die Fl\u00fcchtlinge, die Grenzen und Jerusalem. Dieses ganze Paket, das man pal\u00e4stinensischen Staat nennt, mit allem, was es nach sich zieht, ist effektiv auf unbestimmte Zeit von unserer Agenda gestrichen. Und das alles mit dem Segen des [US-]Pr\u00e4sidenten und der Ratifizierung beider Kongresskammern._\n\nDov Weissglas, Regierungssprecher Ariel Sharons, \nHa'aretz, 6. Oktober 2004\n\n_Wenn wir weiter leben wollen, m\u00fcssen wir also t\u00f6ten, t\u00f6ten und t\u00f6ten. Den ganzen Tag, jeden Tag. [...] Wenn wir nicht t\u00f6ten, werden wir zu existieren aufh\u00f6ren. [...] Einseitige Abkopplung garantiert keinen \u00bbFrieden\u00ab \u2013 sie garantiert einen zionistischj\u00fcdischen Staat mit einer \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigenden Majorit\u00e4t der Juden._\n\nArnon Soffer, Geografieprofessor an der Universit\u00e4t Haifa, \nIsrael, _The Jerusalem Post_ , 10. Mai 2004\n\nMitten in der Nacht des 24. Januar 2006 r\u00fcckte eine Eliteeinheit der israelischen Grenzpolizei in das israelisch-pal\u00e4stinensische Dorf Jaljulya ein. Die Polizisten st\u00fcrmten H\u00e4user, holten 36 Frauen heraus und deportierten schlie\u00dflich acht von ihnen. Diese acht Frauen mussten zur\u00fcck in ihre Heimatorte im Westjordanland. Einige von ihnen waren seit Jahren mit Pal\u00e4stinensern aus Jaljulya verheiratet, manche waren schwanger, viele hatten Kinder. Abrupt trennte man sie von ihren M\u00e4nnern und Kindern. Ein pal\u00e4stinensischer Abgeordneter der Knesset protestierte, aber Regierung, Gerichte und Medien stellten sich hinter dieses Vorgehen: Die Polizeikr\u00e4fte demonstrierten der israelischen \u00d6ffentlichkeit, dass der j\u00fcdische Staat schnell und erbarmungslos handelt, sobald die Anwesenheit der pal\u00e4stinensischen Minderheit von einem \u00bbdemografischen Problem\u00ab in eine \u00bbdemografische Gefahr\u00ab umschl\u00e4gt.\n\nDie Polizeirazzia in Jaljulya war v\u00f6llig \u00bblegal\u00ab: Am 31. Juli 2003 hatte die Knesset ein Gesetz verabschiedet, das es verbietet, Pal\u00e4stinensern, die israelische Staatsb\u00fcrger heiraten, die Staatsb\u00fcrgerschaft, ein unbegrenztes oder auch nur befristetes Aufenthaltsrecht zu geben. Im Hebr\u00e4ischen sind mit \u00bbPal\u00e4stinensern\u00ab immer Pal\u00e4stinenser aus dem Westjordanland, dem Gazastreifen und der Diaspora gemeint im Unterschied zu \u00bbisraelischen Arabern\u00ab, als ob sie nicht alle derselben pal\u00e4stinensischen Nation angeh\u00f6rten. Initiator dieser Gesetzgebung war ein liberaler Zionist, Avraham Poraz von der in der politischen Mitte angesiedelten Partei Shinui, der das Gesetz als \u00bbVerteidigungsma\u00dfnahme\u00ab bezeichnete. Nur 25 von 120 Knessetabgeordneten stimmten dagegen, und Poraz erkl\u00e4rte damals, \u00bbPal\u00e4stinenser\u00ab, die bereits mit \u00bbisraelischen Staatsb\u00fcrgern\u00ab verheiratet seien und Familie h\u00e4tten, \u00bbm\u00fcssen zur\u00fcck ins Westjordanland\u00ab, unabh\u00e4ngig davon, wie lange sie bereits in Israel lebten.\n\nDie arabischen Knessetabgeordneten geh\u00f6rten zu einer Gruppe von Israelis, die vor dem Obersten Gerichtshof Israels gegen dieses neueste rassistische Gesetz klagten. Als das Oberste Gericht die Klage abwies, versiegte ihre Energie. Das Urteil des Obersten Gerichts machte deutlich, wie irrelevant die \u00bbarabischen Israelis\u00ab im parlamentarischen und rechtlichen System Israels sind. Dar\u00fcber hinaus bewies das Gericht erneut, dass es eher am Zionismus als am Recht festh\u00e4lt. Israelis sagen Pal\u00e4stinensern gern, sie sollten froh sein, in \u00bbder einzigen Demokratie\u00ab der Region zu leben, wo sie Wahlrecht besitzen, aber niemand gibt sich der Illusion hin, dass dieses Wahlrecht mit tats\u00e4chlicher politischer Macht oder Einfluss einherginge.\n\nDas \u00bbdemografische Problem\u00ab\n\nDie Razzia in Jaljulya und das Gesetz, das ihr zugrunde lag, tragen zur Erkl\u00e4rung bei, weshalb die pal\u00e4stinensische Minderheit im Mittelpunkt der letzten israelischen Wahlen stand. Im Wahlkampf 2006 stellten die Programme aller zionistischen Parteien von links bis rechts politische Vorhaben in den Vordergrund, von denen sie behaupteten, sie w\u00fcrden dem \u00bbdemografischen Problem\u00ab, das die pal\u00e4stinensische Pr\u00e4senz in Israel f\u00fcr den Staat darstelle, effektiv begegnen. Ariel Sharon vertrat den Abzug aus dem Gazastreifen als beste L\u00f6sung, w\u00e4hrend die Arbeitspartei in der Sperrmauer den optimalen Weg sah, die Zahl der Pal\u00e4stinenser in Israel begrenzt zu halten. Auch au\u00dferparlamentarische Gruppen \u2013 darunter die Bewegung f\u00fcr die Genfer Vereinbarungen, Peace Now, der Council for Peace and Security, die Ami Ayalons Census-Gruppe und der Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow \u2013 hatten jeweils ihre eigenen Lieblingsrezepte, das \u00bbdemografische Problem\u00ab anzugehen.\n\nAbgesehen von den zehn Mitgliedern der pal\u00e4stinensischen Parteien und zwei exzentrischen ultraorthodoxen Aschkenasim wurden s\u00e4mtliche Abgeordneten des neuen israelischen Parlaments aufgrund ihres festen Versprechens gew\u00e4hlt, das \u00bbdemografische Problem\u00ab ein f\u00fcr alle Mal zu l\u00f6sen. Die Strategien reichten von einer Reduktion der israelischen Besatzung und Kontrolle in den besetzten Gebieten \u2013 die meisten sahen allerdings nie einen israelischen Abzug aus mehr als 50 Prozent dieser Territorien vor\n\n\u2013 bis hin zu drastischeren und umfangreicheren Ma\u00dfnahmen. So traten rechte Parteien wie Avigdor Libermans ethnisch-russische Partei Yisrael Beytenu und die religi\u00f6sen Parteien offen f\u00fcr den \u00bbfreiwilligen Transfer\u00ab \u2013 ihr Euphemismus f\u00fcr ethnische S\u00e4uberungen \u2013 der Pal\u00e4stinenser ins Westjordanland ein. Die zionistische Antwort versucht also das Problem der \u00bbdemografischen Balance\u00ab zu l\u00f6sen, indem sie entweder Territorium aufgibt (das Israel nach dem V\u00f6lkerrecht illegal besetzt h\u00e4lt) oder indem sie die \u00bbproblematische\u00ab Bev\u00f6lkerungsgruppe \u00bbreduziert\u00ab.\n\nNichts von alledem ist neu. Bereits Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts hatte der Zionismus das \u00bbBev\u00f6lkerungsproblem\u00ab als gr\u00f6\u00dftes Hindernis f\u00fcr die Verwirklichung seines Traums erkannt. Er hatte auch die L\u00f6sung erkannt: \u00bbDie arme Bev\u00f6lkerung trachten wir unbemerkt \u00fcber die Grenze zu schaffen, indem wir ihr in den Durchzugsl\u00e4ndern Arbeit verschaffen, aber in unserem eigenen Lande jederlei Arbeit verwehren\u00ab, hatte Herzl 1895 in sein Tagebuch geschrieben. Und David Ben Gurion \u00e4u\u00dferte im Dezember 1947 klar und deutlich: \u00bbEs kann keinen stabilen, starken j\u00fcdischen Staat geben, solange er eine j\u00fcdische Mehrheit von nur 60 Prozent hat.\u00ab Bei dieser Gelegenheit mahnte er, Israel werde sich \u00bbzu gegebener Zeit mit einem neuen Ansatz\u00ab um dieses \u00bbernste\u00ab Problem k\u00fcmmern m\u00fcssen.\n\nBen Gurions \u00bbneuer Ansatz\u00ab \u2013 die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas, die er ein Jahr sp\u00e4ter initiierte \u2013 sorgte daf\u00fcr, dass die Zahl der Pal\u00e4stinenser im neuen j\u00fcdischen Staat auf unter 20 Prozent der Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung reduziert wurde. Im Dezember 2003 recycelte Benjamin Netanyahu Ben Gurions \u00bbalarmierende\u00ab Statistik und erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbWenn die Araber in Israel 40 Prozent der Bev\u00f6lkerung ausmachen, ist das das Ende des j\u00fcdischen Staates. Aber 20 Prozent sind ebenfalls ein Problem. Wenn die Beziehung zu diesen 20 Prozent problematisch wird, hat der Staat das Recht, extreme Ma\u00dfnahmen zu ergreifen.\u00ab N\u00e4heres f\u00fchrte er nicht aus.\n\nZwei Mal in seiner kurzen Geschichte brachten massive Einwanderungswellen von jeweils etwa einer Million Juden Israel einen Wachstumsschub seiner Bev\u00f6lkerung, 1949 und in den 1980er Jahren. Dadurch blieb der Prozentsatz der Pal\u00e4stinenser an der israelischen Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung bei etwa 20 Prozent, wenn man die besetzten Gebiete nicht mitrechnet. Hier liegt die Crux f\u00fcr die heutigen Politiker. Der derzeitige Ministerpr\u00e4sident Ehud Olmert wei\u00df, wenn Israel beschlie\u00dfen sollte, in den besetzten Gebieten zu bleiben, und deren Einwohner offiziell in die Bev\u00f6lkerung Israels einfl\u00f6ssen, w\u00fcrde die Zahl der Pal\u00e4stinenser innerhalb von 15 Jahren die der Juden \u00fcbersteigen. Daher hat er sich f\u00fcr das entschieden, was er _hitkansut_ nennt: Das hebr\u00e4ische Wort bedeutet \u00bbKonvergenz\u00ab oder besser \u00bbSammlung\u00ab und steht f\u00fcr eine Politik, die darauf abzielt, gro\u00dfe Teile des Westjordanlands zu annektieren, aber mehrere bev\u00f6lkerungsreiche pal\u00e4stinensische Gebiete au\u00dferhalb der unmittelbaren israelischen Kontrolle zu belassen. _Hitkansut_ ist also im Grunde Zionismus in etwas anderem Gewand: Es geht darum, einen m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfen Teil Pal\u00e4stinas mit m\u00f6glichst wenigen Pal\u00e4stinensern zu \u00fcbernehmen. Das erkl\u00e4rt, warum die Sperrmauer aus acht Meter hohen Betonplatten, Stacheldraht und bemannten Wacht\u00fcrmen eine 670 Kilometer lange Schlangenlinie beschreibt und damit mehr als doppelt so lang ist wie die 315 Kilometer lange \u00bbGr\u00fcne Linie\u00ab (die Grenze von Juni 1967). Aber selbst wenn es Olmerts Regierung gelingen sollte, diese \u00bbKonsolidierung\u00ab fortzuf\u00fchren, bleibt in den 88 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas, in denen er seinen zuk\u00fcnftigen, stabilen j\u00fcdischen Staat aufbauen will, immer noch eine gro\u00dfe pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung \u00fcbrig. Die genaue Zahl pal\u00e4stinensischer B\u00fcrger kennen wir nicht: Israelische Demografen der Mitte und der Linken nennen niedrige Sch\u00e4tzungen, die eine \u00bbAbkopplung\u00ab als vern\u00fcnftige L\u00f6sung erscheinen lassen, w\u00e4hrend die der Rechten die Zahl tendenziell \u00fcbertreiben. Aber alle sind sich offenbar einig, dass die \u00bbdemografische Balance\u00ab nicht gleich bleiben wird, da die Pal\u00e4stinenser im Vergleich zu den Juden eine h\u00f6here Geburtenrate haben. Daher k\u00f6nnte Olmert schon bald zu dem Schluss kommen, dass der Abzug letztlich doch nicht die geeignete L\u00f6sung ist.\n\nMittlerweile haben die meisten Mainstream-Journalisten, -Akademiker und -Politiker in Israel sich von ihren fr\u00fcheren Hemmungen frei gemacht, wenn es darum geht, \u00fcber die \u00bbdemografische Balance\u00ab zu sprechen. Im Inland findet niemand es mehr n\u00f6tig zu erkl\u00e4ren, worum es dabei geht und wen es betrifft. Und sobald es Israel nach den Anschl\u00e4gen vom 11. September 2001 gelungen war, den Westen dazu zu bringen, dass er die \u00bbAraber\u00ab in Israel und die Pal\u00e4stinenser in den besetzten Gebieten als \u00bbMuslime\u00ab sah, war es einfach, auch im Ausland Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die demografische Politik zu gewinnen, jedenfalls dort, wo es am meisten z\u00e4hlte: in Washington. Am 2. Februar 2003 machte die popul\u00e4re Tageszeitung _Ma'ariv_ mit einer Schlagzeile auf, die typisch f\u00fcr die neue \u00bbStimmung\u00ab ist: \u00bbEin Viertel der Kinder in Israel sind Muslime\u00ab. Der Artikel bezeichnete diese Tatsache als Israels n\u00e4chste \u00bbtickende Zeitbombe\u00ab. Das nat\u00fcrliche Bev\u00f6lkerungswachstum bei \u00bbMuslimen\u00ab (2,4% pro Jahr) \u2013 von Pal\u00e4stinensern war nicht mehr die Rede \u2013 galt in solchen Darstellungen nicht mehr als Problem, sondern hatte sich zu einer \u00bbGefahr\u00ab ausgewachsen.\n\nIm Wahlkampf f\u00fcr die Knessetwahlen 2006 diskutierten Experten die Frage der \u00bbdemografischen Balance\u00ab ganz \u00e4hnlich, wie Mehrheitsbev\u00f6lkerungen in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten \u00fcber Zuwanderung und die Aufnahme oder Abschreckung von Einwanderern debattieren. In Pal\u00e4stina entscheidet jedoch die Einwanderergemeinde \u00fcber die Zukunft der einheimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung, nicht umgekehrt. Wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, sah Ben Gurion am 7. Februar 1948 auf einer Fahrt von Tel Aviv nach Jerusalem die ersten pal\u00e4stinensischen D\u00f6rfer am Westrand Jerusalems, aus denen israelische Truppen die Einwohner vertrieben hatten, und berichtete bei einem Treffen der zionistischen F\u00fchrung jubelnd, wie \u00bbhebr\u00e4isch\u00ab Jerusalem geworden sei.\n\nAber trotz der zionistischen \u00bbBeharrlichkeit\u00ab hat eine ansehnliche pal\u00e4stinensische Gemeinde die ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen \u00fcberlebt. Ihre Kinder studieren heute an Universit\u00e4ten bei Politikoder Geografieprofessoren, die in Vorlesungen erkl\u00e4ren, wie ernst das Problem der \u00bbdemografischen Balance\u00ab f\u00fcr Israel geworden ist. An der Hebr\u00e4ischen Universit\u00e4t Jerusalem treffen pal\u00e4stinensische Jurastudenten \u2013 die das Gl\u00fcck haben, aufgrund einer informellen Quote zugelassen zu werden \u2013 wahrscheinlich auf Professorin Ruth Gabison, ehemalige Vorsitzende der B\u00fcrgerrechtsorganisation Association for Civil Rights und Kandidatin f\u00fcr eine Berufung an den Obersten Gerichtshof, die k\u00fcrzlich zu diesem Thema klare Ansichten \u00e4u\u00dferte \u2013 Ansichten, von denen sie durchaus meinen mag, dass sie einen breiten Konsens widerspiegeln. Sie erkl\u00e4rte: \u00bbIsrael hat das Recht, das nat\u00fcrliche Bev\u00f6lkerungswachstum der Pal\u00e4stinenser zu kontrollieren.\u00ab\n\nAu\u00dferhalb der Universit\u00e4ten kommen Pal\u00e4stinenser gar nicht umhin, zu sp\u00fcren, dass man sie als Problem ansieht. Von der zionistischen Linken bis zur extremen Rechten vermittelt man ihnen tagt\u00e4glich, dass Israels j\u00fcdische Gesellschaft sie am liebsten loswerden m\u00f6chte. Und zu Recht machen sie sich jedes Mal Sorgen, wenn sie h\u00f6ren, dass sie und ihre Familien zu einer \u00bbGefahr\u00ab werden, denn solange sie nur als Problem gelten, k\u00f6nnen sie sich in gewisser Weise noch sicher f\u00fchlen, weil Israel gegen\u00fcber dem Ausland den Schein einer liberalen Demokratie wahren will. Sobald der Staat aber offiziell erkl\u00e4rt, dass sie eine Gefahr darstellen, wissen sie, dass ihnen die Notstandsverordnungen drohen, die Israel sich aus der Zeit des britischen Mandats gern verf\u00fcgbar gehalten hat. Nach diesen Bestimmungen k\u00f6nnten H\u00e4user abgerissen, Zeitungen verboten und Menschen vertrieben werden.\n\nDie UN-Vollversammlung hat im Dezember 1948 das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge anerkannt, die Israel 1948 vertrieben hat. Dieses Recht ist v\u00f6lkerrechtlich verankert und entspricht allen universellen Rechtsvorstellungen. \u00dcberraschender ist vielleicht, dass es durchaus auch im Sinne der Realpolitik sinnvoll ist, wie in Kapitel 11 dargelegt: Wenn Israel nicht anerkennt, dass es die Hauptrolle bei der Enteignung der pal\u00e4stinensischen Nation gespielt hat und weiter spielt, und wenn es die Konsequenzen nicht akzeptiert, die aus der Anerkennung der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung erwachsen, sind alle L\u00f6sungsversuche des Israel-Pal\u00e4stina-Konflikts zum Scheitern verurteilt, wie sich deutlich gezeigt hat, als die Oslo-Initiative im Jahr 2000 am R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Pal\u00e4stinenser scheiterte.\n\nAber es war schon immer Ziel des zionistischen Projekts, eine \u00bbwei\u00dfe\u00ab (westliche) Festung in einer \u00bbschwarzen\u00ab (arabischen) Welt zu errichten und zu verteidigen. Hinter der Weigerung, den Pal\u00e4stinensern das R\u00fcckkehrrecht zuzugestehen, steht im Kern die Angst der j\u00fcdischen Israelis, dass die Araber letzten Endes in der \u00dcberzahl sein werden. Die Aussicht, die diese Bef\u00fcrchtung heraufbeschw\u00f6rt \u2013 dass ihre Festung bedroht sein k\u00f6nnte \u2013, weckt so starke Gef\u00fchle, dass die Israelis sich offenbar nicht mehr darum k\u00fcmmern, ob die ganze Welt ihr Vorgehen verurteilt. Das Prinzip, um jeden Preis eine \u00fcberw\u00e4ltigende j\u00fcdische Mehrheit zu erhalten, verdr\u00e4ngt alle anderen politischen und sogar b\u00fcrgerrechtlichen Erw\u00e4gungen; anstelle des religi\u00f6sen j\u00fcdischen Hangs, Vers\u00f6hnung anzustreben, sind die arrogante Missachtung f\u00fcr die \u00f6ffentliche Meinung der Welt und die Selbstgerechtigkeit getreten, mit der Israel regelm\u00e4\u00dfig Kritik abwehrt. Diese Einstellung ist der Haltung der mittelalterlichen Kreuzfahrer nicht un\u00e4hnlich, deren K\u00f6nigreich Jerusalem fast ein Jahrhundert lang eine isolierte, befestigte Insel blieb, wo sie sich hinter den dicken Mauern ihrer uneinnehmbaren Burgen gegen eine Integration mit ihrer muslimischen Umgebung verschanzten, Gefangene ihrer eigenen verzerrten Realit\u00e4t. Ein j\u00fcngeres Beispiel f\u00fcr die gleiche Belagerungsmentalit\u00e4t sind die wei\u00dfen Siedler in S\u00fcdafrika w\u00e4hrend der Hochbl\u00fcte der Apartheid. Das Bestreben der Buren, eine rassisch reine, wei\u00dfe Enklave wie die der Kreuzfahrer in Pal\u00e4stina zu erhalten, w\u00e4hrte nur einen kurzen historischen Moment, bis sie ebenfalls zusammenbrach.\n\nWie bereits zu Beginn dieses Buches dargelegt, errichtete eine Gruppe j\u00fcdischer Siedler aus Osteuropa um 1922 die zionistische Enklave in Pal\u00e4stina mit betr\u00e4chtlicher Hilfe und Unterst\u00fctzung durch das Britische Reich. Die politischen Grenzen, die die Briten f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina festlegten, erm\u00f6glichten es gleichzeitig den Zionisten, konkrete geografische Vorstellungen f\u00fcr das Eretz Israel zu definieren, das ihnen f\u00fcr ihren zuk\u00fcnftigen j\u00fcdischen Staat vorschwebte. Die Siedler tr\u00e4umten von massenhafter j\u00fcdischer Zuwanderung, um ihre Stellung zu st\u00e4rken, aber der Holocaust reduzierte die Zahl der \u00bbwei\u00dfen\u00ab europ\u00e4ischen Juden; und jene, die der Vernichtung durch die Nazis entgangen waren, zogen es zur Entt\u00e4uschung der Zionisten vor, in die Vereinigten Staaten zu emigrieren oder sogar trotz der j\u00fcngsten Gr\u00e4uel in Europa zu bleiben. Daraufhin beschloss Israels Aschkenasimf\u00fchrung, eine Million arabische Juden aus dem Mittleren Osten und Nordafrika in die Enklave zu holen, die sie sich in Pal\u00e4stina geschaffen hatten. Hier kommt eine weitere diskriminierende Seite des Zionismus zum Vorschein, die vielleicht sogar noch sch\u00e4rfer hervortritt, weil sie Angeh\u00f6rige der eigenen Religion betrifft. Diese Gruppe j\u00fcdischer Zuwanderer aus der arabischen Welt, Mizrahim genannt, musste einen gemeinen Entarabisierungsprozess \u00fcber sich ergehen lassen, der in den letzten Jahren nicht zuletzt dank des Engagements von Akademikern der zweiten und dritten Generation dieser Immigranten (darunter Ella Shohat, Sami Shalom Shitrit und Yehuda Shenhav) an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit gebracht wurde. Aus zionistischer Sicht erwies sich auch dieser Enteignungsprozess letztlich als Erfolg. Da die Enklave von der kleinen pal\u00e4stinensischen Minderheit in Israel nie bedroht war, hielt sich die Illusion, dass sie gut gebaut war und auf soliden Fundamenten ruhte.\n\nAls sich Mitte der 1960er Jahre abzeichnete, dass die arabische Welt und die aufkeimende pal\u00e4stinensische Nationalbewegung sich weigerten, sich mit der Realit\u00e4t abzufinden, die die Festung Israel f\u00fcr sie geschaffen hatte, beschloss Israel seinen territorialen Einflussbereich auszudehnen und eroberte im Juni 1967 den Rest Pal\u00e4stinas sowie Teile Syriens, \u00c4gyptens und Jordaniens. Nachdem Israel den Sinai 1979 im Tausch gegen \u00bbFrieden\u00ab an \u00c4gypten zur\u00fcckgegeben hatte, verleibte es sich 1982 den S\u00fcdlibanon in sein Mini-Imperium ein. Zum Schutz der Enklave war eine Expansionspolitik notwendig geworden.\n\nDer R\u00fcckzug aus dem S\u00fcdlibanon im Mai 2000 und aus dem Gazastreifen im August 2005 zeigt, dass die israelische Regierung die Zielrichtung ge\u00e4ndert hat und sich auf andere Aspekte konzentriert, die ihr n\u00fctzlicher erscheinen, um die Festung uneinnehmbar zu halten: Atomwaffen, uneingeschr\u00e4nkte amerikanische Unterst\u00fctzung und eine starke Armee. Zionistischer Pragmatismus schl\u00e4gt sich erneut in einer Politik nieder, die letzten Endes den Grenzverlauf der Enklave festlegen wird. Nach dem V\u00f6lkerrecht kann kein Staat seine eigenen Grenzen einseitig festlegen, aber diese Vorstellung d\u00fcrfte wohl kaum durch die dicken Mauern der Festung dringen. In Israel herrscht derzeit ein Konsens \u00fcber ein Staatsgebiet, dessen Grenzen etwa 90 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas einschlie\u00dfen, sofern das Territorium von Elektroz\u00e4unen und sichtbaren wie unsichtbaren Mauern umgeben ist.\n\nWie 1948, als Ben Gurion die Beratergruppe dazu brachte, sich mit einem zuk\u00fcnftigen Staatsgebiet von 78 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas \u00bbabzufinden\u00ab, besteht das Problem auch heute nicht mehr darin, wie viel Land Israel sich aneignet, sondern was aus den einheimischen Pal\u00e4stinensern werden soll, die dort leben. In den 90 Prozent Pal\u00e4stinas, die Israel anstrebt, gab es 2006 etwa 2,5 Millionen Pal\u00e4stinenser und 6 Millionen Juden. Weitere 2,5 Millionen Pal\u00e4stinenser lebten im Gazastreifen und in den Gebieten des Westjordanlands, die Israel nicht haben m\u00f6chte. F\u00fcr die meisten Mainstream-Politiker und die j\u00fcdische \u00d6ffentlichkeit Israels ist schon diese demografische Balance ein Alptraum.\n\nAber Israels unnachgiebige Weigerung, Verhandlungen \u00fcber das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Pal\u00e4stinenser in ihre Heimat als M\u00f6glichkeit auch nur in Betracht zu ziehen \u2013 selbst wenn das zu einer Beendigung des Konflikts f\u00fchren w\u00fcrde \u2013, um eine \u00fcberwiegend j\u00fcdische Mehrheit zu erhalten, steht auf \u00e4u\u00dferst t\u00f6nernen F\u00fc\u00dfen. Seit ann\u00e4hernd zwei Jahrzehnten kann sich der Staat Israel schon nicht mehr auf eine \u00fcberwiegend j\u00fcdische Mehrheit berufen, da in den 1980er Jahren viele Christen aus Staaten der ehemaligen Sowjetunion ins Land str\u00f6mten, die Zahl der Gastarbeiter w\u00e4chst und es s\u00e4kularen Juden immer schwerer f\u00e4llt zu definieren, was ihr Judentum im \u00bbj\u00fcdischen\u00ab Staat ausmacht. Diese Realit\u00e4ten sind den Kapit\u00e4nen des Staatsschiffes durchaus bekannt, aber nichts von alledem beunruhigt sie: Ihr prim\u00e4res Ziel ist es, die Bev\u00f6lkerung im Staat \u00bbwei\u00df\u00ab zu halten, sprich: nichtarabisch.\n\nIsraelische Regierungen sind in ihren Versuchen gescheitert, weitere j\u00fcdische Zuwanderung zu f\u00f6rdern und die j\u00fcdische Geburtenrate im Staat zu steigern. Und sie haben keine L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr den Pal\u00e4stinakonflikt gefunden, die zu einer Reduzierung der Araberzahlen in Israel f\u00fchren w\u00fcrde. Im Gegenteil, s\u00e4mtliche L\u00f6sungen, die Israel in Erw\u00e4gung zieht, bringen einen Zuwachs der arabischen Bev\u00f6lkerung mit sich, da sie Gro\u00dfjerusalem, die Golanh\u00f6hen und die gro\u00dfen Siedlungsbl\u00f6cke im Westjordanland umfassen. Manche Vorschl\u00e4ge, die Israel nach 1993 zu einer Beendigung des Konflikts machte, m\u00f6gen zwar bei einigen arabischen Regierungen der Region \u2013 wie \u00c4gypten und Jordanien, die beide fest zur Einflusssph\u00e4re der USA geh\u00f6ren \u2013 Zustimmung gefunden haben, konnten aber die Zivilgesellschaften dieser L\u00e4nder nie \u00fcberzeugen. Auch die Herangehensweise der Amerikaner an die \u00bbDemokratisierung\u00ab des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens, wie die US-Truppen sie derzeit im Irak betreiben, macht das Leben in der \u00bbwei\u00dfen\u00ab Festung nicht einfacher, da die muslimische Welt Israel eng mit der Invasion im Irak verkn\u00fcpft sieht. Innerhalb der Festung herrscht ein hohes Ma\u00df sozialer Gewalt, und der Lebensstandard der Bev\u00f6lkerungsmehrheit sinkt st\u00e4ndig. Keines dieser Probleme wird angepackt: Sie stehen auf der nationalen Agenda fast ebenso weit hinten wie die Umwelt und die Rechte der Frauen.\n\nDas R\u00fcckkehrrecht der pal\u00e4stinensischen Fl\u00fcchtlinge abzulehnen kommt einem bedingungslosen Gel\u00fcbde gleich, die \u00bbwei\u00dfe\u00ab Enklave weiter zu verteidigen und die Festung zu halten. Apartheid ist besonders bei Mizrahi-Juden popul\u00e4r, die heutzutage am lautst\u00e4rksten f\u00fcr die Festung eintreten, auch wenn das behagliche Leben ihrer Aschkenasi-Landsleute nur wenigen von ihnen verg\u00f6nnt ist, zumal wenn sie aus nordafrikanischen L\u00e4ndern stammen. Und das wissen sie auch \u2013 ihre arabische Herkunft und Kultur zu verraten hat ihnen nicht die volle Anerkennung gebracht.\n\nDabei scheint die L\u00f6sung doch recht einfach zu sein: Als letzte postkoloniale europ\u00e4ische Enklave in der arabischen Welt hat Israel keine andere Wahl, als sich freiwillig eines Tages in einen b\u00fcrgerlichen, demokratischen Staat zu verwandeln.\n\nDass dies m\u00f6glich ist, zeigen die engen sozialen Beziehungen, die Pal\u00e4stinenser und Juden in diesen langen, unruhigen Jahren innerhalb und au\u00dferhalb Israels untereinander gekn\u00fcpft haben. Dass wir dem Konflikt im zerrissenen Pal\u00e4stina ein Ende setzen k\u00f6nnen, wird ebenfalls klar, wenn wir uns die Teile der j\u00fcdischen Gesellschaft in Israel ansehen, die sich entschlossen haben, sich von menschlichen Erw\u00e4gungen statt von zionistischer Sozialtechnologie leiten zu lassen. Dass Frieden in Reichweite ist, wissen wir vor allem von der Mehrheit der Pal\u00e4stinenser, die sich von den Jahrzehnten brutaler israelischer Besatzung nicht haben entmenschlichen lassen und die trotz jahrelanger Vertreibung und Unterdr\u00fcckung immer noch auf Vers\u00f6hnung hoffen.\n\nAber das Fenster dieser Chance wird nicht immer offen bleiben. Israel kann auch dazu verdammt sein, ein Land voller Zorn zu bleiben, dessen Handeln und Verhalten von Rassismus und religi\u00f6sem Fanatismus diktiert sind, ein Land, in dem das Streben nach Vergeltung die Z\u00fcge der Menschen dauerhaft entstellt. Wie lange k\u00f6nnen wir von unseren pal\u00e4stinensischen Br\u00fcdern und Schwestern noch erbitten, geschweige denn erwarten, dass sie uns weiter Vertrauen schenken und sich nicht vollends der Verzweiflung und dem Kummer hingeben, die ihr Leben pr\u00e4gen, seit Israel seine Festung auf ihren zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfern und St\u00e4dten errichtet hat?\nEpilog\n\nDas Gr\u00fcne Haus\n\nDie Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv ist wie alle Hochschulen Israels der Freiheit der wissenschaftlichen Forschung verpflichtet. Der Faculty Club der Universit\u00e4t befindet sich im sogenannten Gr\u00fcnen Haus. Urspr\u00fcnglich war es das Wohnhaus des Muchtars von Shaykh Muwannis, aber darauf w\u00fcrde niemand kommen, der zum Essen in den Club eingeladen wird oder an einem Workshop \u00fcber die Geschichte des Landes oder sogar \u00fcber die Stadt Tel Aviv teilnimmt. Auf der Speisekarte des Restaurants im Faculty Club steht, dass dieses Haus im 19. Jahrhundert erbaut wurde und einem reichen Mann namens \u00bbShaykh Munis\u00ab geh\u00f6rte \u2013 eine fiktive, gesichtlose Gestalt an einem fiktiven, unbestimmten Ort wie alle \u00bbgesichtlosen\u00ab Menschen, die fr\u00fcher in dem zerst\u00f6rten Dorf Shaykh Muwannis lebten, auf dessen Ruinen die Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv gebaut wurde. Das Gr\u00fcne Haus verk\u00f6rpert also im Kleinen die Verleugnung des zionistischen Masterplans f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas, der nicht weit entfernt im dritten Stock des Roten Hauses an der Yarkon Street beschlossen wurde.\n\nH\u00e4tte die Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv sich echter wissenschaftlicher Forschung verpflichtet gef\u00fchlt, sollte man annehmen, dass beispielsweise ihre Wirtschaftswissenschaftler mittlerweile das Ausma\u00df der pal\u00e4stinensischen Verm\u00f6genswerte, die bei den Zerst\u00f6rungen 1948 verloren gegangen sind, ermittelt und eine Inventarliste erstellt h\u00e4tten, die zuk\u00fcnftige Verhandlungen in Richtung auf Frieden und Vers\u00f6hnung erm\u00f6glichen k\u00f6nnten. Privatfirmen, Banken, Apotheken, Hotels und Busunternehmen, die Pal\u00e4stinensern geh\u00f6rten, Kaffeeh\u00e4user, Restaurants und Werkst\u00e4tten, die sie betrieben, \u00c4mter, die sie in \u00f6ffentlichen Verwaltungen, Gesundheits- und Bildungswesen bekleideten \u2013 das alles l\u00f6ste sich in nichts auf, wurde konfisziert, zerst\u00f6rt oder in \u00bbj\u00fcdisches Eigentum\u00ab \u00fcberf\u00fchrt, als die Zionisten Pal\u00e4stina \u00fcbernahmen.\n\nDie Geografen, die an der Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv in Amt und W\u00fcrden sind, h\u00e4tten uns eine objektive Landkarte mit dem Grundbesitz liefern k\u00f6nnen, den Israel von Fl\u00fcchtlingen konfisziert hat: Millionen Dunam Ackerland und weitere ann\u00e4hernd zehn Millionen Dunam, die nach V\u00f6lkerrecht und UN-Resolutionen als Territorium f\u00fcr einen pal\u00e4stinensischen Staat vorgesehen waren. Dem h\u00e4tten sie noch die vier Millionen Dunam Land hinzugef\u00fcgt, die der Staat Israel im Laufe der Jahre von pal\u00e4stinensischen Staatsb\u00fcrgern enteignet hat.\n\nPhilosophieprofessoren der Universit\u00e4t h\u00e4tten inzwischen \u00fcber die moralischen Aspekte der Massaker nachdenken k\u00f6nnen, die j\u00fcdische Truppen w\u00e4hrend der Nakba begangen haben. Pal\u00e4stinensische Quellen, die sich auf israelische Milit\u00e4rarchive und m\u00fcndliche Berichte st\u00fctzen, listen 32 best\u00e4tigte Massaker auf \u2013 angefangen bei dem Massaker in Tirat Haifa am 11. Dezember 1947 bis zum Massaker in Khirbat Ilin bei Hebron am 19. Januar 1949 \u2013 und es gab m\u00f6glicherweise noch mindestens sechs weitere. Noch immer haben wir kein systematisches Nakba-Gedenkarchiv, das es m\u00f6glich machen w\u00fcrde, die Namen all derer zu ermitteln, die bei diesen Massakern starben \u2013 ein Akt schmerzlicher Erinnerung, der allm\u00e4hlich in Gang kommt, w\u00e4hrend dieses Buch in Druck geht.\n\nNur 15 Autominuten von der Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv entfernt liegt das Dorf Kfar Qassim, wo am 29. Oktober 1956 israelische Truppen 49 Einwohner auf dem Heimweg von den Feldern ermordeten. Zu weiteren Massakern kam es in den 1950er Jahren in Qibya, in den 1960er Jahren in Samoa, 1976 in den D\u00f6rfern in Galil\u00e4a, 1982 in Sabra und Shatila, 1999 in Kfar Qana, 2000 in Wadi Ara und 2002 im Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Jenin. Au\u00dferdem gab es die zahlreichen T\u00f6tungen, die Israels f\u00fchrende Menschenrechtsorganisation Betselem fortlaufend dokumentiert. Israel hat nie aufgeh\u00f6rt, Pal\u00e4stinenser zu t\u00f6ten.\n\nHistoriker, die an der Universit\u00e4t Tel Aviv arbeiten, h\u00e4tten uns ein vollst\u00e4ndiges Bild des Krieges und der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen liefern k\u00f6nnen: Sie haben privilegierten Zugang zu allen erforderlichen Unterlagen in offiziellen Milit\u00e4r- und Staatsdokumentationen und Archiven. Die meisten von ihnen machen sich lieber zum Sprachrohr der Hegemonialideologie: Ihre Werke schildern die Vorg\u00e4nge von 1948 als \u00bbUnabh\u00e4ngigkeitskrieg\u00ab, glorifizieren die j\u00fcdischen Soldaten und Offiziere, die daran beteiligt waren, vertuschen ihre Verbrechen und verleumden die Opfer.\n\nAber nicht alle Juden in Israel sind blind f\u00fcr das Blutbad, das ihre Armee 1948 hinterlassen hat, oder taub f\u00fcr die Schreie der Vertriebenen, Verwundeten, Gefolterten und Vergewaltigten, die uns durch die \u00dcberlebenden, ihre Kinder und Enkel erreichen. Eine wachsende Zahl von Israelis ist sich bewusst, was wirklich 1948 geschehen ist, und begreift vollauf die moralischen Weiterungen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen, die im Land gew\u00fctet haben. Sie erkennen auch die Gefahr, dass Israel das S\u00e4uberungsprogramm in einem verzweifelten Versuch, seine absolute j\u00fcdische Mehrheit zu erhalten, reaktivieren k\u00f6nnte.\n\nBei diesen Menschen findet man auch die politische Einsicht, die allen fr\u00fcheren und gegenw\u00e4rtigen Friedensvermittlern in diesem Konflikt offenbar v\u00f6llig fehlt: Sie sind sich dar\u00fcber im Klaren, dass das Fl\u00fcchtlingsproblem den Kern des Konflikts bildet und das Schicksal der Fl\u00fcchtlinge Dreh- und Angelpunkt jeder L\u00f6sung sein muss, die Aussicht auf Erfolg haben soll.\n\nEs stimmt zwar, dass diese israelischen Juden, die gegen den Strom schwimmen, rar und weit gestreut sind, aber es gibt sie, und angesichts des allgemeinen Wunschs der Pal\u00e4stinenser, nicht Vergeltung, sondern Wiedergutmachung zu erlangen, halten sie den Schl\u00fcssel zu Vers\u00f6hnung und Frieden in dem zerrissenen Land Pal\u00e4stina in der Hand. Sie sind heute Seite an Seite mit den nahezu einer halben Million pal\u00e4stinensischen \u00bbBinnenfl\u00fcchtlingen\u00ab auf den allj\u00e4hrlichen Pilgerfahrten zu den zerst\u00f6rten D\u00f6rfern zu finden, einer Reise zum Gedenken an die Nakba, die jedes Jahr an dem Tag stattfindet, an dem Israel offiziell seinen \u00bbUnabh\u00e4ngigkeitstag\u00ab (nach j\u00fcdischem Kalender) feiert. Sie engagieren sich aktiv in Nichtregierungsorganisationen wie Zochrot \u2013 hebr\u00e4isch \u00bbErinnern\u00ab \u2013, einer Gruppe, die es sich hartn\u00e4ckig zur Aufgabe macht, Ortsschilder mit den Namen zerst\u00f6rter pal\u00e4stinensischer D\u00f6rfer dort aufzustellen, wo sich heute j\u00fcdische Siedlungen und JNF-W\u00e4lder befinden. Man h\u00f6rt sie auf den Konferenzen f\u00fcr R\u00fcckkehrrecht und gerechten Frieden sprechen, die seit 2004 stattfinden; dort bekr\u00e4ftigen sie gemeinsam mit ihren pal\u00e4stinensischen Freunden aus dem In- und Ausland ihr Engagement f\u00fcr das R\u00fcckkehrrecht der Fl\u00fcchtlinge und verpflichten sich wie der Autor dieses Buches, weiter darum zu k\u00e4mpfen, dass die Erinnerung an die Nakba vor allen Versuchen gesch\u00fctzt wird, die Gr\u00e4uel ihrer Verbrechen zu verharmlosen oder ihre Existenz zu leugnen, damit eines Tages in Pal\u00e4stina ein dauerhafter und umfassender Friede entsteht.\n\nAber bevor diese wenigen Engagierten eine \u00c4nderung bewirken, m\u00fcssen Pal\u00e4stina und seine V\u00f6lker, Juden und Araber, sich den Folgen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung von 1948 stellen. Dieses Buch endet, wie es angefangen hat: mit Fassungslosigkeit dar\u00fcber, dass dieses Verbrechen so vollst\u00e4ndig vergessen und aus unserem Bewusstsein und unserer Erinnerung getilgt wurde. Aber nun kennen wir den Preis: Die Ideologie, die es erm\u00f6glicht hat, 1948 die H\u00e4lfte der heimischen Bev\u00f6lkerung Pal\u00e4stinas zu vertreiben, ist nach wie vor lebendig und betreibt weiter die unerbittliche, zuweilen unmerkliche S\u00e4uberung des Landes von den Pal\u00e4stinensern, die heute dort leben.\n\nBis heute ist es eine m\u00e4chtige Ideologie, nicht nur, weil die fr\u00fcheren Phasen der ethnischen S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas unbemerkt geblieben sind, sondern vor allem, weil sich die zionistische Sch\u00f6nf\u00e4rberei als so erfolgreich in der Erfindung einer neuen Sprache erwiesen hat, die die verheerende Wirkung ihrer Praktiken vertuscht. Es beginnt mit Euphemismen wie \u00bbAbzug\u00ab oder \u00bbVerlegung\u00ab, um die massiven Umsiedlungen von Pal\u00e4stinensern aus dem Gazastreifen und dem Westjordanland zu kaschieren, die seit 2000 in Gang sind. Es geht weiter mit weniger offensichtlichen Fehlbezeichnungen wie \u00bbBesatzung\u00ab f\u00fcr die unmittelbare israelische Milit\u00e4rverwaltung in Teilen des historischen Pal\u00e4stina, die heute mehr oder weniger 15 Prozent des Landes ausmachen, w\u00e4hrend der Rest als \u00bbbefreit\u00ab, \u00bbfrei\u00ab oder \u00bbunabh\u00e4ngig\u00ab bezeichnet wird. Es stimmt zwar, dass der gr\u00f6\u00dfte Teil Pal\u00e4stinas nicht unter Milit\u00e4rbesatzung steht \u2013 aber in einigen Gebieten herrschen noch schlimmere Bedingungen. Man denke nur an den Gazastreifen nach dem Abzug, wo selbst Menschenrechtsanw\u00e4lte die Einwohner nicht sch\u00fctzen k\u00f6nnen, weil sie nicht unter dem Schutz der internationalen Konventionen stehen, die f\u00fcr eine milit\u00e4rische Besatzung gelten. Innerhalb des Staates Israel geht es vielen angeblich besser, wesentlich besser, wenn sie j\u00fcdische Staatsb\u00fcrger sind, etwas besser, wenn sie pal\u00e4stinensische Staatsb\u00fcrger Israels sind. F\u00fcr die letzteren ist es umso besser, wenn sie nicht gerade im Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem wohnen, wo die israelische Politik in den letzten sechs Jahren darauf abzielt, sie in die besetzten Territorien oder in die recht- und obrigkeitslosen Gebiete des Gazastreifens und des Westjordanlands umzusiedeln, die durch die katastrophalen Oslo-Vereinbarungen in den 1990er Jahren geschaffen wurden.\n\nEs gibt also viele Pal\u00e4stinenser, die nicht unter Besatzung leben, aber keiner von ihnen \u2013 und das gilt auch f\u00fcr die Einwohner der Fl\u00fcchtlingslager \u2013 ist vor der potenziellen Gefahr zuk\u00fcnftiger ethnischer S\u00e4uberungen sicher. Die Auswahl ist offenbar mehr eine Frage israelischer Priorit\u00e4ten als einer Hierarchie \u00bbgl\u00fccklicher\u00ab oder \u00bbweniger gl\u00fccklicher\u00ab Pal\u00e4stinenser. Derzeit erf\u00e4hrt der Gro\u00dfraum Jerusalem eine ethnische S\u00e4uberung. Wer in der Umgebung der Apartheid-Mauer wohnt, die Israel gerade baut und bereits zur H\u00e4lfte fertig gestellt hat, kommt vermutlich als n\u00e4chstes an die Reihe. Die Pal\u00e4stinenser Israels, die in der gr\u00f6\u00dften Illusion von Sicherheit leben, k\u00f6nnten in Zukunft durchaus ebenfalls betroffen sein. Eine Umfrage ergab k\u00fcrzlich, dass 68 Prozent der israelischen Juden sie gern \u00bbumgesiedelt\u00ab s\u00e4hen.\n\nWeder Pal\u00e4stinenser noch Juden werden voreinander oder vor sich selbst sicher sein, wenn die Ideologie, die nach wie vor die israelische Politik gegen\u00fcber den Pal\u00e4stinensern treibt, nicht korrekt benannt wird. Das Problem bei Israel war nie sein Judentum \u2013 es hat viele Gesichter und davon bieten viele eine solide Basis f\u00fcr Frieden und Zusammenleben; es ist vielmehr der ethnisch zionistische Charakter. Der Zionismus besitzt nicht das Ma\u00df an Pluralismus, den das Judentum bietet, vor allem nicht f\u00fcr die Pal\u00e4stinenser. Sie k\u00f6nnen niemals Teil eines zionistischen Staates und Staatsgebiets sein und werden weiter k\u00e4mpfen \u2013 und hoffentlich wird ihr Kampf friedlich und erfolgreich sein. Wenn nicht, wird er sich verzweifelt und rachs\u00fcchtig gestalten und wie ein Wirbelwind alles in einem gewaltigen anhaltenden Sandsturm aufsaugen, der nicht nur in der gesamten arabischen und muslimischen Welt w\u00fcten wird, sondern auch in Gro\u00dfbritannien und den Vereinigten Staaten, jenen M\u00e4chten, die den Sturm sch\u00fcren, der uns alle zu verderben droht.\n\nDie israelischen Angriffe auf Gaza und den Libanon im Sommer 2006 lassen erkennen, dass dieser Sturm bereits tobt. Organisationen wie Hisbollah und Hamas, die Israels Recht, Pal\u00e4stina einseitig seinen Willen aufzuzwingen, in Frage zu stellen wagen, haben sich Israels Milit\u00e4rmacht gestellt und schaffen es bislang (zur Zeit der Entstehung dieses Buches), ihr standzuhalten. Aber es ist noch lange nicht vorbei. In Zukunft k\u00f6nnten die regionalen Schutzherren dieser Widerstandsbewegungen, Iran und Syrien, ins Visier geraten; das Risiko eines noch verheerenderen Konflikts und Blutvergie\u00dfens war noch nie so akut.\nAnmerkungen\n\nVORWORT\n\n Central Zionist Archives, Sitzungsprotokoll der Jewish Agency Executive vom 12.6.1938.\n\n Manche sind \u00fcberzeugt, dass die Fassade zum Zeichen der Solidarit\u00e4t mit dem Sozialismus fr\u00fcher rot gestrichen war.\n\n Der Historiker Meir Pail gibt an, die Befehle seien eine Woche sp\u00e4ter ausgegeben worden (Meir Pail, _From Hagana to the IDF_ , S. 307).\n\n Die Dokumente der Sitzung sind zusammengefasst in den IDF Archives, GHQ\/Operations Branch, 10 March 1948, File 922\/75\/595, und in den Hagana Archives, 73\/94. Israel Galili erstattete im Mapai-Zentrum am 4. April 1948 Bericht \u00fcber die Sitzung, zu finden in den Hagana Archives 80\/50\/18. Die Zusammensetzung der Gruppe und ihre Diskussionen wurden St\u00fcck f\u00fcr St\u00fcck aus verschiedenen Dokumenten rekonstruiert, wie die folgenden Kapitel darlegen. Kapitel 4 dokumentiert auch die Mitteilungen, die am 10. M\u00e4rz hinausgingen, und die Sitzungen vor der endg\u00fcltigen Planfestlegung. Zu einer \u00e4hnlichen Interpretation von Plan Dalet, der einige Wochen vor dieser Sitzung angenommen wurde, siehe Uri Ben-Eliezer, _The Emergence of Israeli Militarism, 1936\u20131956,_ S. 253; er schreibt: \u00bbPlan Dalet zielte auf die S\u00e4uberung von D\u00f6rfern, die Vertreibung von Arabern aus gemischten St\u00e4dten.\u00ab Zur Ausgabe der Einsatzbefehle siehe auch Meir Pail, S. 307, sowie Gershon Rivlin und Elhanan Oren, _The War of Independence: Ben-Gurion's Diary,_ Bd. 1, S. 147. Die ausgegebenen Befehle an die jeweiligen Einheiten sind zu finden in Hagana Archives 73\/94: Befehle an die Brigaden, zu Position D \u2013 _Mazav Dalet_ \u2013 \u00fcberzugehen, und von der Brigade an die Bataillone, 16. April 1948.\n\n Simcha Flapan, _Die Geburt Israels: Mythos und Wirklichkeit_ , S. 135\n\n David Ben Gurion erkl\u00e4rte in _Rebirth and Destiny of Israel_ , S. 530, freim\u00fctig: \u00bbBis die Briten abzogen [15. Mai 1948], fielen die Araber in keine noch so abgelegene j\u00fcdische Siedlung ein oder eroberten sie, dagegen ... nahm die Hagana viele arabische Stellungen ein und befreiten Tiberia sowie Haifa, Jaffa und Safad ... Am Schicksalstag war also der Teil Pal\u00e4stinas, in dem die Hagana operieren konnte, nahezu frei von Arabern.\u00ab\n\n Diese Elf bildeten die Beratergruppe, wie ich sie nenne; s. Kap. 3. Es ist m\u00f6glich, dass au\u00dfer dieser F\u00fchrungsriege von Entscheidungstr\u00e4gern noch andere an den Sitzungen teilnahmen, allerdings nur als Zuh\u00f6rer. Was die f\u00fchrenden Offiziere betrifft, so gab es zw\u00f6lf Einsatzbefehle an zw\u00f6lf Brigaden vor Ort, s. IDF Archives 922\/75\/595.\n\n Walid Khalidi, _Palestine Reborn_ ; Michael Palumbo, _The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland_ , und Dan Kurzman, _Genesis 1948: The first Arab-Israeli War_.\n\n Avi Shlaim, \u00bbThe Debate about the 1948 War\u00ab in: Ilan Pappe (Hrsg.), _The Israel\/Palestine Question,_ S. 171\u2013192.\n\n Benny Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947\u20131949_.\n\n Diese Behauptung stellte er in der hebr\u00e4ischen Ausgabe des Buches (S. 179) auf, die 1997 bei Am Oved in Tel Aviv erschien.\n\n An derselben Stelle spricht Morris von 200000 bis 300000 Fl\u00fcchtlingen. Tats\u00e4chlich waren es 350000, wenn man die Einwohnerzahlen der 200 St\u00e4dte und D\u00f6rfer zusammenrechnet, die bis zum 15. Mai 1948 zerst\u00f6rt wurden.\n\n Walid Khalidi (Hrsg.) _All that Remains._\n\nKAPITEL 1\n\n US State Department, Special Report on \u00bbEthnic Cleansing\u00ab, 10.5.1999.\n\n United Nations, Report Following Security Council Resolution 819, 16.4.1993.\n\n Drazen Petrovic, \u00bbEthnic Cleansing \u2013 An attempt at Methodology\u00ab, _European Journal of International Law,_ 5\/3, 1994, S. 342\u2013360.\n\n Das Zitat, das sich auf der englischen Wikipedia-Seite zu diesem Stichwort befindet, ist hier direkt entnommen aus Petrovic, a.a.o., S. 10, Anm. 4, der wiederum Andrew Bell-Fialkow, \u00bbA Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing\u00ab, zitiert.\n\n Die wichtigsten Treffen sind in Kap. 3 geschildert.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, The Correspondence Section, 1.1.1948 \u20137.1.1948, Documents 79\u201381. Von Ben Gurion an Galili und die Mitglieder des Komitees. Das Dokument enth\u00e4lt auch eine Liste mit 40 pal\u00e4stinensischen F\u00fchrern, die als Ziele f\u00fcr Mordanschl\u00e4ge durch Hagana-Truppen ausgew\u00e4hlt waren.\n\n _Yideot Achronot_ , 2.2.1992\n\n _Ha'aretz_ , Pundak, 21.5.2004\n\n Wie dies vor sich ging, schildere ich eingehend in den folgenden Kapiteln; die Befugnis zur Zerst\u00f6rung wurde in dem Einsatzbefehl erteilt, der am 10. M\u00e4rz an die Truppen erging, und die spezifischen Befehle, die Exekutionen autorisierten, befinden sich in den IDF Archives, 49\/5943 Doc. 114, 13.4.1948.\n\n Siehe Anm. 11\u201314.\n\n Nur Masalha, _Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of \u00bbTransfer\u00ab in Zionist Political Thought, 1882\u20131948_ , und _The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem_.\n\n Alexander Bein (Hrsg.), _The Mozkin Book_ , S. 164.\n\n Baruch Kimmerling, _Zionism and Territory: The Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics_ ; Gershon Shafir, _Land, Labour and the Origins of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 1882\u20131914_ ; und Uri Ram, \u00bbThe Colonialism Perspective in Israeli Sociology\u00ab in Pappe (Hrsg.), _The Israel\/Palestine Question_ , S. 55\u201380.\n\n Khalidi (Hrsg.) _All That Remains;_ Samih Farsoun und C.E.Zacharia,\n\nKAPITEL 2\n\n Siehe z.B. Haim Arlozorov, _Articles and Essays,_ Response to the 1930 Shaw Commission on the concept of strangers in Palestine's history, Jerusalem, 1931.\n\n Eine sehr gute Schilderung dieses Mythos findet sich bei Israel Shahak, _Racisme de l\u00b4\u00e9tat d\u00b4Israel,_ S. 93.\n\n Alexander Sch\u00f6lch, _Pal\u00e4stina im Umbruch: 1856\u20131887: Untersuchungen zur wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Entwicklung_ , Stuttgart 1986 _._\n\n Neville Mandel, _Arabs and Zionism before World War I_ , S. 233.\n\n Wiedergegeben in der Tageszeitung _Alharam_ vom selben Tag.\n\n Die Warnung tauchte in einer Erz\u00e4hlung von Ishaq Musa al-Husayni auf, _The Memories of a Hen_ , die zuerst als Fortsetzungsgeschichte in der Zeitung _Filastin_ und 1942 als Buch erschien _._\n\n Eine allgemeine Analyse bietet Rashid Khalidi, _Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness,_ Spezifischeres findet sich in _Al-Manar,_ Jg. 3, Nr. 6, S. 107f. und Jg. 1, Nr. 41, S. 810.\n\n Siehe Uri Ram in Pappe (Hrsg.), _The Israel\/Palestine Question,_ und David Lloyd George, _The Truth about the Peace Treaties._\n\n Das namhafteste dieser Werke ist Zeev Sternhells, _The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State_ , 1999.\n\n Die Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung war ein Brief des britischen Au\u00dfenministers Arthur James Balfour an Lord Rothschild, eine f\u00fchrende Pers\u00f6nlichkeit der britischen j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde, vom 2. November 1917. Der Text der Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung, der bei einer Kabinettssitzung am 31. Oktober 1917 beschlossen wurde, legte die Position der britischen Regierung dar: \u00bbSeiner Majest\u00e4t Regierung betrachtet die Schaffung einer nationalen Heimst\u00e4tte in Pal\u00e4stina f\u00fcr das j\u00fcdische Volk mit Wohlwollen und wird die gr\u00f6\u00dften Anstrengungen machen, um die Erreichung dieses Zieles zu erleichtern, wobei Klarheit dar\u00fcber herrschen soll, dass nichts getan werden soll, was die b\u00fcrgerlichen und religi\u00f6sen Rechte bestehender nichtj\u00fcdischer Gemeinschaften in Pal\u00e4stina oder die Rechte und die politische Stellung der Juden in irgendeinem anderen Land beeintr\u00e4chtigen k\u00f6nnte.\u00ab (zit. n. _J\u00fcdisches Lexikon,_ Bd.I, Frankfurt a. M. 1982, S. 690).\n\n Yehosua Porath, _The Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1919\u20131929_.\n\n Eliakim Rubinstein, \u00bbThe Treatment of the Arab Question in Palestine in the post-1929 Period\u00ab, in: Ilan Pappe (Hrsg.), _Arabs and Jews in the Mandatory Period \u2013 A Fresh View on the Historical Research_ (Hebr.).\n\n Zu Peel siehe Charles D. Smith, _Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,_ S. 135ff.\n\n Barbara Smith, _The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920\u20131929_.\n\n Diesen Zusammenhang zeigt Uri Ben-Eliezer in _The Making of Israeli Militarism_ auf _._\n\n John Bierman und Colin Smith, _Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion_.\n\n Hagana Archives, File 0014, 19.6.1938.\n\n Ebd.\n\n The Bulletin of the Hagana Archives, Nr. 9\u201310, (von Shimri Salomon) \u00bbThe Intelligence Service and the Village Files, 1949\u20131948\u00ab, 2005.\n\n Eine kritische Untersuchung \u00fcber den JNF bietet Uri Davis, _Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within._\n\n Kenneth Stein, _The Land Question in Palestine, 1917\u20131939._\n\n Diese Korrespondenz befindet sich in den Central Zionist Archives und ist angef\u00fchrt bei Benny Morris, _Correcting A Mistake,_ S. 62, Anmerkung 12\u201315.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Hagana Archives, File 66.8\n\n Hagana Archives, Village Files, File 24\/9, Aussage von Yoeli Optikman, 16.1.2003.\n\n Hagana Archives, File 1\/080\/451, 1.12.1939.\n\n Hagana Archives, File 194\/7, S. 1ff., Interview vom 19.12.2002.\n\n S. Anm. 15.\n\n Hagana Archives, S25\/4131, 105\/224 und 105\/227 sowie zahlreiche andere in dieser Serie, die sich jeweils mit einem anderen Dorf befassen.\n\n Hillel Cohen, _The Shadow Army: Palestinian Collaborators in the Service of Zionism_.\n\n Interview mit Palti Sela in Hagana Archives, File 205.9, 10.1.1988.\n\n Siehe Anm. 27.\n\n Hagana Archives, Village Files, Files 105\/255, Januar 1947.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/5943\/114, Befehle vom 13.4.1948.\n\n Siehe Anm. 27.\n\n Ebd., File 105.178.\n\n Zit. in Harry Sacher, _Israel: The Establishment of Israel,_ S. 217.\n\n Smith, _Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,_ S. 167f.\n\n Yossef Weitz, _My Diary,_ Bd. 2, S. 181, 20.12.1940.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 12.7.1937, und _New Judea_ , August\u2013September 1937, S. 220.\n\n Shabtai Teveth, _Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War_.\n\n Hagana Archives, File 003, 13.12.1938.\n\n Zur britischen Politik s. Ilan Pappe, _Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948\u20131951_.\n\n Interview von Moshe Sluzki mit Moshe Sneh, in: Gershon Rivlin (Hrsg.), _Olive-Leaves and Sword: Documents and Studies of the Hagana;_ und Ben Gurion, _Diary,_ 10.10.1948.\n\n Siehe Yoav Gelber, _The Emergence of a Jewish Army_ , S. 1\u201373.\n\n Michael Bar-Zohar, _David Ben Gurion. 40 Jahre Israel. Die Biographie des Staatsgr\u00fcnders_ , S. 208\u2013236.\n\n Siehe Pappe, _The Hagana Book,_\n\nKAPITEL 3\n\n Pal\u00e4stina gliederte sich in mehrere Verwaltungsbezirke. Der Anteil der Juden betrug 1947 in: Safad 17%, Akko (Acre) 4%, Tiberias 33%, Baysan 30%, Nazareth 16%, Haifa 47%, Jerusalem 40%, Lydda 72% (einschlie\u00dflich Jaffa, Tel Aviv und Petah Tikvah), Ramla 24% und Beersheba 7,5%.\n\n Siehe Ilan Pappe, _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict_ , 1947\u20131951, S. 16 bis 46.\n\n Siehe United Nations Archives: The UNSCOP Documents, Box 2. Die deutsche \u00dcbersetzung der UN-Resolution 181 mit dem Teilungsplan s. www.un.org\/Depts\/german\/gv-early\/ar181-ii.pdf.\n\n Walid Khalidi, \u00bbRevisting the UNGA Partition Resolution\u00ab, in: _Journal of Palestine Studies,_ 105, (Herbst 1997), S. 15. Mehr zur UNSCOP und wie der Sonderausschuss die UN auf Dr\u00e4ngen der Zionisten auf die prozionistische Teilungsl\u00f6sung Pal\u00e4stinas hinman\u00f6vrierte, siehe Pappe, _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,_ S. 16\u201346.\n\n Khalidi, ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Plenary Meetings of the General Assembly, 126th Meeting, 28.11.1947, _UN Official Record,_ Bd. 2, S. 1390\u20131400.\n\n Flapan: _Die Geburt Israels: Mythos und Wirklichkeit_ , S. 23-79.\n\n Siehe z.B. David Tal, _War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy_ , S. 1-145.\n\n Bar-Zohar, _David Ben Gurion,_ S. 213.\n\n Siehe seine Rede im Mapai-Zentrum vom 3.12.1947.\n\n Private Archives, Middle Eastern Centre, St.Antony's College, Cunningham's Papers, Box 2, File 3.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Eine ausf\u00fchrliche Analyse der arabischen Reaktion s. Eugene L. Rogan und Avi Shlaim (Hrsg.), _The War For Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948;_ darin insbesondere Charles Tripp, \u00bbIraq and the 1948 War: Mirror of Iraq's Disorder\u00ab; Fawaz A. Geregs, \u00bbEgypt and the 1948 War: International Conflict and Regional Ambition\u00ab; und Joshua Landis, \u00bbSyria and the Palestine War: Fighting King Abdullah's \u203aGreater Syria\u2039 Plan\u00ab.\n\n Ben-Gurion, _Diary_ , 7.10.1947\n\n Nur einmal nannte Ben Gurion sie beim Namen. In einer Tagebucheintragung (1.1.1948) bezeichnete er sie als \u00bbExpertengruppe\u00ab _Mesibat Mumhim_. Die Herausgeber des ver\u00f6ffentlichten Tagebuchs f\u00fcgten hinzu, damit sei ein Treffen von Experten arabischer Angelegenheiten gemeint. Das Dokument dieses Treffens zeigt, dass es sich um ein gr\u00f6\u00dferes Forum handelte, an dem au\u00dfer den Experten auch gewisse Mitglieder des Oberkommandos teilnahmen. Wenn die beiden Gruppen zusammenkamen, bildeten sie das, was ich die Beratergruppe genannt habe.\n\n Ben Gurions _Diary_ enth\u00e4lt Eintragungen zu folgenden Sitzungen: 18. Juni 1947, 1.\u20133. Dezember 1947, 11. Dezember 1947, 18. Dezember 1947, 24. Dezember 1947 (laut Eintragung vom 25. befasste sie sich mit Befestigungen im Negev), 1. Januar 1948, 7. Januar 1948 (Diskussion \u00fcber die Zukunft Jaffas), 9. Januar 1948, 14. Januar 1948, 28. Januar 1948, 9.\u201310. Februar 1948, 19. Februar 1948, 25. Februar 1948, 28. Februar 344 1948, 10. M\u00e4rz 1948 und 31. M\u00e4rz 1948. Zu allen im Tagebuch erw\u00e4hnten Sitzungen sind vorher und nachher Briefwechsel unter den Korrespondenzen und den Privatkorrespondenzen in den Ben-Gurion-Archiven zu finden. Sie f\u00fcllen viele L\u00fccken in den skizzenhaften Tagebucheintragungen.\n\n Hier eine Rekonstruktion der Mitglieder der Beratergruppe: David Ben Gurion, Yigael Yadin (Operationsstabschef), Yohanan Ratner (Strategischer Berater Ben Gurions), Yigal Allon (Kommandeur der Palmach und der S\u00fcdfront), Yitzhak Sadeh (Kommandeur der Panzereinheiten), Israel Galili (Stabschef des Oberkommandos), Zvi Ayalon (Stellvertreter Galilis und Kommandeur der Zentralfront). Weitere Mitglieder, die nicht zum Oberkommando, _Matkal_ , geh\u00f6rten, waren Yossef Weitz (Leiter der Siedlungsabteilung der Jewish Agency), Isar Harel (Geheimdienstchef) und seine Leute: Ezra Danin, Gad Machnes und Yehoshua Palmon. Bei einer oder zwei Sitzungen waren auch Moshe Sharett und Eliahu Sasson anwesend, aber Ben Gurion traf Sasson fast jeden Sonntagabend separat mit Yaacov Shimoni in Jerusalem, wie sein Tagebuch belegt. Einige Offiziere wurden abwechselnd ebenfalls dazu gebeten: Dan Even (Kommandeur der K\u00fcstenfront), Moshe Dayan, Shimon Avidan, Moshe Carmel (Kommandeur der Nordfront), Shlomo Shamir und Yitzhak Rabin.\n\n19 Diese Sitzung ist auch geschildert in seinem Buch.\n\nKAPITEL 4\n\n Es gibt eine Aussage des British High Commissioner in Pal\u00e4stina, Sir Alan Cunningham, wie diese Proteste von einem Streik in Gewalt umschlugen: \u00bbDie ersten arabischen Ausbr\u00fcche waren spontan und unorganisiert und eher Missfallensbekundungen \u00fcber die UN-Entscheidung als entschlossene Angriffe auf Juden. Die Waffen, die anfangs benutzt wurden, waren St\u00f6cke und Steine, und h\u00e4tten die Juden keine Schusswaffen gehabt, ist es durchaus nicht unm\u00f6glich, dass die Aufregung sich gelegt und kaum Menschenleben gekostet h\u00e4tte. Das ist umso wahrscheinlicher, als es zuverl\u00e4ssige Belege daf\u00fcr gibt, dass das Arabische Oberkomitee als Ganzes und insbesondere der Mufti zwar erfreut waren \u00fcber die starke Reaktion auf den Streikaufruf, aber nicht f\u00fcr ernsthafte Unruhen waren\u00ab; zit. in: Nathan Krystal, \u00bbThe Fall of the New City, 1947 bis 1950\u00ab in: Salim Tamari, _Jerusalem 1948. The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War,_ S. 96.\n\n N\u00e4heres dazu siehe Kap. 5.\n\n Bar-Zohar, _Ben-Gurion,_ (hebr.) S. 663\n\n Meir Pail, \u00bbExternal and Internal Features in the Israeli War of Independence\u00ab, in: Alon Kadish (Hrsg.), _Israel's War of Independence 1948\u20131949_ , S. 485ff.\n\n Smith, _Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict_ , S. 91\u2013108.\n\n Avi Shlaim, _Collusion_.\n\n Avi Shlaim, \u00bbThe Debate about 1948\u00ab in: Pappe (Hrsg.), _The Israel\/Palestine Question_ , S. 171\u2013192.\n\n Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , Bd. 1, S. 320, 18.3.1948; S. 397, 7.5.1948; Bd. 2, S. 428, 15.5.1948.\n\n Ebd., 28.1.1948, S. 187.\n\n Unter anderem stammte diese Lieferung aus einem R\u00fcstungsgesch\u00e4ft im Wert von 12,28 Mio. US-Dollar, das die Hagana mit der Tschechoslowakei \u00fcber 24500 Gewehre, 5200 Maschinengewehre und 54 Mio. Schuss Munition abgeschlossen hatte.\n\n Siehe Anm. 8.\n\n Der Befehl an die Geheimdienstoffiziere wird sp\u00e4ter noch erw\u00e4hnt. Zu finden ist er in den IDF Archives, File 2315\/50\/53, 11.1.1948. yt.\n\n Zu entnehmen seinen Briefen an Ben-Artzi, zit. in Bar-Zohar, _Ben-Gurion_ , (hebr.) S. 663, und an Sharett in den Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section, 23.02\u20131.03.48 Document 59, 26.2.1948.\n\n Ben Gurions Briefe, ebd.\n\n Israeli State Archives Publications, _Political and Diplomatic Documents of the Zionist Central Archives and Israeli State Archives_ , December 1947 \u2013 May 1948, Jerusalem 1979 (hebr.), Doc. 45, 14.12.1947, S. 60 _._\n\n Masalha, _Expulsion of the Palestinians_.\n\n Bar-Zohar, _Ben-Gurion_ (hebr.), S. 702.\n\n In Ben Gurions _Diary_ findet sich ein langer Eintrag vom 12. Juli 1937, in dem er den Wunsch \u00e4u\u00dfert, die j\u00fcdische F\u00fchrung m\u00f6ge den Willen und die St\u00e4rke besitzen, die Araber aus Pal\u00e4stina auszusiedeln.\n\n Die gesamte Rede wurde ver\u00f6ffentlicht in Ben Gurion, _In the Battle_ , S. 255\u2013272.\n\n Central Zionist Archives, 45\/1 Protocol, 2.11.1947.\n\n Flapan, _Die Geburt Israels_ , S. 127f.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited_.\n\n Dass er in keinem politischen Zusammenhang stand wurde Ben Gurion mitgeteilt. Siehe Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section, 1.12.47 bis 15.12.47, Doc. 7, Eizenberg to Kaplan, 2.12.1947.\n\n Ben Gurions _Diary_ berichtet \u00fcber ein solches Treffen am 2. Dezember 1947, in dem die Orientalisten vorschlugen, Wasserversorgung und Verkehrsknotenpunkte der Pal\u00e4stinenser anzugreifen.\n\n Zur Einsch\u00e4tzung, dass die meisten Bauern nicht in einen Krieg hineingezogen werden wollten, siehe Ben Gurions _Diary_ , 11.12.1947.\n\n Hagana Archives, 205.9.\n\n Diese Sitzung ist einen Tag sp\u00e4ter, am 11. Dezember 1947, in Ben Gurions _Diary_ geschildert; m\u00f6glicherweise fand sie in einem engeren Kreis statt.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/5492\/9, 19.1.1948.\n\n Siehe die interaktive Internetseite www.palestineremembered.com mit Zeugenaussagen erlebter Geschichte.\n\n Ben Gurions _Diary_ , 11.12.1947, und Brief an Moshe Sharett in: G.Yogev, Documents, December 1947 \u2013 May 1948, Jerusalem: Israel State Archives 1980, S. 60.\n\n Gemeldet in der _New York Times_ vom 22.12.1947. Der Hagana-Bericht ging am 14. Dezember an Yigael Yadin, s. Hagana Archives, 15\/80\/731.\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 16.\n\n Central Zionist Archives, Report S25\/3569, Danin to Sasson, 23.12.1947.\n\n _The New York Times_ , 20.12.1947, und Rede Ben Gurions in der Zionistischen Exekutive vom 6.4.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion fasste das Mittwochstreffen in seinem Tagebucheintrag vom 18.12.1947 zusammen.\n\n Yaacov Markiviski, \u00bbThe Campaign on Haifa in the Independence War\u00ab, in: Yossi Ben-Artzi (Hrsg.), _The Development of Haifa, 1918\u20131948_.\n\n _Filastin_ , 31.12.1947.\n\n Milstein, _The History of the Independence War_ , Bd. 2, S. 78.\n\n Benny Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 156; und Uri Milstein _, The History of the Independence War_ , Bd. 2, S. 156.\n\n Nationalkomitees waren Gremien lokaler Notabeln, die 1937 in verschiedenen Orten Pal\u00e4stinas als eine Art Notregierung f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stinenser geschaffen wurden.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 50; und Milstein _, The History of the Independence War_ , Bd. 3, S. 74f.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 55, Anm. 11.\n\n Political and Diplomatic Documents, Document 274, S. 460.\n\n Ebd., Document 245, S. 410.\n\n Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , Anmerkung der Herausgeber, S. 9.\n\n Das Protokoll der \u00bbLangen Tagung\u00ab befindet sich in den Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuchad Archives, Aharon Zisling's private collection.\n\n Ben Gurions _Diary,_ 31.12.1947.\n\n Weitz, _My Diary_ , Bd. 2, S. 181.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 62.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, The Galili Papers, Protocol of the meeting.\n\n Danin zu Bar-Zohar, _Ben-Gurion_ , (Hebr.) S. 680, Anm. 60.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section, 16.1.48\u201322.1.48, Document 42, 26.1.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 7.1.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 25.1.1948.\n\n Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , S. 229, 10.2.1948.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section, 1.1.48\u201331.1.48, Document 101, 26.1.1948.\n\n Es handelte sich um Yohanan Ratner, Yaacov Dori, Israeli Galili, Yigael Yadin, Zvi Leschiner (Ayalon) und Yitzhak Sadeh.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 9.1.1948.\n\n Der Aufruf erschien in ihrer Publikation _Mivrak_.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 31.1.1948.\n\n Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , S. 210f.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 1.1.1948\n\n Siehe Anm. 52.\n\n Bar-Zohar, _Ben-Gurion_ , (hebr.) S. 681.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 30.1.1948\n\n Ebd., 14.1.1948, 2.2.1948 und 1.6.1948.\n\n Informationen \u00fcber die Sitzungen im Februar stammen aus Ben Gurions _Diary_.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 9. und 10.2.1948 sowie _Hagana Book_ , S. 1416ff.\n\n _Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir_ Archives, Files 66.10, Besprechung mit Galili vom 5.2.1948 (der einen Tag nach der _Matkal-_ Sitzung von Mittwoch, den 4. Februar, Bericht erstattete).\n\n Zvi Sinai und Gershon Rivlin (Hrsg.), _The Alexandroni Brigade in the War of Independence_ (hebr.), S. 220.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 53f.\n\n Weitz, _My Diary_ , Bd. 3, S. 223, 11.1.1948.\n\n Im offiziellen Bericht wurden bescheidenere Zahlen genannt: bis zu 40 gesprengte H\u00e4user, elf Tote und 80 Verletzte.\n\n Israel Even Nur (Hrsg.), _The Yiftach-Palmach Story._\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 19.2.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 181f.\n\n Weitz, _My Diary_ , Bd. 3, S. 223, 11.1.1948.\n\n Ebd., S. 239f.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 84ff.\n\n Pail, _From the Hagana to the IDF_ , S. 307. Siehe die Er\u00f6rterung von Stufe D im n\u00e4chsten Kapitel.\n\n Die englische \u00dcbersetzung findet sich bei Walid Khalidi, \u00bbPlan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine\u00ab, _Journal of Palestine Studies_ , 18\/69 (Herbst 1988), S. 4\u201320.\n\n Siehe Kap. 5.\n\n Der an die Soldaten ausgegebene Plan und die ersten Einsatzbefehle befinden sich in den IDF Archives, 1950\/2315, File 47, 11.5.1948.\n\n Yadin an Sasson, IDF Archives, 16\/69\/261. The Nachshon Operations Files.\n\nKAPITEL 5\n\n Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , Bd. 1, S. 332.\n\n Rede vor dem Exekutivkomitee der Mapai, 6.4.1948.\n\n Zitiert aus den Einsatzbefehlen an die Carmeli-Brigade, in: Zvi Sinai (Hrsg.), _The Carmeli Brigade in the War of Independence_ , S. 29.\n\n Binyamin Etzioni (Hrsg.), _The Golani Brigade in the Fighting_ , S. 10.\n\n Zeribavel Gilad, _The Palmach Book_ , Bd. 2, S. 924f. Daniel McGowan und Matthew C.Hogan, _The Saga of the Deir Yassin Massacre, Revisionism and Reality._\n\n Schilderungen und Zeugenaussagen zu den Vorf\u00e4llen in Deir Yassin sind entnommen aus Daniel McGowan und Matthew C.Hogan, _The Saga of the Deir Yassin Massacre, Revisionism and Reality._\n\n Ebd.\n\n Zeitgen\u00f6ssische Darstellungen sprechen von 254 Opfern des Massakers in Deir Yassin, eine Zahl, die damals von der Jewish Agency, einem Vertreter des Roten Kreuzes, der _New York Times_ und Dr. Hussein al-Khalidi, dem Sprecher des Arab Higher Committee mit Sitz in Jerusalem best\u00e4tigt wurde. Es ist wahrscheinlich, dass diese Zahl bewusst \u00fcbertrieben wurde, um unter den Pal\u00e4stinensern Angst zu sch\u00fcren und sie damit zu einer panischen Massenflucht zu bewegen. Eindeutig warnte man sp\u00e4ter in D\u00f6rfern, die ger\u00e4umt werden sollten, die Einwohner \u00fcber Lautsprecher vor den schrecklichen Konsequenzen, die es h\u00e4tte, wenn sie nicht freiwillig gehen sollten, und versuchte damit Panik zu sch\u00fcren und sie zur Flucht zu veranlassen, bevor die Truppen einr\u00fcckten. Menachem Begin, der Chef der Irgun, schilderte die Wirkung, die die Verbreitung solcher Ger\u00fcchte auf die Pal\u00e4stinenser hatte, in seinem Buch _The Revolte_ : \u00bbDazu verleitet, wilde M\u00e4rchen \u00fcber \u203aIrgun-Gemetzel\u2039 zu glauben, ergriff die Araber im ganzen Land eine grenzenlose Panik und sie begannen um ihr Leben zu laufen. Diese Massenflucht entwickelte sich bald zu einer wahnsinnigen, unkontrollierten Stampede. Von den etwa 800000, die im heutigen Territorium des Staates Israel lebten, sind nur noch 165000 da. Die politische und wirtschaftliche Bedeutung dieser Entwicklung l\u00e4sst sich kaum \u00fcbersch\u00e4tzen\u00ab. Begin, _The Revolte_ , S. 164. Albert Einstein verurteilte das Massaker von Deir Yassin gemeinsam mit 27 prominenten New Yorker Juden in einem Brief, der am 4.12.1948 in der _New York Times_ erschien: \u00bbTerroristische Banden [d.h. Begins Irgun] griffen dieses friedliche Dorf an, das kein milit\u00e4risches Kampfziel war, t\u00f6teten die meisten Einwohner \u2013 240 M\u00e4nner, Frauen und Kinder \u2013 und lie\u00dfen einige von ihnen leben, um sie als Gefangene auf den Stra\u00dfen Jerusalems zur Schau zu stellen. Die meisten in der j\u00fcdischen Gemeinde waren entsetzt \u00fcber die Tat, und die Jewish Agency schickte ein Telegramm mit einer Entschuldigung an K\u00f6nig Abdullah von Transjordanien (sic). Aber weit davon entfernt, sich f\u00fcr ihre Tat zu sch\u00e4men, waren die Terroristen stolz auf dieses Massaker, machten es weithin publik und luden alle im Land anwesenden Auslandskorrespondenten ein, sich die aufgeh\u00e4uften Leichen und die allgemeine Verw\u00fcstung in Deir Yassin anzusehen.\u00ab\n\n Uri Ben-Ari, _Follow Me._\n\n Besonders interessant ist, wie Geula Cohen, ein f\u00fchrendes Mitglied der Stern-Gruppe und heute rechtsextreme Aktivistin, Abu-Ghawsh rettete, weil ein Einwohner des Dorfes ihr 1946 bei der Flucht aus britischer Haft geholfen hatte. Siehe Geula Cohen, _Woman of Violence; Memories of a Young Terrorist, 1945\u20131948_.\n\n _Filastin_ , 14.4.1948.\n\nPalumbo, _The Palestinian Catastrophe_ , S. 107f.\n\n Ebd., S. 107.\n\n Siehe einen zusammenfassenden \u00dcberblick in Flapan, _Die Geburt Israels_ , S. 130\u2013135.\n\n Dieses Telegramm fing der israelische Geheimdienst ab, es ist zitiert in Ben Gurions _Diary_ , 12.1.1948.\n\n Siehe Parlamentserkl\u00e4rung von Rees Williams, Staatssekret\u00e4r des Au\u00dfenministeriums, _Hansard_ , House of Commons Debates, Bd. 461, S. 2050, 24.2.1950.\n\n Arnan Azariahu, der Assistent Israel Galilis, erinnerte sich, dass Yigael Yadin beim Umzug des neuen _Matkal_ (Oberkommandos) nach Ramat Gan verlangte, der Qiryati-Brigade nicht die Bewachung der Anlage zu \u00fcbertragen. _Maqor Rishon_ , Interview vom 21.5.2006.\n\n Walid Khalidi f\u00fchrt in \u00bbSelected Documents on the 1948 War\u00ab, _Journal of Palestine Studies_ , 107, Jg. 27\/3 (Fr\u00fchjahr 1998), S. 60\u2013105, die Korrespondenz der Briten und des arabischen Komitees an.\n\n Hagana Archives, 69\/72, 22.4.1948.\n\n Central Zionist Archives, 45\/2, Protokoll.\n\n Zadok Eshel (Hrsg.), _The Carmeli Brigade in the War of Independence_ , S. 147.\n\n Walid Khalidi, \u00bbSelected Documents on the 1948 War\u00ab.\n\n Montgomery of Alamein, _Memoirs_ , S. 4534.\n\n Walid Khalidi, \u00bbThe Fall of Haifa\u00ab, _Middle East Forum_ , XXXV, 10 (Dez. 1959), Schreiben von Khayat, Saad, Mu'ammar und Koussa v. 21.4.1948.\n\n Die Informationen \u00fcber die arabische Seite stammen aus Mustafa Abasi, _Safad During the British Mandate Period: A Social and Political Study_ , Jerusalem, Institute for Palestine Studies, 2005 (arabisch); eine \u00fcberarbeitete Fassung erschien unter dem Titel \u00bbThe Battle for Safad in the War of 1948: A Revised Study\u00ab, in _International Journal for Middle East Studies_ , 36 (2004), S. 21\u201347.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 7.6.1948\n\n Salim Tamari, _Jerusalem1948_.\n\n Itzhak Levy, der 1948 Leiter des Hagana-Geheimdienstes in Jerusalem war, rekonstruierte diese Befehle in seinem Buch _Jerusalem in the War of Independence_ , S. 207 (diese Interviews wurden sp\u00e4ter in die IDF-Archive aufgenommen).\n\n Ben Gurion zitiert 14 dieser Telegramme in seinem Tagebuch, siehe Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , S. 12, 14, 27, 63f, 112f, 134, 141, 156, 169f, 283.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 15.1.1948.\n\n Levy, _Jerusalem_ , S. 219.\n\n Red Cross Archives, Geneva, Files G59\/1\/GC, G3\/82; die Berichte, die der Delegierte des Internationalen Komitees des Roten Kreuzes (ICRC), de Meuron, vom 6. bis 19. Mai 1948 schickte, beschreiben eine pl\u00f6tzliche Typhusepidemie.\n\n Alle Informationen basieren auf den Rote-Kreuz-Quellen und auf Salman Abu Sitta, \u00bbIsrael's Biological and Chemical Weapons: Past and Present\u00ab, _Between the Lines_ , 15.\u201319. M\u00e4rz 2003. Abu Sitta zitiert auch Sara Leibovitz-Dars Artikel aus _Hadashot_ , 13.8.1993, wo sie aus einem Hinweis des Historikers Uri Milstein diejenigen aufsp\u00fcrt, \u00bbdie f\u00fcr die Akko-Operation verantwortlich waren, die sich aber weigerten, ihre Fragen zu beantworten. Sie schloss ihren Artikel mit der Feststellung: \u203aWas damals aus tiefer \u00dcberzeugung und fanatischem Eifer getan wurde, wird heute voller Scham vertuscht\u2039\u00ab.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 27.5.1948.\n\n Ebd., 31.1.1948, sowie seine Notizen zur Geschichte von HEMED.\n\n Levy, _Jerusalem_ , S. 113; er wirft der Arabischen Legion allerdings vor, sie habe sich vorher an Angriffen gegen Juden beteiligt, die sich bereits ergeben hatten. Siehe S. 109\u2013112.\n\n Interview mit Sela (s. Kap. 2, Anm. 31).\n\n Aussage von Hannah Abuied auf der Internetseite www.palestineremembered.com.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 118.\n\n Morris f\u00fchrt dieses Treffen in der hebr\u00e4ischen Ausgabe seines o.g. Buches auf S. 95 an, Ben Gurion erw\u00e4hnt es in seinem _Diary_.\n\n Die meisten dieser Operationen sind angef\u00fchrt bei Morris, ebd., S. 137 bis 167.\n\n Die detailliertesten Angaben zu Zahlen, Methoden und Landkarten finden sich in Salman Abu Sittas _Atlas of the Nakbah_.\n\n Interview mit Sela, siehe Kap. 2, Anm. 31.\n\n Die Angaben stammen aus Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 60f, aus den Hagana's Village Files sowie aus Ben-Zion Dinur et al., _The History of the Hagana_ , S. 1420.\n\n Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuchad Archives, Aharon Zisling Archives, Ben-Gurion Letters.\n\n \u00dcber fast jedes Dorf, das zerst\u00f6rt und ger\u00e4umt wurde, erschienen Berichte in der _New York Times_ , die unsere Hauptquelle ist neben Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , und Ben-Zion Dinur et al., _The History of the Hagana_.\n\n Morris, ebd., S. 243f.\n\n Palmach Archives, Gicat Haviva, G\/146, 19.4.1948.\n\n Nafez Nazzal, _The Palestinian Exodus from the Galilee 1948_ , Beirut: Institute for Palestinian Studies, 1978, S. 30\u201333, und Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited_ , S. 130.\n\n Diese Quelle nutzt Khalidi ausgiebig in _All That Remains_.\n\n Das war die Hauptquelle f\u00fcr Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited_.\n\n Weitz, _My Diary_ , Bd. 3, 21.4.1948.\n\n Siehe die Befehle in den IDF Archives, 51\/967, insbesondere Files 16, 24 und 42, sowie 52\/128\/50.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section, 23.2.\u201330.1., Doc 113.\n\n Nazzal, _The Palestinian Exodus_ , S. 29.\n\n Elias Khoury, _Das Tor zur Sonne_ ; Netiva Ben-Yehuda, _Between the Knots_.\n\n Eine Besprechung des Films siehe _Al-Ahram Weekly_ , 725, 13.\u201319.1.2005.\n\n Siehe die Synthese aus den Angaben aller verf\u00fcgbaren Quellen in Khalidi, _All That Remains_ , S. 437.\n\n Hans Lebrecht, _Die Pal\u00e4stinenser_ , S. 207.\n\n Frei zug\u00e4nglich ist _The Palmach Book_ , Bd. 2, S. 304.\n\n Ben-Yehuda, _Between the Knots_ , S. 245f.\n\n _The Palmach Book_.\n\n Interview mit Sela (siehe Kap. 2, Anm. 31).\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Laila Parsons, \u00bbThe Druze and the Birth of Israel\u00ab, in: Eugene Rogan und Avi Shlaim (Hrsg.), _The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948_.\n\n Ben-Gurion Archives, Correspondence, 23.02.\u201301.03.48, Doc. 70.\n\n Zur Diskussion in der Arabischen Liga siehe Pappe, _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict_ , S. 102\u2013134.\n\n Walid Khalidi, \u00bbThe Arab Perspective\u00ab, in: W. Roger Louis und Robert S. Stookey (Hrsg.), _The End of the Palestine Mandate_.\n\n Pappe, _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict._\n\n Qasimya Khairiya, _Fawzi al-Qawuqji's Memoirs, 1936\u20131948_.\n\n Siehe Shlaim, _Collusion_.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 2.5.1948.\n\n Den gleichen Eindruck vermittelte K\u00f6nig Abdullah bei einem Treffen am 8. Mai 1948 f\u00fchrenden Hagana-Offizieren und am 10. Mai Golda Meir. Meir berichtete der zionistischen F\u00fchrung, Abdullah werde keinen Vertrag mit den Juden unterzeichnen und Krieg f\u00fchren m\u00fcssen. Aber Moshe Dayan versicherte 1975, was die Briten bereits vermuteten, dass er tats\u00e4chlich eine Invasion irakischer und jordanischer Truppen in den j\u00fcdischen Staat versprach. Siehe Dayan in _Yeidot Acharonot_ , 28.2.1975, sowie Rivlin und Oren, _The War of Independence_ , S. 409f. \u00fcber die Gespr\u00e4che vom 8.5.1948.\n\n PRO, FO 800,477, FS 46\/7 13 May 1948.\n\n Nimr Hawaris Kriegserinnerungen, _The Secret of the Nakba,_ erschienen 1955 in Nazareth auf Arabisch.\n\n Zit. in Flapan, _The Birth of Israel_ , S. 157.\n\n K\u00fcrzlich gab es unter israelischen Historikern eine interessante Debatte \u00fcber Ben Gurions Position. Siehe _Ha'aretz_ , 12. und 14.5.2006, \u00bbThe Big Wednesday\u00ab.\n\n Wahid al-Daly, _The Secrets of the Arab League and Abd al-Rahman Azzam_.\n\n Palestinian Refugees, London: Labour Middle East Council and others, 2001.\n\nKAPITEL 6\n\n Levy, _Jerusalem_ , kritisierte die Entscheidung, diese Enklaven zu verteidigen, als strategischen Fehler, der der Gesamtstrategie nicht dienlich gewesen sei; Levy, _Jerusalem_ , S. 114.\n\n Angaben zu allen angef\u00fchrten Sitzungen stammen aus Ben Gurions _Diary_.\n\n Interview mit Glubb sowie Glubb, _Jenseits vom Jordan_ , S. 80f.\n\n Yehuda Sluzky, _Summary of the Hagana Book_ , S. 486f.\n\n Zu finden in den \u00bbEinsatzbefehlen an die Brigaden nach Plan Dalet\u00ab, IDF Archives, 22\/79\/1303.\n\n Amitzur Ilan, _The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War._\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/665, File 1, 1.5.1948.\n\n Pail, \u00bbExternal\u00ab.\n\n Diesen Punkt belegen einige der bereits angef\u00fchrten B\u00fccher sehr \u00fcberzeugend, namentlich Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , Flapan, _The Birth of Israel_ , Palumbo, _The Catastrophe_ , und Morris, _Revisited_.\n\n Diese Befehle sind zu finden in den IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 16, 7.4.1948, und 49\/4858, File 495, 15.10.1948.\n\n Siehe Maqor Rishon. Als Gr\u00fcnde wurden Bombentreffer im Roten Haus und in Ben Gurions Wohnung durch \u00e4gyptische Bomber genannt.\n\n IDF Archives, 1951\/957, File 24, 28.1.1948 bis 7.7.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Siehe Ilan Pappe, \u00bbThe Tantura Case in Israel: The Katz Research and Trial\u00ab, _Journal of Palestine Studies_ , 30(3), Fr\u00fchjahr 2001, S. 19\u201339.\n\n Die folgenden Schilderungen basieren auf Pappe, ebd., S. 3, sowie Pappe, \u00bbHistorical Truth. Modern Historiography, and Ethical Obligations: The Challenge of the Tantura Case\u00ab, _Holy Land Studies_ , Nr. 3\/2, November 2004.\n\n Nimr al-Khatib, _Palestine's Nakbah_ , S. 116.\n\n Sinai und Rivlin, _The Alexandroni Brigade_.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/6127, File 117, 13.4.\u201327.9.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Hagana Archives, 8\/27\/domestic, 1.6.1948.\n\n Siehe Anm. 8.\n\n Bericht an Yadin vom 11.5.1948 in Hagana Archives, 25\/97.\n\n Eshel (Hrsg.), _The Carmeli Brigade in the War of Independence_ , S. 172.\n\n Beitrag auf er Internetseite www.palestineremembered.com, 1.7.2000.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary,_ 24.5.1948.\n\nKAPITEL 7\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 128.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 2.6.1948.\n\n Von vier solcher D\u00f6rfer \u2013 Beit Tima, Huj, Biriyya und Simsim \u2013 berichtet Ben Gurions _Diary_ , 1.6.1948; Berichte zu niedergebrannten D\u00f6rfern finden sich auch in den Israeli State Archives, 2564\/9, August 1948.\n\n Laut Eintrag in seinem Tagebuch.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Naji Makhul, _Acre and its Villages since Ancient Times_ , S. 28.\n\n Interview von Teddy Katz mit Tuvia Lishanski, s. Pappe, _Tantura._\n\n Erinnerungen von Augenzeugen sind erschienen in Salman Natur, _Anta al-Qatil, ya-Shaykh_ , 1976; Michael Palumbo \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte die UN-Archive und stellte fest, dass die Vereinten Nationen von Israels Methode der Massenexekutionen wussten, s. _The Palestinian Catastrophe_ , S. 163\u2013174.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/5205\/58n, 1.6.1948.\n\n Israeli State Archives, 2750\/11, Bericht des Geheimdienstoffiziers an Ezra Danin vom 29. Juli 1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/6127, File 117, 3.6.1948.\n\n Israeli State Archives, 2566\/15, verschiedene Berichte Simonis.\n\n Siehe z.B. Befehle an die Carmeli-Brigade in den Hagana Archives, 100\/29\/B.\n\n Siehe m\u00fcndlich \u00fcberlieferte Geschichte auf der Internetseite www.palestineremembered.com.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 198f.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 16.7.1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/6127, File 516.\n\n Bericht des Nachrichtenoffiziers der Nordfront an das Hauptquartier, 1.8.1948, in: IDF Archives, 1851\/957, File 16.\n\n _The New York Times_ , 26. und 27.7.1948.\n\n Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 148.\n\n _The Encyclopedia of Palestine_ , Stichwort: Lydda.\n\n Dan Kurzman, _Soldier of Peace_ , S. 140f.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 11., 16. und 17.7.1948 (er war geradezu besessen davon).\n\n Ebd., 11.7.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 18.7.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Interview mit Sela (s. Kap. 2, Anm. 31).\n\n Nazzal, _The Palestine Exodus_ , S. 83ff.\n\n IDF Archives, 49\/6127, File 516.\n\n Eine eingehende Beschreibung zur Vertreibung der Beduinen ist zu finden in: Nur Masalha, _A Land Wihtout A People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians_.\n\n IDF Archives, File 572\/4, Bericht vom 7.8.1948.\n\n Ebd., 51\/937, Box 5, File 42, 21.8.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n IDF Archives, 549\/715, File 9.\n\n Ebd., 51\/957, File 42, Operation Alef Ayn, 19.9.1948.\n\nKAPITEL 8\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 305f.\n\n Detaillierte Angaben zum derzeitigen Aufenthaltsort von Fl\u00fcchtlingen und ihren Heimatd\u00f6rfern sind zu finden in Salman Abu Sitta, _Atlas of Palestine 1948._\n\n Nazzal, _The Palestinian Exodus_ , S. 95f; Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 230f; Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 497.\n\n Die m\u00fcndliche Aussage stellte Muhammad Abdullah Edghaim am 25.4.2001 auf der Internetseite www.palestineremembered.com ein, das Archivmaterial ist zu finden in den Hashomer Ha-Tza'ir Archives, Aharon Cohen, Privatsammlung, Memo vom 11.11.1948.\n\n Angegeben in der Aussage von Edghaim, der Salim und Shehadeh Shraydeh interviewte.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 194f.\n\n Iqrit hat eine eigene Internetseite mit einer kurzen Darstellung der Ereignisse: www.iqrit.org.\n\n Daud Bader (Hrsg.), _Al-Ghabsiyya; Always in our Heart_ , Center of the Defense of the Displaced Persons' Right, Nazareth, Mai 2002 (arabisch).\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 1683, Battalion 103, Company C.\n\n Ebd., 50\/2433, File 7.\n\n Ebd., 51\/957, File 28\/4.\n\n Ebd., 51\/1957, File 20\/4, 11.11.1948.\n\n Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 182.\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 42, Hiram Operative Commands, sowie 49\/715, File 9.\n\n United Nations Archives, 13\/3.3.1 Box 11, Atrocities September\u2013November.\n\n IDF Archives, The Committee of Five Meetings, 11.11.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n _Ha-Olam ha-Ze_ , 1.3.1978, sowie Aussage von Dov Yirmiya, dem israelischen Standortkommandeur, ver\u00f6ffentlicht in _Journal of Palestine Studies_ , Jg. 7\/4 (Sommer 1978), Nr. 28, S. 143ff. Yirmiya nennt keine Zahlen, wohl aber die libanesische Internetseite des Verbandes dieser D\u00f6rfer; s. Isaah Nakhleh, _The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem_ , Kap. 15.\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/121, File 226, 14.12.1948.\n\n Michael Palumbo, _Catastrophe_ , S. 173f.\n\n Hagana Archives, 69\/95, Doc. 2230, 7.10.1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 42, 24.3.1948\u201312.3.1949.\n\n _The New York Times_ , 19.10.1948.\n\n\u00bbBetween Hope and Fear: Bedouin of the Negev\u00ab, Refugees International's Report, 10.2.2003; und Nakhleh, ebd., Kap. 11, Teil 2\u20137.\n\n Das Interview, das Yasser al-Banna in Gaza mit Habib Jarada f\u00fchrte, erschien am 15. Mai 2002 in _Islam On Line_.\n\n Alle angef\u00fchrt in Morris, _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , S. 222f.\n\n J\u00fcdische Truppen verwendeten eine Reihe von Strategien, die sich nur als psychologische Kriegf\u00fchrung bezeichnen lassen, um die arabische Bev\u00f6lkerung zu terrorisieren, zu demoralisieren und gezielt einen Massenexodus zu provozieren. Rundfunksendungen auf Arabisch warnten die Pal\u00e4stinenser vor Verr\u00e4tern in ihrer Mitte, erkl\u00e4rten ihnen, ihre F\u00fchrer h\u00e4tten sie verlassen, und beschuldigten arabische Milizen der Verbrechen gegen arabische Zivilisten. Sie verbreiteten auch Angst vor Seuchen. Eine weniger subtile Taktik war der Einsatz von Lautsprecherwagen. Sie fuhren durch D\u00f6rfer und St\u00e4dte und dr\u00e4ngten die Pal\u00e4stinenser zu fl\u00fcchten, bevor sie alle get\u00f6tet w\u00fcrden, warnten, die Juden w\u00fcrden Giftgas und Atomwaffen einsetzen, oder verbreiteten \u00bbSchreckensger\u00e4usche\u00ab wie Schreie und St\u00f6hnen, Sirenengeheul und Feueralarmglocken. Siehe Erskine Childers, \u00bbThe Wordless Wish: From Citizens to Refugees\u00ab, in: Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (Hrsg.), _The Transformation of Palestine_ , S. 186ff; sowie Palumbo, S. 61f, 64, 97f.\n\nKAPITEL 9\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/2433, File 7, Minorities Unit, Report no. 10, 25.2.1949.\n\n Der Befehl erging bereits im Januar 1948. IDF Archives 50\/2315, File 35, 11.1.1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/2433, File 7, Operation Comb, undatiert.\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/121, File 226, Orders to the Military Governors, 16.11.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 17.11.1948, Bd. 3, S. 829.\n\n IDF Archives, 51\/957, File 42, Report to HQ, 29.6.1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/2315, File 35, 11.1.1948.\n\n Siehe Aaron Klein, \u00bbThe Arab POWs in the War of Independence\u00ab, in: Alon Kadish (Hrsg.), _Israel's War of Independence 1948\u20139_ , S. 573f.\n\n IDF Archives, 54\/410, File 107, 4.4.1948.\n\n Ich danke Salman Abu Sitta, der mir das Rotkreuzdokument G59\/I\/GG, vom 6.2.1949, zur Verf\u00fcgung gestellt hat.\n\n Al-Khatib, _Palestine' Nakbah_ , S. 116.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Siehe Anm. 10.\n\n Siehe Anm. 4.\n\n Auch ver\u00f6ffentlicht in Yossef Ulizki, _From Events to A War_ , S. 53.\n\n Palumbo, _The Palestinian Catastrophe_ , S. 108.\n\n Siehe Anm. 4.\n\n Dan Yahav, _Purity of Arms: Ethos, Myth and Reality, 1936\u20131956_ , S. 226.\n\n Siehe Anm. 15.\n\n Siehe Anm. 4.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Interview mit Abu Laben in: Dan Yahav, _Purity of Arms: Ethos, Myth and Reality, 1936\u20131954_ , S. 223\u2013230.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 25.6.1948.\n\n Das Protokoll dieser Sitzung befindet sich im israelischen Staatsarchiv und ist vollst\u00e4ndig abgedruckt in: Tom Segev, _1949 \u2013 The First Israelis._\n\n Segev, ebd., S. 69\u201373.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Ebd.\n\n Siehe Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 5.7.1948.\n\n IDF Archives, 50\/121, File 226, Report by Menahem Ben-Yossef, Platoon commander, Battalion 102, 26.12.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 5.7.1948.\n\n Ebd., 15.7.1948.\n\n Pappe, \u00bbTantura\u00ab.\n\n Ben Gurion, _As Israel Fights_ , S. 68f.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 18.8.1948.\n\n Ebd.\n\n David Kretzmer, _The Legal Status of Arabs in Israel._\n\n Tamir Goren, _From Independence to Integration: The Israeli Authority and the Arabs of Haifa, 1948\u20131950_ , S. 337; und Ben Gurion, _Diary_ , 30.6.1948.\n\n Ben Gurion, _Diary,_ 16.6.1948.\n\n Alle Angaben in diesem Abschnitt basieren auf einem Artikel von Nael Nakhle in _Al-Awda_ , 14.9.2005 (erschienen in London auf arabisch).\n\n Benvenisti, _Sacred Landscape_ , S. 298.\n\n Weitz, _My Diary_ , Bd. 3, S. 294, 30.5.1948.\n\n Hussein Abu Hussein und Fiona Makay, _Access Denied: Palestinian Access to Land in Israel._\n\n _Ha'aretz,_ 4.2.2005.\n\nKAPITEL 10\n\n Der JNF unterh\u00e4lt die Internetseite www.kkl.org.il; eine eingeschr\u00e4nkte englischsprachige Version ist zu finden unter www.jnf.org.il, von der die meisten Angaben in diesem Kapitel stammen.\n\n Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 169.\n\n Im israelischen Hebr\u00e4isch bedeutet _kfar_ normalerweise \u00bbpal\u00e4stinensisches Dorf\u00ab, d.h. es gibt keine \u00bbj\u00fcdischen\u00ab D\u00f6rfer, denn sie hei\u00dfen im Hebr\u00e4ischen _yishuvim_ (Siedlungen), _kibbutzim_ , _moshavim_ etc.\n\n Khalidi (Hrsg.), _All That Remains_ , S. 169.\n\nKAPITEL 11\n\n Zur \u00bbSchein-PLO\u00ab, wie ich sie genannt habe, in der Zeit von 1964\u20131968 s. Ilan Pappe, _A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples_.\n\n Ramzy Baroud (Hrsg.), _Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002_.\n\n Ebd., S. 53f.\n\n W\u00f6rtlich: \u00bbGesetz zur Sicherung der Ablehnung des R\u00fcckkehrrechts, 2001\u00ab.\n\nKAPITEL 12\n\n Die arabischen Abgeordneten kommen aus drei Parteien: der Kommunistischen Partei Hadash, der Nationalpartei Balad von Azmi Bishara und der Vereinigten arabischen Liste, in der sich der pragmatischere Zweig der islamischen Bewegung zusammengeschlossen hat.\n\n Herzl, _Briefe und Tageb\u00fccher, Zionistisches Tagebuch 1895\u20131899,_ 12.6.1985, S. 117.\n\n Aus der Rede vor dem Zentralkomitee der Mapai am 3. Dezember 1947, vollst\u00e4ndig abgedruckt in Ben Gurion, _As Israel Fights_ , S. 225.\n\n Zitiert in _Yediot Achrinot_ , 17.12.2003.\n\n \u00bbAbkopplung\u00ab ist nat\u00fcrlich zionistisches Neusprech und wurde erfunden, um Formulierungen wie \u00bbEnde der Besatzung\u00ab zu vermeiden und damit die Verpflichtungen zu umgehen, die Israel nach dem V\u00f6lkerrecht als Besatzungsmacht im Westjordanland und im Gazastreifen hat.\n\n Ruth Gabison, _Ha'aretz_ , 1.12.2006, wo sie w\u00f6rtlich sagt: \u00bbLe-Israel yesh zkhut le-fakeah al ha-gidul ha-tivi shel ha-'Aravim\u00ab.\n\n Der Begriff Mizrahim f\u00fcr arabische Juden in Israel kam Anfang der 1990er Jahre auf. Wie Ella Shohat erkl\u00e4rt, blieb er zwar weiter das Gegenteil zu \u00bbAschkenasim\u00ab, enthielt aber \u00bbeine Reihe von Konnotationen: Er feiert die Vergangenheit in der \u00f6stlichen Welt; best\u00e4tigt die panorientalischen Gemeinden [die] sich in Israel selbst entwickelten; und _beschw\u00f6rt eine Zukunft eines wiederbelebten Zusammenlebens mit dem arabisch-muslimischen Osten herauf_ \u00ab; Ella Shohat, \u00bbRupture and Return: A Mizrahi Perspective on the Zionist Discourse\u00ab, MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, 1\/2001 (Hervorhebung hinzugef\u00fcgt).\n\n Die \u00bbschwarzen\u00ab Juden, die Israel in den 1980er Jahren aus \u00c4thiopien holte, wurden sofort in die Armenviertel an der Peripherie verbannt und sind heute in der israelischen Gesellschaft so gut wie unsichtbar; die Diskriminierung gegen sie ist ebenso gro\u00df wie die Selbstmordrate unter ihnen.\n\nEPILOG\n\n _Ha'aretz_ , 9.5.2006.\nBibliografie\n\nBaroud, Ramzy, Hrsg., _Searching Jenin: Eyewitness of the Israeli Invasion 2002_ , Seattle 2003\n\nBar-Zohar, Michael, _Ben-Gurion: A Political Biography,_ Tel Aviv 1977 (hebr.); auch dt.: _David Ben-Gurion. Der Gr\u00fcnder des Staates Israel_ , u.a. Bergisch Gladbach 1992\n\nBegin, Menachem, _The Revolt: Story of the Irgun,_ NewYork 1951\n\nBein, Alexander, Hrsg., _The Mozkin Book,_ Jerusalem 1939\n\nBen-Ari, Uri, _Follow Me,_ Tel Aviv 1994 (hebr.)\n\nBen-Artzi, Yossi, Hrsg., _The Development of Haifa, 1918\u20131948,_ Jerusalem 1988 (hebr.)\n\nBen-Eliezer, Uri, _The Emergence of Israeli Militarism, 1936\u20131956,_ Tel Aviv 1995\n\nders., _The Making of Israeli Militarism_ , Bloomington, 1998\n\nBen-Gurion, David, _Diary,_ Ben-Gurion Archives\n\nders., _In the Battle,_ Tel Aviv 1949 (hebr.)\n\n_ders., Rebirth and Destiny of Israel_ , New York 1954\n\nBen-Yehuda, Netiva, _Between the Knots_ , Jerusalem 1985 (hebr.)\n\nBierman, John, und Colin Smith, _Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma,_ _Ethiopia and Zion,_ New York 1999\n\nCohen, Geula, _Woman of Violence,_ New York 1966\n\nCohen, Hillel, _The Shadow Army_ , Jerusalem 2004 (hebr.)\n\nal-Daly, Wahid, _The Secrets of the Arab League and Abd al-Rahman Azzam_ , Kairo 1978 (arab.)\n\nDavis, Uri, _Apartheid Israel: Possibilities of the Struggle Within_ , London 2004\n\nDinur, Ben-Zion et al., _The History of the Hagana_ , Tel Aviv 1972 (hebr.)\n\nEshel, Zadok, Hrsg., _The Carmeli Brigade in the War of Independence_ , Tel Aviv 1973 (hebr.)\n\nEtzioni, Binyamin, Hrsg., _The Golani Brigade in the Fighting_ , Tel Aviv o.J. (hebr.)\n\nEven Nur, Israel, Hrsg., _The Yiftach-Palmach Story_ , Bat-Yam o.J. (hebr.)\n\nFarsoun, Samih, und C.E. Zacharia, _Palestine and the Palestinians_ , Boulder 1997\n\nFlapan, Simcha, _The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities,_ NewYork 1987; dt.: _Die Geburt Israels: Mythos und Wirklichkeit,_ M\u00fcnchen 2006\n\nGelber, Yoav, _The Emergence of a Jewish Army_ , Jerusalem 1996 (hebr.)\n\nGilad, Zerubavel, _The Palmach Book_ , Tel Aviv 1955 (hebr.)\n\nGlubb, John Bagot, _A Soldier with the Arabs_ , London 1957; dt.: _Jenseits vom Jordan: Soldat mit den Arabern_ , M\u00fcnchen 1958\n\nGoren, Tamir, _From Independence to Integration: The Israeli Authority and the Arabs of Haifa, 1948\u20131950_ , Haifa 1996 (hebr.)\n\nHerzl, Theodor, _Briefe und Tageb\u00fccher_ , Bd. 2, _Zionistisches Tagebuch 1895\u20131899_ , Berlin, Frankfurt a. M., Wien, 1983\n\nHussein, Hussein Abu, und Fiona Makay, _Access Denied: Palestinian Access to Land in Israel_ , London 2003\n\nIlan, Amitzur, _The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War_ , New York 1996\n\nKadish, Alon, Hrsg., _Israel's War of Independence 1948\u20131949_ , Tel Aviv 2004 (hebr.)\n\nKhairiya, Qasimya, _Fawzi al-Qawuqji's Memoirs, 1936\u20131948_ , Beirut 1975 (arab.)\n\nKhalidi, Rashid, _Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness_ , New York 1997\n\nKhalidi, Walid, Hrsg., _All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948,_ Washington 1992\n\nders., _Palestine Reborn_ , London 1992\n\nal-Khatib, Nimr, _Palestine's Nakba_ , Damaskus 1950\n\nKhoury, Elias, _Bab al-Shams,_ dt.: _Das Tor zur Sonne_ , Stuttgart, 2004\n\nKimmerling, Baruch _, Zionism and Territory: The Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics_ , Berkeley 1983\n\nKretzmer, David, _The Legal Status of Arabs in Israel_ , Boulder 1990\n\nKurzmann, Dan, _Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War, with a new introduction by Yitzhak Rabin_ , New York 1992\n\nders., _Soldier of Peace_ , London 1998\n\nLebrecht, Hans, _Die Pal\u00e4stinenser: Geschichte und Gegenwart,_ Frankfurt a. M. 1982\n\nLevy, Itzhak, _Jerusalem in the War of Independence_ , Tel Aviv 1986 (hebr.)\n\nLloyd Georg, David, _The Truth about the Peace Treaties_ , NewYork 1972\n\nLouis, W. Roger, und Robert S. Stookey, Hrsg., _The End of the Palestine Mandate_ , London 1985\n\nMakhul, Naji, _Acre and its Villages since Ancient Times_ , Akko 1977\n\nMandel, Neville, _Arabs and Zionism before World War I_ , Berkeley 1976\n\nMasalha, Nur, _Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of \u00bbTransfer\u00ab in Zionist Political Thought, 1882\u20131948_ , Washington 1992\n\nders., _A Land Without People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians_ , London 1997\n\nders., _The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem_ , London 2003\n\nMattar, Philip, Hrsg., _The Encyclopedia of Palestine,_ Washington 2000\n\nMcGowan, Daniel, und Matthew C. Hogan, _The Saga of the Deir Yassin Massacre, Revisionism and Reality_ , New York 1999\n\nMilstein, Uri, _The History of the Independence War_ , Tel Aviv 1989 (hebr.)\n\nMontgomery of Alamein, _Memoirs_ , London 1958; dt.: _Memoiren_ M\u00fcnchen 1958\n\nMorris, Benny, Hrsg., _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947\u20131949_ , Cambridge 1987\n\nders., _The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited_ , Cambridge 2004\n\nders., _Correcting A Mistake_ , Tel Aviv 2000 (hebr.)\n\nNakhleh, Issah, _The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem_ , New York 1991\n\nNatur, Salman, _Anta al-Qatil, ya- Shaykh,_ 1976\n\nPail, Meir, _From Hagana to the IDF,_ Tel Aviv o.J. (hebr.)\n\nPalumbo, Michael, _The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland,_ London 1987\n\nPappe, Ilan, Hrsg., _Arabs and Jews in the Mandatory Period \u2013 A Fresh View on the Historical Research,_ Givat Haviva 1992 (hebr.)\n\nders., _Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948\u20131951,_ London 1984\n\nders., _A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples,_ Cambridge 2004\n\nders., _The Israel\/Palestine Question,_ London, New York 1999\n\nders., _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947\u20131951_ , London 1992\n\nPorath, Yehosua, _The Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1919\u20131929,_ London, New York 1974\n\nPrior, Michael, Hrsg., _Speaking the Truth about Zionism and Israel,_ London 2004\n\nRivlin, Gershon, und Elhanan Oren, _The War of Independence: Ben-Gurion's Diary_ , Tel Aviv 1982\n\nRivlin, Gershon, Hrsg., _Olive-Leaves and Sword: Documents and Studies of the Hagana,_ Tel Aviv 1990 (hebr.)\n\nRogan, Eugene, und Avi Shlaim, Hrsg., _The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948,_ Cambridge 2002\n\nSacher, Harry, _Israel: The Establishment of Israel,_ London o.J.\n\nSch\u00f6lch, Alexander, _Pal\u00e4stina im Umbruch: 1856\u20131882: Untersuchungen zur wirtschaftlichen und sozio-politischen Entwicklung,_ Stuttgart 1986\n\nSegev, Tom, _1949 \u2013 The First Israelis,_ Jerusalem 1984\n\nShafir, Gershon, _Land, Labour and the Origins of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 1882\u20131914,_ Cambridge 1989\n\nShahak, Israel, _Racism de l'\u00e9tat d'Israel,_ Paris 1975\n\nShlaim, Avi, _Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist movement, and the partition of Palestine_ , Oxford 1988.\n\nSinai, Zvi, und Gershon Rivlin, Hrsg., _The Alexandroni Brigade in the War of Independence,_ Tel Aviv 1964 (hebr.)\n\nSitta, Salman Abu, _Atlas of the Nakbah,_ London 2005\n\nSluzki, Yehuda, _The Hagana Book,_ Tel Aviv 1964 (hebr.)\n\nders., _Summary of the Hagana Book,_ Tel Aviv 1978 (hebr.)\n\nSmith, Barbara, _The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920\u20131929,_ Syracuse 1984\n\nSmith, Charles D., _Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,_ Boston, New York 2004\n\nStein, Kenneth, _The Land Question in Palestine, 1917\u20131939,_ Atlanta 1984\n\nSternhell, Zeev, _The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State,_ Princeton 1998\n\nTal, David, _War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy,_ London, New York 2004\n\nTamari, Salim, _Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War,_ Jerusalem 1999\n\nTeveth, Shabtai, _Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War,_ New York 1985\n\nUlizki, Yossef, _From Events to A War,_ Tel Aviv 1951 (hebr.)\n\nWeitz, Yossef, _My Diary_ , Manuskript in den Central Zionist Archives, A246\n\nYahav, Dan, _Purity of Arms: Ethos, Myth and Reality, 1936\u20131956,_ Tel Aviv 2002 (hebr.)\nAnhang\n\nZeittafel\n\n1878 | Zionisten gr\u00fcnden erste landwirtschaftliche Siedlung in Pal\u00e4stina (Petah Tikva).\n\n---|---\n\n1882 | 25000 j\u00fcdische Einwanderer, \u00fcberwiegend aus Osteuropa, siedeln sich in Pal\u00e4stina an.\n\n1891 | Der deutsche Baron Morice de Hirsch (geb\u00fcrtig Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch) gr\u00fcndet in London die Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), die j\u00fcdischen Siedlern in der ganzen Welt, sp\u00e4ter auch in Pal\u00e4stina half.\n\n1896 | Theodor Herzl, ein \u00f6sterreichisch-ungarischer j\u00fcdischer Schriftsteller, tritt in seinem Buch _Der Judenstaat_ f\u00fcr die Gr\u00fcndung eines j\u00fcdischen Staates ein.\n\nDie JCA nimmt ihre Arbeit in Pal\u00e4stina auf.\n\n1897 | Der 1. Zionistenkongress in Basel gr\u00fcndet die Zionistische Weltorganisation und fordert \u00bbeine Heimst\u00e4tte f\u00fcr das j\u00fcdische Volk in Pal\u00e4stina\u00ab.\n\nDer Begr\u00fcnder des sozialistischen Zionismus, Nahman Syrkin, erkl\u00e4rt in einem Pamphlet, Pal\u00e4stina \u00bbmuss f\u00fcr die Juden evakuiert werden\u00ab.\n\n1901 | Der J\u00fcdische Nationalfonds (JNF) wird gegr\u00fcndet, um f\u00fcr die Zionistische Weltorganisation Land in Pal\u00e4stina zu erwerben, das ausschlie\u00dflich von Juden genutzt und bearbeitet werden soll.\n\n1904 | In der Umgebung von Tiberias kommt es zu Spannungen zwischen zionistischen und pal\u00e4stinensischen Bauern.\n\n1904\u20131914 | 40000 zionistische Einwanderer treffen in Pal\u00e4stina ein; Juden machen inzwischen 6 Prozent der Bev\u00f6lkerung aus.\n\n1905 | Israel Zangwill erkl\u00e4rt, Juden m\u00fcssten die Araber vertreiben oder \u00bbmit dem Problem einer gro\u00dfen Fremdbev\u00f6lkerung fertig werden\u00ab.\n\n1907 | Der erste Kibbuz entsteht.\n\n1909 | Tel Aviv wird gegr\u00fcndet.\n\n1911 | Eine Denkschrift an die Zionistische Exekutive spricht von \u00bbbegrenztem Bev\u00f6lkerungstransfer\u00ab.\n\n1914 | Der Erste Weltkrieg bricht aus.\n\n1917 | In der Balfour-Deklaration sagt der britische Au\u00dfenminister dem j\u00fcdischen Volk Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr \u00bbeine nationale Heimst\u00e4tte in Pal\u00e4stina\u00ab zu.\n\nIn Jerusalem kapitulieren die osmanischen Streitkr\u00e4fte vor dem britischen General Allenby.\n\n1918 | Die Alliierten besetzen unter Allenbys F\u00fchrung Pal\u00e4stina.\n\nMit dem Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs endet auch die osmanische Herrschaft in Pal\u00e4stina.\n\n1919 | Der erste pal\u00e4stinensische Nationalkongress in Jerusalem lehnt die Balfour-Erkl\u00e4rung ab und fordert Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit.\n\nChaim Weizmann fordert als Pr\u00e4sident der Zionist Commission bei der Pariser Friedenskonferenz ein Pal\u00e4stina, das \u00bbso j\u00fcdisch ist, wie England englisch ist\u00ab. Andere Kommissionsmitglieder erkl\u00e4ren, man \u00bbsollte m\u00f6glichst viele Araber zur Emigration bewegen\u00ab.\n\nWinston Churchill schreibt: \u00bbEs gibt Juden, denen wir versprochen haben, sie nach Pal\u00e4stina zu bringen, und die selbstverst\u00e4ndlich annehmen, dass die heimische Bev\u00f6lkerung nach ihrem Belieben fortgeschafft wird.\u00ab\n\n1919\u20131933 | 35000 zionistische Einwanderer kommen nach Pal\u00e4stina. Juden stellen nun insgesamt 12 Prozent der Bev\u00f6lkerung und besitzen 3 Prozent des Grund und Bodens.\n\n1920 | Die zionistische Untergrundmiliz Hagana wird gegr\u00fcndet.\n\nDer Oberste Rat der Friedenskonferenz von San Remo \u00fcbertr\u00e4gt den Briten die Mandatsverwaltung \u00fcber Pal\u00e4stina.\n\n1921 | In Jaffa kommt es zu Protesten gegen umfangreiche zionistische Zuwanderung.\n\n1922 | Der Rat des V\u00f6lkerbundes genehmigt das britische\n\nPal\u00e4stinamandat.\n\nEine britische Volksz\u00e4hlung in Pal\u00e4stina ermittelt eine\n\nEinwohnerzahl von insgesamt 757182, davon 78 Prozent Muslime, 11 Prozent Juden, 9, 6 Prozent Christen.\n\n1923 | Das britische Pal\u00e4stinamandat tritt offiziell in Kraft.\n\n1924\u20131928 | 67000 zionistische Einwanderer kommen nach Pal\u00e4stina, davon die H\u00e4lfte aus Polen. Der j\u00fcdische Bev\u00f6lkerungsanteil w\u00e4chst auf 16 Prozent, ihnen geh\u00f6ren nun 4 Prozent des Landes.\n\n1925 | In Paris wird die Partei der Zionisten-Revisionisten gegr\u00fcndet, die auf der Gr\u00fcndung eines j\u00fcdischen Staates in Pal\u00e4stina und Transjordanien besteht.\n\n1929 | \u00dcber Anspr\u00fcche auf die Klagemauer kommt es in Pal\u00e4stina zu Unruhen, bei denen 133 Juden und 116 Araber vor allem von Briten get\u00f6tet werden.\n\n1930 | Der V\u00f6lkerbund richtet eine Internationale Kommission ein, die Rechtsanspr\u00fcche von Juden und Arabern an der Klagemauer kl\u00e4ren soll.\n\n1931 | Die Irgun (IZL) wird gegr\u00fcndet, um st\u00e4rker militant gegen Araber vorzugehen.\n\nEine Volksz\u00e4hlung in Pal\u00e4stina ergibt eine Gesamtbev\u00f6lkerung von 1,03 Millionen, davon 16,9 Prozent Juden.\n\nDer britische Entwicklungsdirektor f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina ver\u00f6ffentlicht einen Bericht \u00fcber \u00bblandlose Araber\u00ab als Folge zionistischer Kolonisation.\n\n1932 | Mit der Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitspartei (Istiqlal) entsteht die erste regul\u00e4re pal\u00e4stinensische Partei.\n\n1935 | Im Hafen von Jaffa werden Waffen entdeckt, die von zionistischen Gruppen ins Land geschmuggelt wurden.\n\n1936 | Eine Konferenz pal\u00e4stinensischer Nationalkomitees fordert: \u00bbKeine Steuern ohne politische Vertretung\u00ab.\n\n1937 | Die Peel-Kommission empfiehlt eine Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas, die 33 Prozent des Landes f\u00fcr einen j\u00fcdischen Staat vorsieht. Ein Teil der pal\u00e4stinensischen Bev\u00f6lkerung aus diesem Staatsgebiet soll umgesiedelt werden. Die Briten l\u00f6sen alle politischen Organisationen der Pal\u00e4stinenser auf, deportieren f\u00fcnf F\u00fchrer und richten Milit\u00e4rgerichte gegen pal\u00e4stinensische Rebellionen ein.\n\n1938 | Bombenanschl\u00e4ge der Irgun t\u00f6ten 119 Pal\u00e4stinenser. Pal\u00e4stinensische Bombenanschl\u00e4ge und Minen t\u00f6ten 8 Juden.\n\n1939 | Der f\u00fchrende Zionist Jabotinsky schreibt: \u00bbDie Araber m\u00fcssen Platz f\u00fcr die Juden in Eretz Israel machen. Wenn es m\u00f6glich war, die baltischen V\u00f6lker umzusiedeln, ist es auch m\u00f6glich, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Araber umzusiedeln.\u00ab\n\nDas britische Unterhaus verabschiedet ein Wei\u00dfbuch, das eine bedingte Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit Pal\u00e4stinas nach zehn Jahren und \u00fcber die n\u00e4chsten f\u00fcnf Jahre die Einwanderung von j\u00e4hrlich 15000 Juden nach Pal\u00e4stina vorsieht.\n\nDer Zweite Weltkrieg bricht aus.\n\n1940 | Es treten gesetzliche Bestimmungen in Kraft, die pal\u00e4stinensischen Grundbesitz vor dem Verkauf an Zionisten sch\u00fctzen.\n\n1943 | Die im Wei\u00dfbuch von 1939 vorgesehene F\u00fcnfjahresfrist f\u00fcr Zuwanderung wird verl\u00e4ngert.\n\n1945 | Der Zweite Weltkrieg endet.\n\n1947 | Die Briten teilen den neu gegr\u00fcndeten Vereinten Nationen mit, dass sie sich aus Pal\u00e4stina zur\u00fcckziehen werden.\n\nDie Vereinten Nationen setzen einen Sonderausschuss f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina (UNSCOP) ein.\n\nUNSCOP empfiehlt die Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nAm 29. November verabschiedet die UN-Vollversammlung Resolution 181 zur Teilung Pal\u00e4stinas.\n\nDie Juden beginnen mit Massenvertreibungen der einheimischen pal\u00e4stinensischen Araber.\n\nJanuar 1948 | Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni kehrt nach zehnj\u00e4hrigem Exil nach Pal\u00e4stina zur\u00fcck, um eine Widerstandsgruppe gegen die Teilung zu gr\u00fcnden.\n\n20.1.48 | Die Briten planen, Gebiete an die jeweils dort vorherrschende Gruppe zu \u00fcbergeben.\n\nFebruar 1948 | Zwischen Juden und Arabern bricht ein Krieg aus.\n\n18.2.48 | Die Hagana verk\u00fcndet eine Wehrpflicht und zieht\n\nM\u00e4nner und Frauen zwischen 25 und 35 Jahren ein.\n\n24.2.48 | Der US-Botschafter bei den Vereinten Nationen erkl\u00e4rt, Aufgabe des Sicherheitsrates sei die Erhaltung des Friedens, nicht die Umsetzung des Teilungsplans.\n\n6.3.48 | Hagana verk\u00fcndet die Mobilmachung.\n\n10.3.48 | Plan Dalet, die zionistische Blaupause f\u00fcr die ethnische S\u00e4uberung Pal\u00e4stinas, wird endg\u00fcltig beschlossen.\n\n18.3.48 | US-Pr\u00e4sident Truman verpflichtet sich, die zionistische Sache zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\n19.\u201320.3.48 | Arabische F\u00fchrer stimmen einer Waffenruhe und einer befristeten Treuh\u00e4nderverwaltung zu, die der UN-Sicherheitsrat statt einer Teilung vorgeschlagen hat. Juden lehnen die Waffenruhe ab.\n\n30.3.\u201315.5.48 | Die Hagana \u00bbr\u00e4umt\u00ab in mehreren Operationen den K\u00fcstenstreifen zwischen Haifa und Jaffa und vertreibt die Pal\u00e4stinenser.\n\n1.4.48 | Erste Lieferung tschechischer Waffen f\u00fcr die Hagana trifft ein, u. a. 4500 Gewehre, 200 Maschinenpistolen, 5 Millionen Schuss Munition.\n\n4.4.48 | Die Hagana beginnt mit Plan Dalet, nimmt D\u00f6rfer an der Stra\u00dfe Tel Aviv\u2013Jerusalem ein und vertreibt die Einwohner.\n\n9.4.48 | In Deir Yassin kommt es zu einem Massaker.\n\n17.4.48 | Der UN-Sicherheitsrat fordert in einer Resolution eine Waffenruhe.\n\n20.4.48 | Die USA legen der UNO einen Treuh\u00e4nderplan f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina vor.\n\n22.4.48 | Die pal\u00e4stinensische Bev\u00f6lkerung Haifas wird vertrieben.\n\n26.\u201330.4.48 | Die Hagana greift einen Teil Ostjerusalems an, muss ihn aber den Briten \u00fcbergeben. Die Hagana erobert einen Teil Westjerusalems. J\u00fcdische Truppen vertreiben alle Pal\u00e4stinenser aus Westjerusalem.\n\n3.5.48 | Ein Bericht besagt, dass 175000 bis 250000 Pal\u00e4stinenser mit Gewalt aus ihrer Heimat vertrieben wurden.\n\n12.\u201314.5.48 | Tschechische Waffen f\u00fcr die Hagana treffen ein.\n\n13.5.48 | Als Vergeltung f\u00fcr j\u00fcdische Milit\u00e4raktionen greift\n\ndie Arabische Legion j\u00fcdische Gemeinden an.\n\nJaffa ergibt sich der Hagana.\n\n14.5.48 | Nach Ablauf des britischen Mandats erkl\u00e4rt Israel\n\nseine Unabh\u00e4ngigkeit.\n\nUS-Pr\u00e4sident Truman erkennt den Staat Israel an.\n\n20.5.48 | Graf Bernadotte wird zum UN-Vermittler in Pal\u00e4stina ernannt.\n\n22.5.48 | UN-Resolution fordert Waffenruhe.\n\n11.6.\u20138.7.48 | Erste Waffenruhe tritt in Kraft.\n\n8.\u201318.7.48 | Erneute K\u00e4mpfe brechen aus, als die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte Lydda und Ramla erobern.\n\n17.7.48 | Die IDF starten eine Offensive, scheitern aber an der Eroberung der Altstadt Jerusalems.\n\n18.7.\u201315.10.48 | Die zweite Waffenruhe wird von den israelischen Truppen mehrfach gebrochen, um einige D\u00f6rfer zu erobern.\n\n17.9.48 | UN-Vermittler Graf Bernadotte wird von j\u00fcdischen Terroristen in Jerusalem ermordet. Neuer UN-Vermittler wird Ralph Bunche.\n\n29.\u201331.10.48 | Tausende Pal\u00e4stinenser werden im Laufe der Operation Hiram vertrieben.\n\n4.11.48 | Der UN-Sicherheitsrat fordert eine sofortige Waffenruhe und den R\u00fcckzug der Truppen.\n\nDie UN-Vollversammlung verabschiedet Resolution 194 zum R\u00fcckkehrrecht pal\u00e4stinensischer Fl\u00fcchtlinge.\n\nIsrael blockiert ihre R\u00fcckkehr.\n\nNov. 1949 | Die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte beginnen, Einwohner von Siedlungen jenseits der libanesischen Grenze zu vertreiben.\n\n24.2.1949 | Israel und \u00c4gypten schlie\u00dfen Waffenstillstand.\n\nEnde Februar | Die israelischen Streitkr\u00e4fte vertreiben 2000 bis 3000 Einwohner aus D\u00f6rfern im Faluja-Kessel.\n\n23.3.49 | Israel und Libanon schlie\u00dfen Waffenstillstand.\n\n3.4.49 | Israel und Jordanien schlie\u00dfen Waffenstillstand.\n\n20.7.49 | Syrien und Israel schlie\u00dfen Waffenstillstand.\n\nIrgun-Truppen marschieren am 14. Mai 1948 durch die Stra\u00dfen von Tel Aviv. Unmittelbar vor der Ausrufung des Staates Israel soll St\u00e4rke demonstriert werden.\n\nJ\u00fcdische Soldaten besetzen ein Dorf bei Safad, vermutlich Biriyya.\n\nJ\u00fcdische Truppen r\u00fccken in Malkiyya ein.\n\nArabische M\u00e4nner im wehrf\u00e4higen Alter werden zu einem Sammelpunkt in Tel Aviv getrieben.\n\nDas Rote Haus in Tel Aviv war ab 1947 Hauptquartier der Hagana; hier fanden die Sitzungen der Beratergruppe statt.\n\nFrauen, Kinder und alte Menschen werden aus ihren H\u00e4usern vertrieben, M\u00e4nner im Alter von zehn bis f\u00fcnfzig Jahren kommen in Gefangenenlager.\n\nTausende Pal\u00e4stinenser fliehen unter schwerem Granatbeschuss zum Strand; viele ertrinken bei diesem Massenexodus.\n\nAm 10. April 1948 berichtet die _New York Times_ \u00fcber das Massaker, das Irgun und Stern-Gruppe in Deir Yassin begangen haben.\n\nViele Vertriebene fliehen zu Fu\u00df.\n\nPal\u00e4stinenser laden ihre Habseligkeiten auf einen Lastwagen, als j\u00fcdische Truppen ihr Dorf angreifen.\n\nViele Fl\u00fcchtlinge m\u00fcssen Hunderte Kilometer zu Fu\u00df zur\u00fccklegen.\n\nPal\u00e4stinenser versuchen auf Fischerbooten in den S\u00fcden nach Gaza und \u00c4gypten oder in den Norden Richtung Libanon zu fliehen.\n\nTausende str\u00f6men am 31. Januar 1949 in den Hafen von Haifa, um 1500 j\u00fcdische Einwanderer, Fl\u00fcchtlinge aus Europa, zu begr\u00fc\u00dfen.\n\nDas Dorf Iqrit vor seiner Zerst\u00f6rung. (Die Aufnahme stammt aus dem Jahr 1935.) Die meisten Einwohner wurden im November 1948 vertrieben.\n\nDas Dorf Iqrit nach seiner Zerst\u00f6rung. (Die Aufnahme stammt aus dem Jahr 1990.) Nur noch die verfallene Kirche ist von Iqrit \u00fcbrig geblieben.\n\nUnter diesem Freizeitpark bei Haifa liegen die Tr\u00fcmmer des Dorfs Tantura, wo es 1948 zu einem Massaker kam.\n\nUnter diesem Park bei Jaffa liegt der Friedhof von Salama.\n\nDas Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Naher al-Barid im Libanon im Winter 1948; es war eines der ersten Lager f\u00fcr vertriebene Pal\u00e4stinenser.\n\nIm Fl\u00fcchtlingslager Baqa'a in Jordanien.\n\nDiese Karte, die die Zionistische Weltorganisation offiziell bei der Pariser Friedenskonferenz 1919 vorlegte, zeigt das Gebiet Pal\u00e4stinas, das sie f\u00fcr einen j\u00fcdischen Staat beanspruchte.\n\nDer Teilungsplan der Peel-Kommission von 1937 flie\u00dft ein Jahr sp\u00e4ter als Teilungsplan A in die Vorschl\u00e4ge der Pal\u00e4stinakommission ein.\n\nTeilungsplan B der Pal\u00e4stinakommission, 1938\n\nTeilungsplan C der Pal\u00e4stinakommission, 1938\n\nTeilungsplan der Vereinten Nationen, verabschiedet von der Vollversammlung in Resolution 181, 29. November 1947.\n\nWaffenstillstandvereinbarung, 1949\n\nEntv\u00f6lkerte pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer, 1947\u20131949\n\nPal\u00e4stina: Pal\u00e4stinensischer und j\u00fcdischer Grundbesitz in Prozent nach Verwaltungsbezirken, 19451\n\nBezirk | pal\u00e4stinensischer \nBesitz | j\u00fcdischer \nBesitz | staatlicher & sonstiger \nBesitz2 \n---|---|---|--- \nAkko | 87 | 3 | 10 \nBaysan | 44 | 34 | 22 \nBeersheba | 15 | <1 | 85 \nGaza | 75 | 4 | 21 \nHaifa | 42 | 35 | 23 \nHebron | 96 | <1 | 4 \nJaffa | 47 | 39 | 14 \nJerusalem | 84 | 2 | 14 \nJenin | 84 | <1 | 16 \nNablus | 87 | <1 | 13 \nNazareth | 52 | 28 | 20 \nRamla | 77 | 14 | 9 \nRamallah | 99 | <1 | 1 \nSafad | 68 | 18 | 14 \nTiberias | 51 | 38 | 11 \nTul-Karem | 78 | 17 | 5\n\nPal\u00e4stina: Bev\u00f6lkerungsanteile von Pal\u00e4stinensern und Juden nach Verwaltungsbezirken in Prozent, 19463\n\nBezirk | pal\u00e4stinensischer Besitz | j\u00fcdischer Besitz \n---|---|--- \nAkko | 96 | 4 \nBaysan | 70 | 30 \nBeersheba | 99 | <1 \nGaza | 98 | 2 \nHaifa | 53 | 47 \nHebron | 99 | <1 \nJaffa | 29 | 71 \nJerusalem | 62 | 38 \nJenin | 100 | 0 \nNablus | 100 | 0 \nNazareth | 84 | 16 \nRamla | 78 | 22 \nRamallah | 100 | 0 \nSafad | 87 | 13 \nTiberias | 67 | 33 \nTul-Karem | 83 | 17\n\n1 Quelle: Villages Statistics, Jerusalem, Palestine Government, 1945.\n\n2 Unter britischem Mandat enthielt die Kategorie \u00bbstaatl. Besitz\u00ab Staatsl\u00e4ndereien sowie privates und kommunales Pachtland, die nach dem Pachtsystem aus osmanischer Zeit bewirtschaftet wurden.\n\n3 Quelle: Supplement to a Survey of Palestine, Jerusalem, Government Printer, Juni 1947.\nRegister\n\n(Mit \u00bbDorf\u00ab sind pal\u00e4stinensische D\u00f6rfer, mit \u00bbSiedlung\u00ab israelische Siedlungen bezeichnet.)\n\nAbbasiyya (Dorf) ,\n\nAbd al-Karim (Major)\n\nAbd al-Raziq, Abu Rauf (Offizier)\n\nAbdullah, K\u00f6nig von Jordanien f., , , \u2013, ff., f., , , ,\n\nAbu-Qishq-Bande\n\nAbu al-Hija (Clan) f.\n\nAbu Fihmi (Dorfbewohner)\n\nAbu Ghawsh (Dorf)\n\nAbu Hamud, Khalid (Feldwebel)\n\nAbu Hani (Familie)\n\nAbu Khalid, Fawzi Muhammad Tanj (Augenzeuge)\n\nAbu Laben, Ahmad (Einwohner von Jaffa)\n\nAbu Masri, Mustafa, gen. Abu Jamil (Augenzeuge)\n\nAbu Salih, Mahmud (Augenzeuge)\n\nAbu Salim, al-Hajj f.\n\nAbu Shusha (Dorf) ,\n\nAbu Sinan (Dorf)\n\nAbu Su'ud, Shaykh Hasan\n\nAbu Zurayq (Dorf) ,\n\nAbulafya, David 271 Adam Smith Institute, London\n\n\u00c4gypten , , f., ff., , ,\n\nAfrika f.\n\nAfula (Ortschaft) , , , , ,\n\nAgmon, Dani (Hashahar-F\u00fchrer)\n\nAhihud (Siedlung)\n\nAhmad, Qasim (Rebellenf\u00fchrer)\n\nAin Zeitun \u2192 Ayn al-Zaytun\n\nAkko\/Acre (Stadt) 14 (Wasserversorgung), , ff., , , , , ,\n\nal-Azazmeh (Beduinen)\n\nal-Bahr-Moschee\n\nal-Hajajre (Beduinen)\n\nal-Hanna, Nizar\n\nal-Hawashli (Beduinen)\n\nal-Hulda-Moschee in Mujaydil\n\nal-Husayni, Abd al-Qadir f., f.,\n\nal-Husayni, al-Hajj Amin (Mufti, Pal\u00e4stinenserf\u00fchrer) , , , , , ,\n\nal-Husayni, Jamal\n\nal-Husayni, Rabah\n\nal-Husayni, Said (Abgeordneter)\n\nal-Issa, Michael\n\nal-Jamal, Rafidia (Augenzeugin)\n\nAl-Khalidi, Husayn\n\nal-Khalil, Ali Bek (Grundbesitzer)\n\nal-Khatib, Muhammad Nimr , f.\n\nal-Madi, Mu'in 170 al-Mawassi (Beduinen)\n\nal-Mustafa, Shaykh Muhammad (Imam)\n\nal-Qassam, Shaykh Izz al-Din (Pal\u00e4stinenserf\u00fchrer)\n\nal-Qawqji, Fawzi (ALA-Befehlshaber) , , f., f., f.,\n\nal-Salam-Moschee\n\nal-Sanusi, Ramadan (Offizier)\n\nal-Umari-Moschee ,\n\nal-Wazir, Khalil, gen. Abu Jihad (PLO-F\u00fchrer)\n\nal-Zu'bi, Mubarak al-Haj (Muchtar von Sirin)\n\nALA \u2192 Arabische Befreiungsarmee\n\nAlexandria ,\n\nAlexandroni-Brigade , , f., \u2013, f.\n\nAlgerien\n\nAllon, Yigal (Palmach-Kommandeur) , , ff., , ff., , , , , ,\n\nAlma (Dorf)\n\nAlterman, Natan (Autor) ,\n\nAmbar, Shlomo (General) f.\n\nAmi Ayalons Census-Gruppe\n\nAmman ,\n\nAmqa (Dorf) , f.,\n\nAnnan, Kofi\n\nAra (Ortschaft)\n\nArab al-Fuqara (Dorf) ,\n\nArab al-Ghawarina (Dorf)\n\nArab al-Nufay'at (Dorf) ,\n\nArab al-Samniyya (Dorf)\n\nArab Bank\n\nArab Zahrat al-Dumayri (Dorf)\n\nAraba'in-Moschee\n\nArabisch-israelischer Krieg\n\nArabische Befreiungsarmee (Jaish al-Inqath, Arab Liberation Army, ALA) f., , f., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , f., , ff.,\n\nArabische Legion , , , , , ff., f., , , f., ,\n\nArabische Liga , , f., , , , , , , , ,\n\nArabisches Oberkomitee (Arab Higher Committee) , , , f.,\n\nArafat, Yassir ff.\n\nArara (Dorf) ,\n\nArmenier ,\n\nArraba (Dorf) ,\n\nAschkenasim (osteurop. Juden) , , ,\n\nAshdot Yaacov (Kibbuz)\n\nAshkelon (Siedlung)\n\nAtlit (Dorf)\n\nAtlit (Gefangenenlager)\n\nAtlit (Kreuzritterfestung)\n\nAtlit Salt Company\n\nAttil (Dorf)\n\nAttlee, Clement Richard (brit. Premierminister)\n\nAugustus\n\nAusschuss f\u00fcr Arabische Angelegenheiten , , f.\n\nAustin, Warren (US-Botschafter bei der UNO)\n\nAustralien\n\nAvidan, Shimon (Kommandeur)\n\nAvinoam, Haim (Kommandeur)\n\nAvnir, Elimelech (Hagana-Kommandeur)\n\nAyelet Hashahar (Kibbuz) ,\n\nAylut (Dorf)\n\nAyn al-Zaytun \/ Ain Zeitun (Dorf) \u2013, , , , f.\n\nAyn Ghazal (Dorf) , , f., ,\n\nAyn Hawd (Dorf) , , , ff.,\n\nAyn Hilwa (Fl\u00fcchtlingslager) f.\n\nAyn Karim (Dorf)\n\nAyn Mahel (Dorf)\n\nAyndur (Dorf)\n\nAyyub, Najiah (Augenzeuge)\n\nBagdad\n\nBakri, Muhammad (Filmemacher)\n\nBalad al-Shaykh (Dorf) f., , ,\n\nBalfour, Arthur James f.\n\nBalfour-Erkl\u00e4rung , ,\n\nBaqa al-Gharbiyya (Dorf)\n\nBar-Zohar, Michael (Biograf Ben Gurions) ,\n\nBarak, Ehud (israel. Ministerpr\u00e4sident) , f.,\n\nBarfilyya (Ortschaft)\n\nBarieka (Dorf)\n\nBaroud, Ramzy (Autor)\n\nBarrat Qisarya (Dorf)\n\nBarta'a (Dorf)\n\nBassa (Dorf) f.\n\nBaybars, Rukn al-Din (Mameluckensultan) f.\n\nBaysan-Tal , ,\n\nBaysan \/ Bet She'an (Stadt) , f., f., ,\n\nBeduinen f., , , , , , , , , f.,\n\nBeersheba \/ Beer Sheva (Stadt) , , ff.,\n\nBegin, Menachem , ,\n\nBeirut ,\n\nBeit Affa (Dorf) f.\n\nBeit Dajan (Dorf)\n\nBeit Hanun (Ortschaft)\n\nBeit Horish (Dorf)\n\nBeit Lehem (Dorf)\n\nBeit Masir (Dorf)\n\nBeit Mazmil (Dorf)\n\nBeit Surik (Dorf)\n\nBeit Umm al-Meis (Dorf)\n\nBelgrad\n\nBen-Ari, Uri (Kommandeur) f.,\n\nBen-Artzi, Ephraim (General)\n\nBen-Yehuda, Netiva (Schriftstellerin) ,\n\nBen-Zvi, Yitzhak (israel. Staatspr\u00e4sident) ,\n\nBen Gurion, David , , , \u2013, \u2013, f., \u2013, , , , , , \u2013, \u2013, ff., , \u2013, f., , , , , ff., , , f., , f., \u2013, , , , , ff., f., f., f., , ff., , ff., , f., , , , , ff.,\n\nBen Gurion Archives (in Sdeh Boker)\n\nBeratendes Komitee (Haveadah Hamyeazet)\n\nBergman, Ernest David\n\nBernadotte, Graf Folke (UN-Vermittler) , ff., ,\n\nBetselem (Menschenrechtsorganisation)\n\nBeveridge (brit. Brigadekommandeur)\n\nBevin, Ernest (brit. Au\u00dfenminister) , ,\n\nBiddu (Dorf) ,\n\nBikura (erfundener Ortsname)\n\nBilby, Kenneth (Journalist)\n\nBiltmore-Programm f.,\n\nBinyamina (Siedlung)\n\nBiriyya (Dorf) , ,\n\nBirwa (Dorf) , f.\n\nBirya-Wald\n\nBiyar 'Adas (Dorf) ,\n\nBlahmiyya (Dorf)\n\nBosnien\n\nBrigade Acht , f.\n\nBrigade Harel\n\nBrigade Sieben , , ,\n\nBritish Royal Peel Commission\n\nBulayda (Dorf)\n\nBulgarien\n\nBulgarische Brigade\n\nBurayka (Dorf)\n\nBurayr (Dorf)\n\nButaymat (Dorf) ,\n\nCamp David f., ff.\n\nCarmel, Moshe (Kommandeur)\n\nCarmeli-Brigade ff., ,\n\nCherqis (Dorf)\n\nChiliasmus\n\nChizik, Yitzhak (Milit\u00e4rgouverneur) f., f.\n\nClinton, Bill\n\nCohen, Amatziya\n\nCouncil for Peace and Security\n\nCrocker (brit. Major)\n\nCunningham, Sir Alan (brit. Milit\u00e4r)\n\nDabburiyya (Dorf)\n\nDahamish-Moschee (in Lydda)\n\nDalhamiyya (Dorf)\n\nDaliyat al-Rawha (Dorf) , , ,\n\nDaliyya (Dorf)\n\nDamaskus , ,\n\nDamira (Dorf)\n\nDamun (Dorf) , , ,\n\nDanba (Dorf)\n\nDanin, Ezra (Agent) f., ff., , , ,\n\nDarfur\n\nDarwish, Ishaq\n\nDarwish, Mahmoud (Dichter)\n\nDaud, al-Hajj Suleiman (Dorfbewohner)\n\nDawaymeh (Dorf) , ff.\n\nDayan, Moshe , , f., ,\n\nDayton\n\nDeir al-Qasi (Dorf) ,\n\nDeir Ayyub (Dorf)\n\nDeir Hanna (Dorf) f., , ,\n\nDeir Yassin (Dorf) , \u2013, , ,\n\nDenya (Stadtteil von Haifa)\n\nDishon (Dorf)\n\nDorfdossiers , f., , , , , , , ,\n\nDori, Yaacov\n\nDrusen , f., , ff., , , , , , ,\n\nDunkelman, Ben(jamin) (Operation-Dekel-Chef)\n\nEban, Abba (israel. UN-Botschafter)\n\nEdghaim, Muhammad Abdullah (Augenzeuge) f.\n\nEin Hod (umbenanntes Dorf)\n\nEisenshtater (Eshet), Fritz (Offizier)\n\nEitan, Raphael (Generalstabschef)\n\nEl-Arish (Stadt)\n\nElimelech-Plan (Plan A)\n\nEpstein, Yaacov (Siedlungsleiter) ,\n\nEretz Israel ,\n\nEtzioni-Brigade\n\nFaluja-Kessel\n\nFarah, Bulus (Einwohner Haifas)\n\nFarhan (Hauptmann)\n\nFarradiyya (Dorf)\n\nFarsoun, Samih\n\nFaruna (Dorf)\n\nFassuta (Dorf) ,\n\nFayja (Dorf)\n\nFaysal, K\u00f6nig von Irak\n\nFellachen\n\nFlammenwerfer\n\nFlapan, Simcha , ,\n\nFriedensplan\n\nFuraydis (Dorf) , , ,\n\nGabison, Ruth (Professorin)\n\nGalili, Israel (Archivar) f., ,\n\nGat (Siedlung)\n\nGaza (Stadt) , , , , , , ,\n\nGazastreifen f., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , \u2013, , f.\n\nGenfer Konventionen \/ Vereinbarungen , , f.,\n\nGhabisiyya (Dorf) f.\n\nGhazzawiyya (Lager)\n\nGhori, Emil\n\nGhubayya al-Fawqa (Dorf)\n\nGhubayya al-Tahta (Dorf)\n\nGhuwayr (Dorf) f.\n\nGivat Ada (Siedlung)\n\nGivat Shaul (Stadtteil von Jerusalem)\n\nGivatayim (Stadt)\n\nGivati-Brigade ,\n\nGloberman, Yehushua (Hagana-Kommandeur)\n\nGlubb Pasha, John (brit. Generalstabschef) , ,\n\nGolanh\u00f6hen , , , ,\n\nGolani-Brigade , , , ,\n\nGoldberg, Sasha (Chemieprofessor)\n\nGoldie (brit. Oberst)\n\nGoldman, Nachum\n\nGorki, Maxim\n\nGouy (Rotkreuzvertreter)\n\nGro\u00dfisrael-Bewegung f.\n\nGro\u00dfjordanien\n\nGro\u00dfserbien\n\nGruenbaum, Yitzhak (israel. Innenminister)\n\nGr\u00fcnes Haus\n\nGush-Etzion-Konvoi\n\nGush Etzion (Siedlung) f.\n\nHa'aretz (Zeitung)\n\nHabash, George (PFLP-Gr\u00fcnder)\n\nHadera (Stadt) , , , , ,\n\nHagana (zionist. Untergrundmiliz) , , f., , , f., , , , , \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, , , f., , , ff., ff., , ff., , , , , , ,\n\nHaifa , , \u2013, \u2013, f., , f., , , , f., , , , \u2013, , , , , (Verh\u00f6rzentrum Daniel Street 11), , , f., , ,\n\nHamas\n\nHammud, Abu (ALA-Kommandant)\n\nHamuda, Ali (Fl\u00fcchtling)\n\nHanuki, Abraham\n\nHaram al-Sharif (Tempelbergbezirk in Jerusalem)\n\nHarel, Issar (Geheimdienstchef)\n\nHarel-Brigade\n\nHasan-Beik-Moschee\n\nHasbani (Fluss)\n\nHaschemiten , ,\n\nHashahar-Einheiten\n\nHashomer Ha-Tza'ir (zionist.-sozialist. Partei\/Kibbuzbewegung) , , ,\n\nHavat Hashikmim (Haus von Ariel Sharon)\n\nHawari, Nimr\n\nHawassa (Stadtteil von Haifa)\n\nHawsha (Dorf) ,\n\nHazorea (Kibbuz)\n\nHaztor (Siedlung)\n\nHebron , , f., , f.\n\nHEMED\n\nHerodes\n\nHerzl, Theodor , , f.,\n\nHerzliya (Stadt)\n\nHidjas\n\nHilmi, Ahmad\n\nHiram von Tyros (K\u00f6nig)\n\nHisbollah\n\nHistradut (Gewerkschaft)\n\nHittin-Bataillon\n\nHittin-Moschee\n\nHittin (Dorf) f.\n\nHolocaust , , , , , , , f., f., , , f., , , ,\n\nHorin, David (Attent\u00e4ter)\n\nHorowitz, David (Nationalbankpr\u00e4sident)\n\nHubeiza (Dorf)\n\nHuj (Dorf)\n\nHula-Tal\n\nHula (Dorf)\n\nHusayniyya (Dorf) , ,\n\nHussein, K\u00f6nig von Jordanien f.\n\nIblin (Dorf)\n\nIbn al-'Aas, Umar (muslim. Feldherr)\n\nIbrahim, Abu\n\nIDF-Archive ,\n\nIDF \u2192 Israeli Defence Forces Ihdeib, Hassan Mahmoud (Muchtar)\n\nIjzim (Dorf) , , ,\n\nIlabun (Dorf) , , f.\n\nImwas (Dorf) ,\n\nInternationale Fl\u00fcchtlingsorganisation (International Refugee Organization, IRO) f.\n\nInternationaler Strafgerichtshof (ICC)\n\nInternationaler Gerichtshof\n\nIntifada , f., ,\n\nIqrit (Dorf) , ff.\n\nIqtaba (Dorf)\n\nIrak , , ,\n\nIraq al-Zagh (H\u00f6hlenheiligtum)\n\nIraqi Petroleum Company, Haifa\n\nIrata (Dorf)\n\nIrgun (Truppe, Etzel) f., ff., , , , ff., , , , , ,\n\nIsdud (Stadt) ,\n\nIsfiya (Dorf)\n\nIsmailiten\n\nIsrael Land Authority (ILA) ,\n\nIsraeli Defence Forces (IDF) , , , , , ,\n\nIssa, Mahmoud (Historiker)\n\nIstanbul\n\nItarun (Dorf)\n\nJaba (Dorf) , , ,\n\nJabel Jermak \/ Har Meron (Berg)\n\nJaffa , , , f., f., f., , , ff., , , , , , , , \u2013, f., , f.,\n\nJahula (Dorf)\n\nJalama (Dorf) ,\n\nJalil (Gefangenenlager) ,\n\nJaljulya (Dorf) f.\n\nJamal, Abu\n\nJanko, Marcel (K\u00fcnstler) f.\n\nJarada, Habib (Augenzeuge)\n\nJarban, Anis Ali (Augenzeuge)\n\nJat (Dorf)\n\nJenin (Fl\u00fcchtlingslager) , , f.,\n\nJenin (Dorf) , , , , ,\n\nJerusalem , , , , , , , , , \u2013, ff., , , f., f., ff., f., , , , , , f., , , , , f., , , f., , , , f.,\n\nJerusalemer Wald ,\n\nJewish Agency (israel. Einwanderungsorganisation) , f., , , , , , , , , , f., ,\n\nJewish National Fund (JNF) \u2192 J\u00fcdischer Nationalfonds\n\nJish (Dorf) f.,\n\nJisr al-Zarqa (Dorf) , ,\n\nJordan , , , , , , ,\n\nJordanien , ,\n\nJubarat (Beduinen)\n\nJudeida (Dorf)\n\nJ\u00fcdischer Nationalfonds (Jewish National Fund, JNF) , , , , ff., \u2013, \u2013,\n\nJugoslawien , , , ,\n\nJunikrieg (Sechstagekrieg) , , , , ,\n\nJura (Dorf)\n\nKabara (Dorf)\n\nKabri-Quellen\n\nKabri (Dorf)\n\nKafrayn (Dorf) , f.\n\nKairo , , ,\n\nKalman, Moshe (Kommandeur) , f.,\n\nKaplan, Eliezer (israel. Finanzminister) , f., ,\n\nKarmelgebirge , , f., ,\n\nKarmil, Moshe (General)\n\nKatz, Teddy (Student) f.\n\nKatzir, Aharon ,\n\nKatzir, Ephraim (israel. Pr\u00e4sident) f.,\n\nKawfakha (Dorf)\n\nKefar Etzion (Siedlung)\n\nKefar Sold (Siedlung)\n\nKeinan, Amos (Schriftsteller)\n\nKerem Maharal (Siedlung) ,\n\nKfar Ana (Dorf)\n\nKfar Bir'im (Dorf) , ff.\n\nKfar Inan (Dorf) ,\n\nKfar Lam (Dorf) , , \u2013\n\nKfar Manda (Dorf)\n\nKfar Qana (Dorf)\n\nKfar Qassim (Dorf) , ,\n\nKfar Saba (Dorf)\n\nKfar Yassif (Dorf) , ,\n\nKhaddura, Jamal (Fl\u00fcchtling)\n\nKhalidi, Husayn (Sekret\u00e4r des Arabischen Oberkomitees) ,\n\nKhalidi, Walid , , f., , ,\n\nKhalil, Jamila Ihsan Shura\n\nKhalil Bek (Milit\u00e4r)\n\nKhalsa (Dorf) ,\n\nKharruba (Ortschaft)\n\nKhayat, Victor (Einwohner Haifas)\n\nKhayriyya (Dorf) ,\n\nKhirbat al-Burj (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat al-Kasayir (Dorf) ,\n\nKhirbat al-Manara (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat al-Manshiyya (Dorf) ,\n\nKhirbat al-Ras (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat al-Sarkas (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat al-Shuna (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Azzun (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Ilin (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Irribin (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Jiddin (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Lid (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Qumbaza (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Sa'sa (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Shaykh Meisar (Dorf)\n\nKhirbat Wara al-Sawda (Dorf)\n\nKhisas (Dorf) f., , , ,\n\nKhiyam (Gef\u00e4ngnis)\n\nKhoury, Elias (Schriftsteller) ,\n\nKhubbeiza (Dorf)\n\nKibbuzbewegung , f.,\n\nKimmerling, Baruch f.\n\nKirad al-Ghannama (Dorf)\n\nKirkbridge, Sir Alec (brit. Repr\u00e4sentant in Amman)\n\nKissinger, Henry\n\nKnesset , f., , f.,\n\nKoening, Israel\n\nKommunistische Partei , , ,\n\nKosovo , , ,\n\nKroatien\n\nKupat Holim (Gesundheitsdienst)\n\nKurzman, Dan\n\nKutaymat (Ortschaft)\n\nKuwaykat (Dorf) , ,\n\nLabour-Regierung , ,\n\nLahis, Shmuel (Generaldirektor der Jewish Agency)\n\nLajjun (Dorf) , , ,\n\nLamed-Heh-Konvoi\n\nLamed-Heh-Plan\/-Operation , ff.\n\nLatrun (Gebiet) ,\n\nLausanne f.\n\nLebrecht, Hans (Autor)\n\nLevi, Shabtai (B\u00fcrgermeister von Haifa) ,\n\nLevy, Itzhak (Hagana-Geheimdienstchef) f.\n\nLibanon , , , , , , , f., f.\n\nLiberman, Avigdor (Politiker)\n\nLifta-Moschee\n\nLifta (Dorf) ff.\n\nLishanski, Tuvia\n\nLitani (Fluss)\n\nLloyd George, David (Politiker)\n\nLod (Stadt) \u2192 Lydda London ,\n\nLubya (Dorf) ,\n\nLuria, Ben-Zion (Historiker)\n\nLydda \/ Lyyd \/ Lod (Stadt) , , \u2013,\n\nMachnes, Gad (Orientalist) f.,\n\nMaclean (Gesundheitsdienst von Akko)\n\nMadlul Bek (ALA-Kommandant) f.\n\nMadrid (Friedenskonferenz 1991)\n\nMajd al-Krum (Dorf) f.\n\nMajdal (Stadt) , ,\n\nMaklef, Mordechai (Carmeli-Brigade-F\u00fchrer)\n\nMalkiyye (Dorf) , ,\n\nMalul (Dorf) ,\n\nMamelucken\n\nManara (Siedlung)\n\nMandat, britisches f., , , f., f., f., ff., , ff., \u2013, , , , , , , , , , , , f., f., f., ff., f., , , , , , , ,\n\nManof (Siedlung)\n\nManshiyya (Dorf)\n\nMansi (Dorf) ,\n\nMansurat al-Khayt (Dorf)\n\nMapai (Partei) , ,\n\nMapam (Partei) ,\n\nMaqam von Samakiyya (Grab)\n\nMaqam von Shaykh Sam'an (Grab)\n\nMaqam von Shaykh Shehadeh (Grabmal) f.,\n\nMargalit, Abraham (vom israel. Oberkommando)\n\nMarj Ibn Amir \/ Jesreel-Ebene (Tal) , , , , , , f., , , f.,\n\nMaroniten\n\nMarschal, F. (UN-Beobachter)\n\nMasalha, Nur (Historiker) , ,\n\nMashaykh, Abu (Augenzeuge)\n\nMashvitz, Shimshon (Geheimdienstoffizier) , f.\n\nMasjad al-Khayriyya (Bauwerk)\n\nMatkal (Oberkommando) , ,\n\nMayrun (Dorf) , , f.\n\nMazar (Dorf) ,\n\nMedina\n\nMeggido (Stadt)\n\nMeir, Golda ,\n\nMekka\n\nMenahemiya (Siedlung)\n\nMeuron, de (Rotkreuzvertreter) ,\n\nMghar (Dorf) f.\n\nMi'ar (Dorf) f.,\n\nMi'ilya (Dorf)\n\nMiara, Mamduh (Milit\u00e4r)\n\nMigdal Ha-Emeq (Siedlung) ,\n\nMilq-Tal\n\nMilson, Menahem (Arabistikprofessor)\n\nMisea (Dorf)\n\nMishmar Ha-Emek (Kibbuz) f., ,\n\nMishmar Hayarden (Siedlung)\n\nMiska (Ortschaft)\n\nMizrachi, David (Attent\u00e4ter)\n\nMizrahi-Gemeinde ,\n\nMizrahi Democratic Rainbow\n\nMizrahim (Juden aus dem Nahen Osten) ,\n\nMladi\u0107, Ratko\n\nMofaz, Shaul\n\nMontgomery of Alamein, Bernard (brit. Feldmarschall)\n\nMorris, Benny (Historiker) , , , , , ,\n\nMoschawim-Bewegung\n\nMossad (Geheimdienst) ,\n\nMotzkin, Leo\n\nMu'awiya (Dorf)\n\nMuhammad Ali Taha \u2192 Taha Muhammad Ali Muharraqa (Dorf)\n\nMujaydil (Dorf) ff., , f.\n\nMunayar, Spiro (Augenzeuge) f.\n\nMuqata (Fluss)\n\nMushayrifa (Dorf)\n\nMuslime , ,\n\nMuslimische Bruderschaft , f., ,\n\nMusmus (Dorf)\n\nMyarun \/ Meron (Berg)\n\nNa'ima (Dorf)\n\nNabi-Rubin-Moschee\n\nNabi Samuil (Dorf)\n\nNabi Yehoshua (Dorf)\n\nNablus (Stadt) , , f.\n\nNachmani, Yossef (Weitz-Mitarbeiter) , ,\n\nNaghnaghiyya (Dorf)\n\nNahalal (Siedlung)\n\nNahr al-Barid (Fl\u00fcchtlingslager)\n\nNahostquartett f.\n\nNahr (Dorf)\n\nNajd (Dorf)\n\nNajib (Hauptmann)\n\nNajjar, Emile (Vertreter der Jewish Agency)\n\nNakba , , , , , , , , , , , , , f., , , , , , , f., , f., f., , , ff.\n\nNaman-Tal\n\nNamensfindungskommission , f.,\n\nNapoleon\n\nNasr al-Din (Dorf) ,\n\nNasser, Gamal Abdel\n\nNATO\n\nNazareth , f., , , \u2013, f., \u2013, ,\n\nNazis , , f., , , , , , , ,\n\nNegba (Siedlung)\n\nNegev-Brigade\n\nNegev (Negeb, Naqab) , , , , , , , , , f., , f.,\n\nNes Ziona (Siedlung)\n\nNetanyahu, Benjamin , ,\n\nNikodim (Patriarch)\n\nNirim (Kibbutz)\n\nNizanim (Siedlung)\n\nOberster Gerichtshof Israels , ,\n\nOlmert, Ehud (israel. Ministerpr\u00e4sident) f.\n\nOperation Alef Ayn\n\nOperation Ben-Ami\n\nOperation Bereshit (Genesis)\n\nOperation Bi'ur Hametz\n\nOperation Dani f.\n\nOperation Dekel (Palme) , f.,\n\nOperation Destillation\n\nOperation Gideon\n\nOperation Hametz\n\nOperation Herbst\n\nOperation Hiram , , , , ,\n\nOperation Kamm\n\nOperation Kippa f.\n\nOperation Matateh ,\n\nOperation Misparayim f.\n\nOperation Nachshon ff.,\n\nOperation Python\n\nOperation Shoter (Polizist) f.\n\nOperation Snir ,\n\nOperation Sof-Sof (\u00bbendg\u00fcltig\u00ab)\n\nOperation Yitzhak\n\nOperation\n\nOr Akiva (Siedlung)\n\nOslo-Abkommen , f., ,\n\nOsmanisches Reich , f., , ,\n\nOz, Amoz (Schriftsteller)\n\nPalestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, UN-Vermittlungsgremium)\n\nPalmach (Sturmbrigade) f., , , , , , , f., , f.\n\nPalmon, Yehoshua (Agent) , ff., , , f.\n\nPalumbo, Michael\n\nParis ,\n\nPasha, Azzam (Generalsekret\u00e4r der Arabischen Liga)\n\nPasternak, Moshe f.\n\nPeace-Now-Bewegung , ,\n\nPe\u0107 (Westkosovo)\n\nPetah Tikva (Siedlung) ,\n\nPetite (frz. Leutnant)\n\nPetrovic, Drazen ,\n\nPius XII.\n\nPlan A (Elimelech)\n\nPlan B\n\nPlan C (Gimel) f.,\n\nPlan D (Dalet) f., , , , , , \u2013, ff., f., f., f., , , , , ,\n\nPLO (Pal\u00e4stinensische Befreiungs-organisation) , , ,\n\nPogrom\n\nPoraz, Avraham (Zionist)\n\nPort Said ,\n\nPresiz\n\nPundak, Yitzhak (Kommandeur)\n\nQabul (Dorf)\n\nQadas (Dorf)\n\nQaddita (Dorf) f., ,\n\nQalansuwa (Dorf) ,\n\nQalqilya (Dorf) , ,\n\nQalunya (Dorf) f.\n\nQamun (Dorf) f.\n\nQannir (Dorf)\n\nQaqun (Dorf) , , f.\n\nQaron, David\n\nQastal (Dorf) f.,\n\nQatamon (Stadtteil von Jerusalem) , f.\n\nQibya (Dorf)\n\nQira \/ Yoqneam (Dorf) f.\n\nQiryat Shemona (Siedlung) ,\n\nQiryati-Brigade , f.\n\nQisarya (Caesarea) ff., ,\n\nQubayba (Dorf) f.\n\nQula (Dorf) ,\n\nQumya (Dorf)\n\nQunaitra (Stadt) ,\n\nRabin, Yitzhak , , , , , , f.\n\nRafah (Ortschaft)\n\nRama (Ortschaft) , , , f.\n\nRamat-Menashe-Park ,\n\nRamat Menashe (Kibbuz)\n\nRamat Yochanan (Hagana-Ausbildungslager)\n\nRamaysh (Dorf)\n\nRaml Zayta (Dorf)\n\nRamla \/ Ramleh (Stadt) , , , f.,\n\nRas al-Naqara (Ortschaft)\n\nRashidiyya (Fl\u00fcchtlingslager)\n\nRatner, Yohanan (Offizier)\n\nRebellion von 1834\n\nRehovot (Ortschaft) ,\n\nReina (Dorf)\n\nRevolte von 1936 , , , ,\n\nRihaniyya (Dorf)\n\nRishon Le-Zion (Siedlung)\n\nRoadmap\n\nRoma\n\nRomema (Stadtteil von Jerusalem) ,\n\nRotes Haus f., , , , , , ,\n\nRotes Kreuz, Internationales f., , , f.,\n\nRotes Meer\n\nRuanda\n\nR\u00fcckkehrrecht f., , , , , f., , f., , , f., f.,\n\nRupin, Arthur\n\nRussland\n\nSa'ab, Nicola\n\nSa'ad, Farid (Arab-Bank-Leiter) ,\n\nSa'sa (Dorf) , ff., , , f., , ,\n\nSabbarin (Dorf) , , ,\n\nSabra (Dorf)\n\nSadat, Anwar\n\nSadeh, Margot\n\nSadeh, Yitzhak (Palmach-Chef) , , ,\n\nSafad \/ Zefat (Stadt) , , ff., , , , , , , , , , f.\n\nSafafra (Stadtteil von Nazareth)\n\nSaffuriyya \/ Saffuriya (Dorf) , , \u2013, ,\n\nSafsaf (Dorf) f., f., ,\n\nSaladin \/ Salah al-Din (Sultan) ,\n\nSalama (Dorf)\n\nSalameh, Hassan (Freisch\u00e4rlerf\u00fchrer) f.,\n\nSaliha (Dorf)\n\nSamariyya (Dorf) ,\n\nSamiramis Hotel (Qatamon)\n\nSamoa (Dorf)\n\nSan-Simon-Kloster\n\nSarafand (Arbeitslager) ,\n\nSaris (Dorf)\n\nSarraya-Haus (Jaffa)\n\nSasa (Kibbuz)\n\nSasson, Eliyahu f., , , ,\n\nSataf (Dorf) , f.\n\nSataf (Erholungsgebiet)\n\nSaudi Arabien\n\nSchiiten\n\nSechstagekrieg \u2192 Junikrieg\n\nSee Genezareth (See von Galil\u00e4a \/ Tiberias) , , ,\n\nSegev (Siedlung)\n\nSejra (Dorf)\n\nSela, Palti (Geheimdienstoffizier) f., , , , f.\n\nSerjei Alexandrov (Zarenbruder)\n\nShabak (Geheimdienst) ,\n\nShadmi, Yisca (Hagana-Offizier)\n\nShafa'Amr (Stadt) , f.\n\nShafir, Gershon f.\n\nShajara (Dorf)\n\nShalah, Shehadeh (Einwohner Haifas)\n\nShaltiel, David (Hagana-Kommandeur) f.\n\nShamir, Shlomo (Offizier)\n\nShaqara (Dorf)\n\nSharett (Shertock), Moshe (israel. Ministerpr\u00e4sident) , f., , , , , f., ,\n\nSharon, Ariel , , , , , , , ,\n\nShatila (Dorf)\n\nShaykh Ibn Sirin (muslim. Heiliger)\n\nShaykh Jarrah (Stadtteil von Jerusalem) , f.,\n\nShaykh Muwannis \/ Munis (Dorf) f., ,\n\nShaykh Shehadeh (Heiliger)\n\nShea, Jamie (NATO-Sprecher)\n\nShefer, Yitzhak\n\nShefeya (Dorf)\n\nShenhav, Yehuda (Autor)\n\nShiloah, Reuven (Orientalist)\n\nShimoni, Eli (Offizier)\n\nShimoni, Yaacov (Orientalist) , , ,\n\nShishakly, Adib (ALA-Kommandeur) ,\n\nShitrit, Bechor (israel. Minderheitenminister) f., ff.\n\nShitrit, Sami Shalom (Autor)\n\nShoa\n\nShohat, Ella (Professorin)\n\nShu'ayb (Shoaib), Nabi (Prophet des Islam)\n\nShuf 'at (Stadtteil von Jerusalem)\n\nShuweika (Dorf) ,\n\nSilwan (Ortschaft)\n\nSimsim \/ Simsin (Dorf)\n\nSinai\n\nSindiyana (Dorf) , ,\n\nSinti\n\nSirin (Dorf) ff.,\n\nSkolnik, Joel (Bataillonspionier) f.\n\nSoffer, Arnon (Geografieprofessor) ,\n\nSokoler, Mordechai (Siedler)\n\nSonderausschuss f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4stina (Special Committee for Palestine) \u2192 UNSCOP\n\nSowjetunion ,\n\nSperrmauer\/Apartheidsmauer , , , , , f., , ,\n\nSpigel, Nahum (Kommandeur der Golani-Brigade)\n\nSt. Brocardus (Kloster)\n\nStern-Gruppe , , , , ff., ,\n\nStockwell, Hugh (brit. Generalmajor) f.,\n\nSudan\n\nSuhmata (Dorf) , ,\n\nSulayman, Muhammad (Hauptmann)\n\nSumiriyya (Dorf) ,\n\nSyrien , , f., , , , , , ,\n\nTabarin (Beduinen)\n\nTabash (Dorf)\n\nTabor (Berg)\n\nTaha Muhammad Ali (Schriftsteller) ,\n\nTahon, Yaacov\n\nTamari, Salim (Autor) ,\n\nTamimi, Rafiq\n\nTamra (Dorf)\n\nTantura (Dorf) , , \u2013, , , , , f.,\n\nTarbikha (Dorf) , ,\n\nTarshiha (Dorf) , f., f.\n\nTayaha (Beduinen)\n\nTaytaba (Dorf)\n\nTel-Amal (Stadtteil von Haifa)\n\nTel-Litwinski \/ Tel-Hashomer Hospital (Arbeitslager)\n\nTel-Qisan (Dorf)\n\nTel Aviv f., , ff., , , , , , f., , f., , , , , , ,\n\nTiberias , \u2013, , , , , , , , f.\n\nTiberias-See \u2192 See Genezareth Tira (Dorf)\n\nTirat Hacarmel (Siedlung) ,\n\nTirat Haifa (Dorf) , , , f., , ,\n\nTransferkomitee ,\n\nTransjordanien , ,\n\nTribunal in Arusha, Tansania\n\nTruman, Harry\n\nTschechoslowakei\n\nTscherkessen , ,\n\nTubi, Tawfiq (KP-Mitglied)\n\nT\u00fcrkei\n\nTul-Karem (Dorf) ,\n\nTyphus f.\n\nUbaydiyya (Dorf)\n\nUlmaniyya (Dorf)\n\nUlmaz, Ihasn Qam (Offizier)\n\nUmm al-Fahm (Dorf) ,\n\nUmm al-Faraj (Dorf) ,\n\nUmm al-Sauf (Dorf)\n\nUmm al-Zinat (Dorf) , ,\n\nUmm Khalid (Arbeitslager) f.\n\nUmm Rashrash \/ Eilat (Dorf)\n\nUN-Beobachter , , , , , ,\n\nUN-Menschenrechtskommission ,\n\nUN-Menschenrechtsrat (UNHRC)\n\nUN-Resolution1405\n\nUN-Resolution 181 (Teilungsresolution) , \u2013, , , , , , \u2013, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,\n\nUN-Resolution 194 , , , , f., ff.,\n\nUN-Resolution 217A\n\nUN-Resolution 47\/80\n\nUN Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC, Pal\u00e4stinaschlichtungskommission) ,\n\nUnesco\n\nUnites Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA)\n\nUNSCOP ff., ff.\n\nUrbizid f., , , ,\n\nUSA , , , f.\n\nVereinigung ultraorthodoxer Juden (Agudat Israel)\n\nVereinte Nationen f., , , , ff., , , , , f., , , , , , , f., , , , f., , , , , , , , ,\n\nVichy-Regierung\n\nVillage Leagues\n\nV\u00f6lkerrecht\n\nVolksfront zur Befreiung Pal\u00e4stinas (PFLP)\n\nWa'rat al-Sarris (Dorf)\n\nWadi-Hawarith-Moschee\n\nWadi Ara (Dorf) ,\n\nWadi Ara (Gebiet) , , , f., , , f.\n\nWadi Milk ,\n\nWadi Nisnas (Stadtteil von Haifa) f.\n\nWadi Rushmiyya (Stadtteil von Haifa)\n\nWadi Unayn (Ortschaft)\n\nWaldheim (Dorf)\n\nWeissglas, Dov\n\nWeitz, Yossef (von der JNF-Siedlungsabteilung) f., , , , , , f., , , \u2013, ,\n\nWeizmann-Institut\n\nWeltkrieg, Erster , , , ,\n\nWeltkrieg, Zweiter , , , f., ff., , , , , , , , , ,\n\nWestjordanland \/ West Bank , , f., , , , , , ff., , , , , , , , , , , , , , ff., , , , , , , \u2013, , f.\n\nWheeler, Keith (Journalist)\n\nWingate, Orde Charles (brit. Offizier) f., ,\n\nYaad (Siedlung)\n\nYad Mordechai (Siedlung)\n\nYadin, Yigael (Stabschef der Hagana) , , f., , , f., f., , , f., , ,\n\nYahudiyya (Dorf)\n\nYajur (Dorf)\n\nYakobson\n\nYalu (Dorf)\n\nYarmuk (Fl\u00fcchtlingslager)\n\nYazur (Dorf) ,\n\nYechiam (Siedlung) f.\n\nYehoshua-Plan \u2192 Plan Dalet\n\nYibneh (Dorf)\n\nYiftach-Brigade\n\nYirmiya, Dov (Kommandeur)\n\nYisrael Beytenu (Partei)\n\nYoqneam (Siedlung)\n\nZaghmout, Muhammad Mahmnud Nasir (S\u00e4nger)\n\nZarain (Dorf)\n\nZarughara (Ortschaft)\n\nZayd, Giyora\n\nZaydan, Fahim (Augenzeuge) f.\n\nZayta (Dorf)\n\nZeevi, Rehavam (Kommandeur)\n\nZehn-Tage-Krieg\n\nZib (Dorf) ,\n\nZikhron Yaacov (Siedlung) , ,\n\nZionistenkongress\n\nZippori (Siedlung)\n\nZochrot (NGO)\n\nZu'bi (Clan) ,\n\nZu'biyya-Clan\n\nZuba (Dorf) \nDank\n\nIm Laufe der Jahre habe ich das Thema dieses Buches mit vielen Freunden diskutiert, die alle auf die eine oder andere Weise mit Ermutigung und Unterst\u00fctzung zu seiner Entstehung beigetragen haben; viele haben mir auch Dokumente, Augenzeugenberichte und Material zur Verf\u00fcgung gestellt. Da es so viele waren, wage ich nicht, sie aufzulisten, sondern m\u00f6chte ihnen an dieser Stelle kollektiv danken. Besonderer Dank gilt Oshri Neta-Av, der die Milit\u00e4runterlagen sichtete; r\u00fcckblickend erwies sich diese Aufgabe nicht nur wegen des umfangreichen Materials, sondern auch wegen der d\u00fcsteren politischen Atmosph\u00e4re als schwierig.\n\nUri Davis, Nur Masalha und Charles Smith lasen das Manuskript, und ich hoffe, dass das Ergebnis ihre M\u00fche zumindest teilweise erkennen l\u00e4sst. Es versteht sich von selbst, dass die endg\u00fcltige Fassung von mir stammt und sie f\u00fcr den Inhalt nicht verantwortlich sind. Dennoch bin ich ihnen f\u00fcr ihre Mitwirkung zu gro\u00dfem Dank verpflichtet.\n\nWalid Khalidi und Anton Shamas, die das Manuskript lasen und mir moralische Kraft und Unterst\u00fctzung gaben, machten die Arbeit an diesem Buch schon vor der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung zu einem wertvollen, wichtigen Projekt.\n\nMein guter Freund Dick Bruggeman begleitete dieses Buchprojekt wie immer als sorgf\u00e4ltiger und gewissenhafter Lektor. Ohne ihn w\u00e4re es nie verwirklicht worden.\n\nNovin Doostdar, Drummond Moir, Kate Kirkpatrick und vor allem Juliet Mabey von Oneworld investierten viel Zeit und schlaflose N\u00e4chte in das Manuskript. Ich hoffe, das Ergebnis ist ihnen ein Lohn f\u00fcr ihre unendliche M\u00fche.\n\nRevital, Ido und Yonatan hatten, wie immer, unter der Tatsache zu leiden, dass ihr Ehemann und Vater sich als Spezialgebiet, Hobby und Obsession kein fernes Land in einer l\u00e4ngst vergangenen Zeit ausgesucht hat. Dieses Buch ist ein weiterer Versuch, ihnen und allen anderen zu zeigen, warum unser geliebtes Land verw\u00fcstet, hoffnungslos und von Hass und Blutvergie\u00dfen zerrissen ist.\n\nAuch wenn dieses Buch niemandem speziell gewidmet ist, wurde es vor allem f\u00fcr die pal\u00e4stinensischen Opfer der ethnischen S\u00e4uberungen von 1948 geschrieben. Viele von ihnen sind meine Freunde und Gef\u00e4hrten, viele andere sind f\u00fcr mich namenlos, aber seit ich von der Nakba wei\u00df, begleiten mich ihr Leid, ihr Verlust und ihre Hoffnung. Erst wenn sie zur\u00fcckkehren, werde ich das Gef\u00fchl haben, dass dieses Kapitel der Katastrophe endlich den Abschluss gefunden hat, den wir alle ersehnen, und wir alle in Frieden und Harmonie in Pal\u00e4stina leben k\u00f6nnen.\n\u00dcber den Autor\n\nIlan Pappe ist einer der Protagonisten der \u00bbNeuen israelischen Historiker\u00ab, deren Programm in einer Revision der herk\u00f6mmlichen und \u00bboffiziellen\u00ab Geschichtsschreibung des Zionismus und des Staates Israel besteht und die politisch f\u00fcr einen kritischen Ausgleich mit den Pal\u00e4stinensern pl\u00e4dieren.\n\nPappe, geboren 1954 in Haifa als Sohn deutscher Juden, die in den 30er Jahren aus dem Nazireich gefl\u00fcchtet waren, studierte an der Hebr\u00e4ischen Universit\u00e4t von Jerusalem und promovierte 1984 in Oxford. Zwischen 1993 und 2000 war er Akademischer Leiter des Friedensforschungsinstituts in der Bildungs- und Begegnungsst\u00e4tte Givat Haviva. Bis Anfang 2007 lehrte er als Au\u00dferordentlicher Professor politische Wissenschaften an der Universit\u00e4t Haifa. W\u00e4hrend dieser Zeit geriet er fachlich und politisch wiederholt in Konflikt mit der Universit\u00e4tsleitung, bis er schlie\u00dflich die Hochschule mit der Begr\u00fcndung verlie\u00df, es sei zunehmend schwierig, mit seinen unwillkommenen Meinungen und \u00dcberzeugungen in Israel zu leben. Er siedelte nach Gro\u00dfbritannien um, wo er zur Zeit eine Professur f\u00fcr Geschichte an der Universit\u00e4t Exeter innehat.\n\nZu seinen Publikationen geh\u00f6ren _The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict_ (1992), _The Israel\/Palestine Question_ (1999), _A History of Modern Palestine_ (2005) und _The Modern Middle East_ (2006).\n\nDieses Buch, _The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine_ , ist das erste, das auch in einer deutschen Ausgabe erscheint.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\nTable of Contents\n\nTitle Page \nprologue \nchapter one \nchapter two \nchapter three \nchapter four \nchapter five \nchapter six \nchapter seven \nchapter eight \nchapter nine \nchapter ten \nchapter eleven \nchapter twelve \nchapter thirteen \nchapter fourteen \nchapter fifteen \nchapter sixteen \nchapter seventeen \nchapter eighteen \nchapter nineteen \nchapter twenty \nchapter twenty-one \nchapter twenty-two \nchapter twenty-three \nchapter twenty-four \nchapter twenty-five \nchapter twenty-six \nchapter twenty-seven \nchapter twenty-eight \nchapter twenty-nine \nchapter thirty \nchapter thirty-one \nchapter thirty-two \nchapter thirty-three \nchapter thirty-four \nchapter thirty-five \nchapter thirty-six \nchapter thirty-seven \nchapter thirty-eight \nchapter thirty-nine \nchapter forty \nchapter forty-one \nchapter forty-two \nacknowledgements \nALSO BY LAWRENCE ANTHONY WITH GRAHAM SPENCE \nCopyright Page\n\nTo my beautiful, caring Fran\u00e7oise, \nfor allowing me to be who I am.\nprologue\n\nIn 1999, I was asked to accept a herd of troubled wild elephants on my game reserve. I had no inkling of the escapades and adventures I was about to embark upon. I had no idea how challenging it would be or how much my life would be enriched.\n\nThe adventure has been both physical and spiritual. Physical in the sense that it was action from the word go, as you will see in the following pages; spiritual because these giants of the planet took me deep into their world.\n\nMake no mistake, the title of this book is not about me for I make no claim to any special abilities. It is about the elephants \u2013 it was they who whispered to me and taught me how to listen.\n\nHow this happened was purely at a personal level. I am no scientist, I am a conservationist. So when I describe how the elephants reacted to me, or I to them, it is purely the truth of my own experiences. There are no laboratory tests here, but through trial and error, I found out what worked best for me and my herd in our odyssey together.\n\nNot only am I a conservationist, I am an extremely lucky one for I own a game reserve called Thula Thula. It consists of 5,000 acres of pristine bush in the heart of Zululand, South Africa, where elephants once roamed freely. No longer. Many rural Zulus have never seen an elephant. My elephants were the first wild ones to be reintroduced into our area for more than a century.\n\nThula Thula is a natural home to much of the indigenous wildlife of Zululand, including the majestic white rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard, hyena, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, crocodile, and many species of antelope, as well as lesserknown predators such as the lynx and serval. We have seen pythons as long as a truck and we have possibly the biggest breeding population of white-backed vultures in the province.\n\nAnd, of course, we have elephants.\n\nThe elephants came to us out of the blue, as you will read. Today, I cannot visualize a life without them. I don't want a life without them. To understand how they taught me so much, you have to understand that communication in the animal kingdom is as natural as a breeze. That in the beginning it was only self-imposed human limitations that impeded my understanding.\n\nIn our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level: that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear \u2013 and to respond to.\n\nWe also have to understand that there are things we cannot understand. Elephants possess qualities and abilities well beyond the means of science to decipher. Elephants cannot repair a computer, but they do have communication, physical and metaphysical, that would make Bill Gates's mouth drop open. In some very important ways they are ahead of us.\n\nSome unexplained occurrences are quite evident throughout the plant and animal kingdom and there is nothing like looking at what is actually going on around you, to turn a lot of what you always thought to be true on its head.\n\nFor instance, any game ranger will tell you that if you decide to dart rhino for relocation to other reserves, the day you go out to do so there will not be a rhino around for love or money. Yet the day before, you saw them all over the place. Somehow they knew you were after them and they simply vanished. The next week when you only want to dart buffalo, the rhino you couldn't find will be standing by watching you.\n\nMany years ago I watched a hunter stalking his prey. He had a permit to target only an impala ram from a bachelor herd. Yet the only males he encountered that day were those with breeding herds of females. And even more incredibly, these non-shootable studs stood nonchalantly within range, eyeing him without a care in the world, while in the background bachelor herds were running for their lives.\n\nHow is this so? None of us know. The more prosaic rangers among us just say it's Murphy Law \u2013 that whatever can go wrong, will. When you want to shoot or dart an animal they are never around. Others, like me, are not so sure. Maybe it's a bit more mystical. Maybe the message is in the wind.\n\nThis less conventional view is supported by a wise old Zulu tracker I know well. A vastly experienced man of the bush, he told me that whenever monkeys near his village got too brazen at stealing food, or threatening or biting children, they would decide to shoot one to scare the troop off.\n\n'But those monkeys are so clever,' he said, tapping his temple. 'The moment we decide to fetch the gun they disappear. We have learned not even to say the name \"monkey\" or \"gun\" out loud among ourselves because then they will not come out of the forest. When there is danger they can hear without ears.'\n\nIndeed. But amazingly this transcends even to plant life. Our guest lodge on Thula Thula is about two miles from our home in a grove of indigenous acacias and hardwoods that have been there for centuries. Here in this ancient woodland, the acacia tree not only understands it's under attack when browsed by antelope or giraffe, it quickly injects tannin into its leaves making them taste bitter. The tree then releases a scent, a pheromone, into the air to warn other acacias in the area of the potential danger. These neighbouring trees receive the warning and immediately start producing tannin themselves in anticipation of an attack.\n\nNow a tree has no brain or central nervous system. So what is making these complex decisions? Or more pertinently \u2013 why? Why would a seemingly insentient tree care enough about its neighbour's safety to go to all that trouble to protect it? Without a brain how does it even know it has family or neighbours to protect?\n\nUnder the microscope, living organisms are just a soup of chemicals and minerals. But what about what the microscope doesn't see? That life force, the vital ingredient of existence \u2013 from an acacia to an elephant \u2013 can it be quantified?\n\nMy herd showed me that it can. That understanding and generosity of spirit is alive and well in the pachyderm kingdom; that elephants are emotional, caring and extremely intelligent; and that they value good relations with humans.\n\nThis is their story. They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind.\nchapter one\n\nIn the distance, the percussive shot of a rifle sounded like a giant stick of firewood cracking.\n\nI jumped out of my chair, listening. It was a sound wired into a game ranger's psyche. Then came a burst... crack-crack-crack. Flocks of squawking birds scrambled, silhouetted in the crimson sunset.\n\nPoachers. On the west boundary.\n\nDavid, my ranger, was already sprinting for the trusty old Land Rover. I grabbed a shotgun and followed, leaping into the driver's seat. Max, my brindle Staffordshire bull terrier, scrambled onto the seat between us. With all the excitement buzzing he was not going to be left behind.\n\nAs I twisted the ignition key and floored the accelerator, David grabbed the two-way radio.\n\n'Ndonga!' he bellowed. 'Ndonga, are you receiving? Over!'\n\nNdonga was the head of my Ovambo guards and a good man to have on your side in a gunfight, having served in the military. I would have felt better knowing him and his team were on their way but only static greeted David's attempts to contact him. We powered on alone.\n\nPoachers had been the scourge of our lives since my fianc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7oise and I bought Thula Thula, a magnificent game reserve in central Zululand. They had been targeting us for almost a year now. I couldn't work out who they were or where they were coming from. I had talked often with the izinduna \u2013 headmen \u2013 of the surrounding rural Zulu tribes and they were adamant that their people were not involved. I believed them. Our employees were mainly local and exceptionally loyal. These thugs had to be from somewhere else.\n\nTwilight was darkening fast and I slowed as we approached the western fence and killed the headlights. Pulling over behind a large anthill, David was first out as we eased through a cluster of acacia trees, nerves on edge, trigger fingers tense, watching and listening. Tightly choked pump-action scatterguns with heavy pellets were our weapons of choice against poachers, for in the dark, in the bush, things are about as close and personal as you can get. As any game ranger in Africa knows, professional poachers will shoot first and shoot to kill.\n\nThe fence was just fifty yards away. Poachers like to keep their escape route open and I made a circling motion with my arm to David. He nodded, knowing exactly what I meant. He would keep watch while I crawled to the fence to cut off the retreat if a firefight erupted.\n\nAn acrid whiff of cordite spiced the evening air. It hung like a shroud in the silence. In Africa the bush is never willingly mute; the cicadas never cease. Except after gunshots.\n\nAfter a few minutes of absolute stillness, I knew we had been set up. I switched on my halogen torch, sweeping its beam up and down the fence. There were no gaps revealing where a poacher could have cut his way in. David flicked on his torch as well, searching for tracks or blood spoor indicating if an animal had been killed and dragged off.\n\nNothing. Just an eerie silence.\n\nWith no tracks inside the reserve I realized the shots must have been fired from just outside the fence.\n\n'Damn, it's a decoy.'\n\nAs I said that, we heard more shots \u2013 muffled but distinctive 'crumps' on the far side of the reserve, at least forty-five minutes' drive on dirt tracks that often are little more than quagmires in the spring rains.\n\nWe jumped back into the Land Rover and sped off, but I knew it was hopeless. We had been taken for suckers. We would never catch them. They would be off the reserve with a couple of slain nyala \u2013 one of Africa's most beautiful antelopes \u2013 before we got near.\n\nI cursed my foolhardiness. If I had only sent some rangers to the far side instead of charging off blindly, we could have caught them red-handed.\n\nBut this proved one thing. I now knew for certain the izindunas who had been claiming my problems were internal \u2013 someone operating within the reserve \u2013 were spot on. This was not the local community's work. It was not a few hungry tribesmen and scrawny dogs hunting for the pot. This was a well-organized criminal operation led by someone who followed our every move. How else could they have timed everything so perfectly?\n\nIt was pitch-dark when we arrived at the eastern perimeter of the reserve and we traced the scene with our torches. The tracks told the story. Two nyala had been taken with high-velocity hunting rifles. We could see the flattened bloodstained grass from where their carcasses were dragged to a hole in the fence, which had been crudely hacked with bolt cutters. About ten yards outside the fence were the studded muddy tracks of a 4x4 bush vehicle that by now would be several miles away. The animals would be sold to local butchers who would use them for biltong, a dried meat jerky that is much prized throughout Africa.\n\nThe light of my torch picked up a bloody tuft of charcoal-grey fur fluttering on the cut fence wire. At least one of the dead bucks was a male \u2013 the female nyala is light brown with thin white stripes on her back.\n\nI shivered, feeling old and weary. Thula Thula had been a hunting ranch before I had bought it and I had vowed that would end. No animal would be needlessly killed again on my watch. I didn't realize how difficult that vow would be to keep.\n\nDespondently we drove back to the lodge. Fran\u00e7oise greeted us with mugs of dark, rich coffee. Just what I needed.\n\nI glanced at her and smiled my thanks. Tall, graceful and very French, she was just as beautiful as the day I had first met her catching a taxi on a freezing London morning twelve years ago.\n\n'What happened?' she asked.\n\n'A set-up. There were two groups. One fired some shots on the far boundary, then watched our Land Rover lights. As soon as we got there, the others bagged two buck on the eastern side.'\n\nI took a gulp of coffee and sat down. 'These guys are organized; someone's going to get killed if we're not careful.'\n\nFran\u00e7oise nodded. Three days ago the poachers had been so close it felt as if their bullets were whistling a fraction above our heads.\n\n'Better report it to the cops tomorrow,' she said.\n\nI didn't reply. To expect the police to pay much attention to two murdered antelope was pushing it a little.\n\nNdonga was furious the next morning when I told him that more animals had been shot. He admonished me for not calling him. I said we had tried but failed to get a response.\n\n'Oh... sorry, Mr Anthony. I went out for a few drinks last night. Not feeling too good today,' he said, grinning sheepishly.\n\nI didn't feel like discussing his hangover. 'Can you make this a priority?' I asked.\n\nHe nodded. 'We'll catch these bastards.'\n\nI had barely got back to the house when the phone rang. A woman introduced herself: Marion Garai from the Elephant Managers and Owners Association (EMOA), a private organization comprised of several elephant owners in South Africa that takes an interest in elephant welfare. I had heard of them and the good work they did for elephant conservation before, but as I was not an elephant owner, I had never dealt with them directly.\n\nHer warm voice instantly inspired empathy.\n\nShe got straight to the point. She had heard about Thula Thula and the variety of magnificent indigenous Zululand wildlife that we had. She said she had also heard of how we were working closely with the local population in fostering conservation awareness and wondered... would I be interested in adopting a herd of elephant? The good news, she continued before I could answer, was that I would get them for free, barring capture and transportation costs.\n\nYou could have knocked me over with a blade of grass. Elephant? The world's largest mammal? And they wanted to give me a whole herd? For a moment I thought it was a hoax. I mean how often do you get phoned out of the blue asking if you want a herd of tuskers?\n\nBut Marion was serious.\n\nOK, I asked; what was the bad news?\n\nWell, said Marion. There was a problem. The elephants were considered 'troublesome'. They had a tendency to break out of reserves and the owners wanted to get rid of them fast. If we didn't take them, they would be put down \u2013 shot. All of them.\n\n'What do you mean by troublesome?'\n\n'The matriarch is an amazing escape artist and has worked out how to break through electric fences. She just twists the wire around her tusks until it snaps or takes the pain and smashes through. It's unbelievable. The owners have had enough and now asked if EMOA can sort something out.'\n\nI momentarily pictured a five-ton beast deliberately enduring the agonizing shock of 8,000 volts stabbing through her body. That took determination.\n\n'Also, Lawrence, there are babies involved.'\n\n'Why me?'\n\nMarion sensed my trepidation. This was an extremely unusual request.\n\n'I've heard you have a way with animals,' she continued. 'I reckon Thula Thula's right for them. You're right for them. Or maybe they're right for you.'\n\nThat floored me. If anything, we were exactly 'not right' for a herd of elephant. I was only just getting the reserve operational and, as the previous day had spectacularly proved, having huge problems with highly organized poachers.\n\nI was about to say 'no' when something held me back. I have always loved elephants. Not only are they the largest and noblest land creatures on this planet, but they symbolize all that is majestic about Africa. And here, unexpectedly, I was being offered my own herd and a chance to help. Would I ever get an opportunity like this again?\n\n'Where're they from?'\n\n'A reserve in Mpumalanga.'\n\nMpumalanga is the north-eastern province of South Africa where most of the country's game reserves \u2013 including the Kruger National Park \u2013 are situated.\n\n'How many?'\n\n'Nine \u2013 three adult females, three youngsters, of which one was male, an adolescent bull, and two babies. It's a beautiful family. The matriarch has a gorgeous baby daughter. The young bull, her son, is fifteen years old and an absolutely superb specimen.'\n\n'They must be a big problem. Nobody just gives away elephants.'\n\n'As I said, the matriarch keeps breaking out. Not only does she snap electric wires, she's also learnt how to unlatch gates with her tusks and the owners aren't too keen about jumbos wandering into the guest camps. If you don't take them, they will be shot. Certainly the adults will be.'\n\nI went quiet, trying to unravel all this in my head. The opportunity was great, but so was the risk.\n\nWhat about the poachers \u2013 would the promise of ivory bring even more of them out of the woodwork? What about having to electrify my entire reserve to keep these giant pachyderms in when I could barely keep thieves with high-velocity rifles out? What about having to build an enclosure to quarantine them while they got used to their new home? Where would I find the funds... the resources?\n\nAlso Marion didn't shy away from saying they were 'troublesome'. But what did that really mean? Were they just escape artists? Or was this a genuine rogue herd, too dangerous and filled with hatred of humans to keep on a game reserve in a populated area?\n\nHowever, here was a herd in trouble. Despite the risks, I knew what I had to do.\n\n'Hell yes,' I replied. 'I'll take them.'\nchapter two\n\nI was still reeling from the shock of becoming an instant elephant-owner, when I got another: the current owners wanted the herd off their property within two weeks. Or else the deal would be off. The elephants would be shot as the owners regarded them as too much of a liability. Unfortunately, when an animal as large as an elephant is considered 'troublesome', it is almost always shot.\n\nTwo weeks? In that time we had to repair and electrify twenty miles of big game fencing and build from scratch a quarantine boma \u2013 a traditional holding pen \u2013 strong enough to hold the planet's most powerful animal.\n\nWhen I bought Thula Thula, in 1998, it was 5,000 acres of primal Africa, the only improvement being an old hunters' camp with outside ablutions. But its history is as exotic as the continent itself. Thula Thula is the oldest private game reserve in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and thought to be once part of the exclusive hunting grounds of King Shaka, the near-deified warrior who founded the Zulu nation in the early nineteenth century. In fact it was so exclusive that anyone caught hunting there without the king's express permission was put to death.\n\nFrom Shaka onwards, for most of its existence Thula Thula's teeming wildlife has made it a hunting magnet, attracting wealthy clients seeking trophy antelope. In the 1940s the owner was a retired Governor General of Kenya, who used it as an upmarket shooting lodge for the gin and tonic set.\n\nThat's all in the past. Hunting was scrapped the moment we took over. The characterful but dilapidated old biltong and brandy camp was demolished, and in its place we built a small luxury eco-lodge set on expansive lawns leading down to the Nseleni River. The beautiful Old Dutch gabled farmhouse overlooking the reserve became home and offices for Fran\u00e7oise and me.\n\nBut to get there has been a personal odyssey. I grew up in 'old' Africa, before the days of mass urbanization, running barefoot under big skies in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. My friends were rural African kids and together we ranged the wild world that was our backyard.\n\nDuring the early 1960s my family moved to the sugarcane-growing coastal belt of Zululand, South Africa. The hub of the area at the time was a hamlet out in the boondocks called Empangeni. It was a tough town with character. Stories of leathery farmers partying all night and skidding their tractors through the main street swigging 'spook 'n diesel' (cane spirit mixed with a smidgen of Coca-Cola) are still told to this day. For us teenagers, you had to hold your own and play a hard game of rugby to earn respect.\n\nMy shooting skills, honed in the deep African bush, also stood me in good stead and farmers sent me out on their lands to bag guinea fowl and grouse for the pot. The backwoods was my home; I could hit a can thrown into the air at twenty paces with a .22 rifle and think little of it.\n\nAfter finishing school I left for the city, establishing a realestate company. But my youthful memories of wild Africa followed me. I knew one day I would return.\n\nThat happened in the early 1990s. I was poring over a map of the area west of Empangeni and was struck by the profusion of unutilized tribal land, far too feral for even the hardiest cattle. These trust lands gallop right up to the borders of the famous Umfolozi-Hluhluwe reserve, the first game sanctuary established anywhere in Africa and where the southern white rhino was saved from extinction.\n\nThe trust land, a massive tract of gloriously pristine bush, belonged to six different Zulu clans. An idea light-bulbed in my head: if I could persuade them to join in conserving wildlife instead of hunting or grazing, we could create one of the finest reserves imaginable. But to do this I would have to convince each tribal leader to agree individually to lease the land to a single trust. It would be called the Royal Zulu, and benefits such as job creation would go straight back into the struggling local communities.\n\nThula Thula, with solid infrastructure already in place was the key to the project. It was a natural wedge abutting the tribal lands and forming a crucial eastern gateway to the reserves. And for the first time in fifty years it was on the market. Destiny? Well... who knows?\n\nI took a deep breath, spoke nicely \u2013 very nicely \u2013 to my bank manager and Fran\u00e7oise and I ended up as the new owners.\n\nI fell in love with it from the moment I went walkabout. It's something I still do, jump in the Land Rover and drive out onto the open savannahs or into the thickest, most thorn-scrubbed veldt I can find, and go for a walk. There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter. In the outback, life is lived for the instant. The land thrums with exuberance when everything is green and lush and is stoically resilient when it isn't. In the bush, simple acts give intense atavistic pleasures, such as sliding a sprig of grass into the tiny slot of a scorpion hole and feeling a tug that pound for pound would rival a game fish. Even today that triggers memories of my born-free adolescence as vividly as a lovelorn youth recalling his first heart-thudding kiss.\n\nSo too does the chime of songbirds, the tunesmiths of the planet, where even a panicked warning call is perfectly in pitch. Or watching life's endlessly fascinating passing show, the brutal poetry of the food chain where life is so precarious yet pulses so powerfully in every shape, colour and form.\n\nThose solitary hikes in Thula Thula evoked the path I first walked as a child in untamed places. Now decades later I was bringing a herd of elephants, to me the definitive symbol of wild Africa, back to an ancient Zululand home. Thula Thula's landscape is an elephant's paradise: woodlands leading to sweet savannah, riverbanks choked with nutritious grasses and waterholes that never run dry, even in the bleakest of winters.\n\nBut we had to get cracking, electrifying the fences and building a sturdy boma. The word boma means stockade and with antelope it's a simple matter of erecting barriers high enough to stop them from leaping over. However, with elephants, which are stronger than a truck, it's a different ballgame altogether. You have to spike the fences with enough mega-volts to hold a five-ton juggernaut.\n\nThe electrical force is designed not to injure the animals; it's only there to warn them off. Thus it's vital that the boma is a replica of the reserve's outer border so once they have learned that bumping into it is not much fun, they will later steer clear of the boundary.\n\nThere was no way we were going to be able to do all that in just two weeks but we would certainly give it a damn good try and wing it from there.\n\nI radioed David and Ndonga to come to the office.\n\n'Guys, you're looking at the owner of a herd of elephants.'\n\nBoth stared for a moment as if I had gone loopy. David spoke first. 'What do you mean?'\n\n'I've been given nine elephants.' I scratched my head, still hardly believing it myself. 'It's a one-off deal \u2013 if I don't take them they'll be shot. But the bad news is that they're a bit of a problem. They've broken through fences before \u2013 electric ones.'\n\nDavid's face lifted in a massive grin.\n\n'Elephants! Fantastic!' He paused for a moment and I could see he was mulling over the same concerns that I had. 'But how are we gonna hold them here? Thula's fences won't stop ellies.'\n\n'Well, we've got two weeks to fix them. And to build a boma.'\n\n'Two weeks? For twenty miles of fence?' Ndonga spoke for the first time, giving me a doubtful look.\n\n'We've got no choice. The current owners have given me a deadline.'\n\nDavid's unfettered enthusiasm was gratifying and I instinctively knew he would be my right-hand man on this project.\n\nTall and well built with handsome Mediterranean features, David was a natural leader with a sense of purpose about him that belied his nineteen years. Our families have ties stretching back decades and it was, I believe, fate that brought him to Thula Thula during this pivotal period. A fourth-generation Zululander, he had no formal gameranger credentials but that didn't worry me. He could do a hard day's work and was in tune with the natural world, which I have found to be one of the best recommendations for anyone, regardless of vocation. He also had been a top rugby player, a flank forward with a reputation for almost kamikaze tackles. This tenacity would certainly be tested at Thula Thula.\n\nI then called in the Zulu staff and asked them to put the word out among the local community that we needed labourers. The nearest village to us is Buchanana where unemployment runs at 60 per cent. I knew there would be no problem finding able bodies, the problem would be the skill factor. A rural Zulu can build a decent shelter out of sticks, a puddle of mud and a handful of grass, but we were talking of constructing an electrified elephant-proof stockade. The gangs would have to be heavily supervised at all times, but they would develop skills which would stand them in good stead when job hunting later.\n\nSure enough, over the next two days there were hordes of people outside Thula Thula's gates clamouring for work. Hundreds of thousands in rural Africa live close to the brink, and I was glad to be able to contribute to the community.\n\nTo keep the amakhosi \u2013 local chieftains \u2013 on our side, I made appointments to explain what we were doing. Incredibly, most Zulus have never set eyes on an elephant as nowadays the giants of South Africa are all in fenced sanctuaries. The last free roaming jumbos in our part of Zululand were actually killed almost a century ago. So the main aim of visiting the chiefs was to explain that we were bringing these magnificent creatures 'home' again, as well as providing assurances that the fences were electrified on the inside and thus wouldn't harm any passers-by.\n\nHowever, the fact that none of the locals had seen an elephant before did not stop them from voicing 'expert' opinions.\n\n'They will eat our crops,' said one, 'and then what will we do?'\n\n'What about the safety of our women when they fetch water?' another asked.\n\n'We're worried about the children,' said a third, referring to the young herd boys who do a man's work looking after cattle alone. 'They do not know elephant.'\n\n'I heard they taste good,' piped up another. 'An elephant can feed all the village.'\n\nOK, that was not quite the reaction I wanted. But generally the amakhosi seemed well disposed to the project.\n\nExcept one. I was away for a day and asked one of my rangers to discuss the issue with an interim chief. Sadly all he succeeded in doing was antagonizing the man. The chief kept repeating 'these are not my elephant; I know nothing about this' to anything said.\n\nFortunately Fran\u00e7oise was there and took over. She did so reluctantly as rural Zulu society is polygamous and uncompromisingly masculine. No man wants to be seen listening to a woman.\n\nChauvinism? Sure, but that's the way it is out in the sticks. It took skill and charm for Fran\u00e7oise to hold her ground. Eventually the chief relented, admitting he had no real concerns.\n\nWith approval from the amakhosi secured, we selected seventy of the fittest-looking recruits and in record time were up and running. Singing ancient martial songs, the Zulu gangs started work and despite the impossible deadline, as the fence slowly crept across the countryside, I began to breathe easier.\n\nThen just as we started to see progress we ran up against a wall.\n\nDavid came sprinting into the office. 'Bad news, boss. Workers on the western boundary have downed tools. They say they're being shot at. Everyone's too scared to work.'\n\nI stared at him, uncomprehendingly. 'What do you mean? Why would anyone shoot at a gang of labourers?\n\nDavid shrugged. 'I dunno, boss. Sounds like it has to be a cover for something else, perhaps a strike for more money...'\n\nI doubted that, as the workers were paid a decent rate already. The reason for the strike was more likely to be muthi, or witchcraft.\n\nIn rural Zululand belief in the supernatural is as common as breathing, and muthi is all-powerful. It can either be benevolent or malevolent, just as sangomas \u2013 witchdoctors \u2013 can be both good and evil. To resist bad muthi you need to get a benign sangoma to cast a more potent counter spell. Sangomas charge for their services, of course, and sometimes initiate stories of malevolent muthi for exactly that purpose \u2013 and that's what could be happening here.\n\n'What do we do, boss?'\n\n'Let's try and find out what's going on. In the meantime we don't have much choice. Pay off those too spooked to work and let's get replacements. We've got to keep moving.'\n\nI also gave instructions for a group of security guards to be placed on standby to protect the remaining labourers.\n\nThe next morning David once more came running into the office.\n\n'Man, we've got real problems,' he said, catching his breath. 'They're shooting again and one of the workers is down.'\n\nI grabbed my old Lee \u2013 Enfield .303 rifle and the two of us sped to the fence in the Land Rover. Most of the labourers were crouching behind trees while a couple tended to their bleeding colleague. He had been hit in the face by heavy shotgun pellets.\n\nAfter checking that the injury was not life-threatening, we started criss-crossing the bush until we picked up the tracks \u2013 or spoor as it is called in Africa. It belonged to a single gunman \u2013 not a group, as we had initially feared. I called Bheki and my security induna Ngwenya, whose name means crocodile in Zulu, two of our best and toughest Zulu rangers. Bheki is the hardest man I have ever met, slim with quiet eyes and a disarmingly innocent face, while Ngwenya, thickset and muscular, had an aura of quiet authority about him which influenced the rest of the rangers in his team.\n\n'You two go ahead and track the gunman. David and I will stay here to protect the rest of the workers.'\n\nThey nodded and inched their way through the thornveld until they believed they were behind the shooter. They slowly cut back and waited... and waited.\n\nThen Ngwenya saw a brief glint of sunlight flash off metal. He signalled to Bheki, pointing to the sniper's position. Lying low in the long grass, they rattled off a volley of warning shots. The sniper dived behind an anthill, fired two blasts from his shotgun, then disappeared into the thick bush.\n\nBut the guards had seen him \u2013 and to their surprise, they knew him. He was a 'hunter' from another Zulu village some miles away.\n\nWe drove the shot labourer to hospital and called the police. The guards identified the gunman and the cops raided his thatched hut, seizing a dilapidated shotgun. Amazingly, he confessed without any hint of shame that he was a 'professional poacher' \u2013 and then heaped the blame on us, saying that erecting an electric fence would deprive him of his livelihood. He no longer could break into Thula Thula so easily. He denied trying to kill anyone, he just wanted to scare the workers off and stop the fence being built. Not surprisingly, that didn't cut much ice with the authorities.\n\nI asked to see the shotgun and the cops obliged. It was a battered double-barrel 12-bore, as ancient as its owner. The stock, held together with vinyl electrical tape, was scratched and chipped from thousands of scrapes in the bush. The barrel was rusted and pitted. There was no way this was the person responsible for our major poaching problem.\n\nSo who was?\n\nWith that disruption behind us the construction continued from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. It was back-breaking work, sweaty and dirty with temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. But mile by torturous mile, the electric fence started to take shape, inching northwards, then cutting east and gathering momentum as the workers' competency levels increased.\n\nBuilding a boma was equally gruelling, albeit on a far smaller scale. We measured out 110 square yards of virgin bush and cemented 9-foot-tall, heavy-duty eucalyptus poles into concrete foundations every 12 yards. Then coils of tempered mesh and a trio of cables as thick as a man's thumb were strung onto the poles, tensioned by the simple expedient of attaching the ends to the Land Rover bumper and 'revving' it taut.\n\nBut no matter how thick the cables, no bush fence will hold a determined elephant. So the trump card is the 'hot wires'. The electrification process is deceptively simple. All it consists of is four live wires bracketed onto the poles so they run inside the structure, while two energizers that run off car batteries generate the 'juice'.\n\nSimple or not, the energizers pack an 8,000-volt punch. This may sound massive, which it is, but the shock is not fatal as the amperage is extremely low. But believe me, it is excruciating, even to an elephant with an inch-thick hide. I can vouch first-hand, having accidentally touched the wires several times during repairs, or while carelessly waving arms in animated conversation, much to the mirth of my rangers. It's most unpleasant as the electricity seizes and surprises you. Your body shudders and unless you let go quickly you sit down involuntarily as your legs collapse. The only good thing is that you recover quickly to laugh about it.\n\nOnce the fence was up, the final task was to chop down any trees that could be shoved onto it, as this is an elephant's favourite way of snapping the current.\n\nThe deadline passed in an eye-blink and of course we were nowhere near finished, even though I had employed more men and at the boma we slaved virtually around the clock, even working by car lights at night.\n\nSoon the telephones started jangling with the Mpumalanga reserve managers wanting to know what was going on.\n\n'Everything's fine,' I boomed cheerfully over the phone, lying through my teeth. If they knew the problems we had with unrealistic deadlines and workers being shot at by a rogue gunman they probably would have called the deal off. Sometimes I would put Fran\u00e7oise on the line to pacify them, which she did admirably with her entrancing French lilt.\n\nThen one day we got the call I dreaded.\n\nThe herd had broken out again and this time damaged three of the reserve's lodges. We were bluntly told that unless we took the elephants immediately, the owners would have to make a 'decision'.\n\nFran\u00e7oise fielded the call and crossing her fingers said we only need to get our elephant proofing approved by KZN Wildlife \u2013 the province's official authority \u2013 and all problems would be over.\n\nSomehow the owners bought that and reluctantly agreed to an extension. But just a few more days, they warned, or else there would be a 'decision'.\n\nThat word again.\nchapter three\n\nExhausted teams were still hammering in the final fence nails when the Mpumalanga reserve manager phoned to say he could wait no longer and was sending them, ready or not. The elephants were being loaded as we spoke and would arrive at Thula Thula within eighteen hours.\n\nI hurriedly called our Parks authority, KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, to come and inspect the boma, stressing that the animals were already on their way. Fortunately they were able to respond instantly and said an inspector would be at Thula Thula within a couple of hours.\n\nDavid and I sped down for a final look-see as I wanted everything to be perfect. But while we were double-checking that all vulnerable trees were beyond toppling distance from the fence, something suddenly struck me as being odd. Something didn't look right.\n\nAnd then I saw the problem. Damn it! While the electric wires were bracketed on the inside, the fence itself, including the heavy-duty cables, had been strung up on the outside of the poles. This was a fatal flaw because if an elephant braved the power and leant on the mesh it would rip off like paper. The poles thus provided at best flimsy inner-lateral support, literally just holding the fence up. Once the inspector saw this he would instantly condemn it. That meant the truck would be turned and the herd sent back to certain death.\n\nI clenched my fists in exasperation. How could we make such an elementary error? It was too late to do anything as the dust mushrooming above the savannah signalled the arrival of the inspector. I prayed we could bluff our way through, but inwardly I despaired. The project was doomed before it began.\n\nThe inspector jumped out of his bush-worn Toyota Land Cruiser and I began effusively thanking him for arriving at short notice, stressing that the elephants were already on the road. I hoped that adding a deadline edge might swing things our way.\n\nHe was a decent guy and knew his business, making particular note of a large tambotie tree with gnarled bark knotted like biceps that was close to the fence. Tambotie is an exceptionally hard wood that blunts the sharpest chain-saw and the inspector remarked wryly that not even an elephant could snap this particularly 'muscular' one. He deemed it safe.\n\nThen he went to check the meshing and my mouth went dry. Surely he'd notice the wire was on wrong side.\n\nThe Gods were with us that day, and to my gut-churning relief, he \u2013 like us \u2013 didn't spot the obvious mistake. The boma was given the green light. I now had my crucial authorization and summoned every available hand to secure the fence correctly.\n\nThe 600-mile drive south from Mpumalanga to Thula Thula would take all day and much of the night as the eighteen-wheeler needed plenty of pit stops to feed and water the jumbos. I wasn't concerned about the journey as one of Africa's top elephant hands, Kobus Raadt, was in charge.\n\nIt was only then I got the news from Fran\u00e7oise \u2013 that she had heard that the herd's matriarch and her baby had been shot during the capture. The justification was that she was 'bad news' and would lead breakouts at Thula Thula as well. We learnt this via a telephone call after the animals had left and I was as stunned as if I had been hit in the spleen. This was exactly what we at Thula Thula were fighting against. While I understood the conventional reasoning behind the choice to kill the matriarch, I felt that decision should have been mine. As elephants are so big and dangerous, if they create problems and pose a risk to lodges and tourists it is quite usual for them to be shot out of hand. However, I was convinced that I would be able to settle the herd in their new home. Consequently I was prepared to take the risk of accepting the escape-artist matriarch and her baby and work with her. Even so, this killing cemented my determination to save the rest of the herd.\n\nThe Zulus who live close to the land have a saying that if it rains on an inaugural occasion, that event will be blessed. For those in step with the natural world, rain is life. That day it didn't just rain, it bucketed. The bruised skies sprayed down torrents and I wasn't too sure the Zulus had this 'blessed' story right. When the articulated truck arrived outside Thula Thula in thick darkness the deluge had turned the dirt tracks into streams of mud.\n\nBarely had we opened the gates to the reserve when a tyre burst, the reinforced rubber cracking loud as a rifle shot. This panicked the elephants, who had just seen their leader gunned down and they started thumping the inside of the trailer like it was a gigantic drum, while the crews worked feverishly to change the wheel.\n\n'This is Jurassic Park!' Fran\u00e7oise cried. We laughed, not necessarily in mirth.\n\nFran\u00e7oise and I first met some years back in London at the Cumberland Hotel. It was minus 17 degrees Celsius and I urgently needed to get to Earls Court for a meeting. There was a long queue snaking up to the taxi rank outside the hotel and the doorman, who knew I was in a hurry, said he would see if anyone would share a cab. As it happened, a gorgeous woman right at the front was also going to Earls Court. The doorman asked if she would mind sharing and pointed at me. She leaned forward to get a better look, and then shook her head. It was the most emphatic 'No' I had seen.\n\nWell, that's life. Rather than hang around I decided to take the Underground and as I strode off, to my surprise, the same woman miraculously appeared next to me at the Tube station.\n\n''Ello,' she said in a thick French accent, 'I am Fran\u00e7oise.'\n\nShe said she felt guilty about not agreeing to share a cab and to make amends offered to show me which train to take. To say I was smitten would be putting it blandly.\n\nShe knew London well and asked if I was interested in jazz. I wasn't, but I also wasn't stupid enough to say so. In fact, I professed undying love for the genre. Thank the stars she didn't ask for proof \u2013 such as my favourite musician \u2013 and instead suggested that as jazz lovers we go to Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club that night. I pondered this for a fraction of a nanosecond before answering 'Yes' with more enthusiasm than absolutely necessary.\n\nApart from wondering why I had never appreciated the bewitchment of jazz before, I spent much of that evening telling her of the magic of Africa \u2013 not hard in the middle of an English winter. Was there plenty of sun in Africa, she asked? I scoffed... was there sun? We invented the word.\n\nWell, here we were twelve years later drenched to the marrow in the bush, wrestling with a gigantic wheel on a muddy rig loaded with elephants. I don't recall mentioning this could happen while piling on the charm during our first date.\n\nThe spare wheel had scarcely been bolted on when to the surprise of no one the truck slid just a few yards before it sank into the glutinous mud, its tyres spinning impotently and spewing muck all over the place. No amount of cajoling, swearing, kicking or packing branches underneath worked. And even worse, the elephants were becoming more and more agitated.\n\n'We've got to sort this out quickly or we're going to have to release them right here,' said Kobus, his brow creased with worry. 'They cannot stay in the truck any longer. Let's just pray like hell the outer fence holds them.'\n\nWe both knew that with this hair-trigger herd, it wouldn't happen. We also both knew that if the elephants escaped they would be shot.\n\nFortunately the driver, sick of all the pontificating, took matters into his own hands. Without a word he slammed the truck into reverse, and somehow skidded the huge rig out of the bog and veered off the greasy road into the savannah that had marginally more grip. Dodging tyreshredding thornbush and slithering past huge termite mounds he somehow kept momentum until he reached the boma.\n\nThe crew cheered as though he had scored a touchdown at the Superbowl.\n\nCoaxing the animals from the truck was the next problem. Due to their massive size, elephants are the only animals that can't jump at all, and so we had dug a trench for the semi to reverse into so the trailer's floor would be level with the ground.\n\nHowever, the trench was now a soggy pit brimming with brown-frothed rainwater. If we backed into it, we would have a major problem extracting the vehicle. Mud is like ice; what it seizes it keeps. But with a herd of highly disturbed elephants inside, it was a risk we had to take.\n\nDisaster! Not because the truck got stuck \u2013 instead, the trench was too deep and the trailer's sliding door jammed into the ground. To compound matters it was 2 a.m., dark as obsidian and the rain was still sluicing down thick as surf. I put out an emergency wake-up call to everyone on the reserve and armed with shovels we slithered around in the sludge hacking a groove for the door. I was surprised that my staff didn't mutiny.\n\nFinally the big moment arrived and we all stood well back, ready for the animals to be released into their new home.\n\nHowever, as it had been an extremely stressful few hours, Kobus decided first to inject the herd with a mild sedative, using a pole-sized syringe. He climbed onto the roof of the trailer, which had a large ventilation gap, and David jumped up to give him a hand.\n\nAs David landed on the roof a trunk whipped through the slats as fast as a mamba and lashed at his ankle. David leapt back, dodging the grasping trunk with a heartbeat to spare. If the elephant had caught him he would have been yanked inside to a gruesome death. As simple as that. Kobus told me he had heard of it happening before; a person pulled into a confined space with seven angry elephants would soon be hamburger meat.\n\nThankfully all went smoothly after this and as soon as the injections had been administered and they had calmed down the door slid open and the new matriarch emerged. With headlights throwing huge shadows on the trees behind, she tentatively stepped onto Thula Thula soil, the first wild elephant in the area for almost a century.\n\nThe six others followed: the new matriarch's baby bull, three females \u2013 of which one was an adult \u2013 and an eleven-year-old bull. The last out was the fifteen-year-old, three-and-a-half-ton, teenage son of the previous matriarch. He walked a few yards and even in his groggy state realized there were humans behind. He swivelled his head and stared at us, then flared his ears and with a high-pitched trumpet of rage turned and charged, pulling up just short of slamming into the fence in front of us. He instinctively knew, even at his tender age, that he must protect the herd. I smiled with absolute admiration. His mother and baby sister had been shot before his eyes; he had been darted and confined in a trailer for eighteen hours; and here he was, just a teenager, defending his family. David immediately named him 'Mnumzane' (pronounced nom-zahn) which in Zulu means 'Sir'.\n\nThe new matriarch we christened 'Nana', which is what all Anthony grandchildren call my mum Regina Anthony, a respected matriarch in her own right.\n\nThe second female in command, the most feisty, we called 'Frankie' after Fran\u00e7oise. For equally obvious reasons. The other names would come later.\n\nNana gathered her clan, loped up to the fence and stretched out her trunk, touching the electric wires. The 8,000-volt wires sent a jolt shuddering through her hulk. Whoa... she hurriedly backed off. Then, with her family in tow she strode the entire perimeter of the boma, her trunk curled fractionally below the wire to sense the current's pulse, checking for the weakest link as she must have seen her sister, the previous matriarch, do so often before.\n\nI watched, barely breathing. She completed the check and smelling the waterhole, led her herd off to drink.\n\nThe crucial aspect of an electrified boma is fine-tuning how long you keep the animals inside. Too short, and they don't learn enough to respect the mega-volt punch the fence packs. But if it's too long, they somehow figure out that it's possible to endure the convulsions for the few agonizing seconds it takes to snap the strand \u2013 like the previous matriarch did. Once that happens they will never fear electricity again.\n\nUnfortunately no one knows exactly what that 'perfect period' is. Opinions vary from a few days for more docile elephants to three months for wilder ones. My new herd was anything but docile, so how long I should pen them was anybody's guess. However, what the experts had told me was that during the quarantine period the animals should have no contact with humans. So once the gates were bolted I instructed everyone to move off except for two game guards who would watch from a distance.\n\nAs we were leaving I noticed the elephants lining up at a corner of the fence. They were facing due north, the exact direction of their former home, as if their inner compasses were telling them something.\n\nIt looked ominous.\n\nSoaked and freezing with my personal magnetic needle pointing unwaveringly towards a warm bed, I left with a deep sense of foreboding.\nchapter four\n\nHammering echoed like a drum roll in my head. I wondered hazily where it was coming from.\n\nMy eyes flickered open. It was no dream. The banging stemmed from a shuddering door. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat-a-tat.\n\nThen I heard yelling. It was Ndonga. 'The elephants have gone! They've broken out the boma! They've gone!'\n\nI leapt out of bed, yanking on my trousers and stumbling like a pogo-dancer on one leg. Fran\u00e7oise, also awake and wide-eyed at the commotion, threw a nightgown over her shoulders.\n\n'I'm coming. Hang on!' I shouted and shoved open the top half of the bedroom's stable door that led directly to the farmhouse's lush gardens.\n\nAn agitated Ndonga was standing outside, shivering in the pre-dawn chill.\n\n'The two big ones started shoving a tree,' he said. 'They worked as a team, pushing it until it just crashed down on the fence. The wires shorted and the elephants smashed through. Just like that.'\n\nDread slithered in my belly. 'What tree?'\n\n'You know, that moersa tambotie. The one that KZN Wildlife oke said was too big to pull down.'\n\nIt took me a few moments to digest this. That tree must have weighed several tons and was thirty feet tall. Yet Nana and Frankie had figured out that by working in tandem they could topple it. Despite my dismay, I felt a flicker of pride; these were some animals, all right.\n\nThe last foggy vestiges of sleep vaporized like steam. We had to get moving fast. One didn't have to be a genius to grasp that we had a massive crisis on our hands as the herd was now stampeding towards the border fence. If they broke through that last barrier they would head straight into the patchwork of rural homesteads scattered outside Thula Thula. And as any game ranger will attest, a herd of wild elephants on the run in a populated area would be the conservation equivalent of the Chernobyl disaster.\n\nI cursed long and hard, only stopping when I caught Fran\u00e7oise's disapproving glance. I had believed the electric boma was escape-proof. The experts had told me exactly that, and it never occurred to me that they might be wrong.\n\nDavid's bedroom was across the lawn and I ran over. 'Get everyone up. The elephants have broken out. We've got to find them \u2013 fast!'\n\nWithin minutes I had scrambled to raise a search party and we gathered at the boma, astounded at the damage. The large tambotie tree was history, its toppled upper section tenuously connected to the splintered stump by a strip of its bark oozing poisonous sap. The fence looked as though a division of Abrams tanks had thundered through it.\n\nStanding next to the shattered tree was the astounded Ovambo guard who had witnessed the breakout. He pointed us in the direction he had last seen the elephants heading.\n\nAlmost at running speed, we followed the spoor to the boundary. We were too late. The border fence was down and the animals had broken out.\n\nMy worst fears were confirmed. But even so, how on earth had the animals got through an electrified fence pushing 8,000 volts so effortlessly?\n\nWe soon found out. Judging by their tracks, they had reached the eight-foot fence, milled around for a while and then backtracked into the reserve until \u2013 uncannily \u2013 they found the energizer that powers the fence. How they knew this small, nondescript machine hidden in a thicket half a mile away was the source of current baffled us. But somehow they did, trampling it like a tin can and then returning to the boundary, where the wires were now dead. They then shouldered the concrete-embedded poles out of the ground like matchsticks.\n\nTheir tracks pointed north. There was no doubt that they were heading home to Mpumalanga 600 miles away. To the only home they knew; even though it was a home that no longer wanted them \u2013 and where, in all probability, they would be shot. That's assuming game rangers or hunters didn't get them along the way first.\n\nAs daybreak filled the eastern sky a motorist three miles away spotted the herd loping up the road towards him. At first he thought he was seeing things. Elephants? There aren't meant to be any elephants here...\n\nHalf a mile or so later he saw the flattened fence and put two and two together. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to call, giving us valuable updated information.\n\nThe chase was on. I gunned my Land Rover into gear as the trackers leapt into the back.\n\nWe had barely driven out of the reserve when, to my astonishment, we saw a group of men parked on the shoulder of the dirt road, dressed in khaki and camouflage hunting gear and bristling with heavy-calibre rifles. They were as hyped as a vigilante gang and their excitement was palpable. You could smell the bloodlust.\n\nI stopped and got out of the vehicle, the trackers and David behind me.\n\n'What're you guys doing?'\n\nOne looked at me, eyes darting with anticipation. He shifted his rifle, caressing the butt.\n\n'We're going after elephants.'\n\n'Oh yeah? Which ones?'\n\n'They've bust out of Thula, man. We're gonna shoot them before they kill someone \u2013 they're fair game now.'\n\nI stared at him for several seconds, grappling to absorb this new twist to my escalating problems. Then cold fury set in.\n\n'Those elephants belong to me,' I said taking two paces forward to emphasize my point. 'If you put a bullet anywhere near them you are going to have to deal with me. And when we're finished, I'm going to sue your arse off.'\n\nI paused, breathing deeply.\n\n'Now show me your hunting permit,' I demanded, knowing he couldn't possibly have obtained one before dawn.\n\nHe stared at me, his face reddening with belligerence.\n\n'They've escaped, OK? They can be legally shot. We don't need your permission.'\n\nDavid was standing next to me, fists clenched. I could sense his outrage. 'You know, David,' I said loudly, 'just look at this lot. Out there is a herd of confused elephants in big trouble and we're the only ones here without guns. We're the only ones who don't want to kill them. Shows the difference in priorities, doesn't it?'\n\nFizzing with anger, I ordered my men back into the Land Rover. Revving the engine and churning up dust clouds for the benefit of the gunmen staring aggressively at us we sped up the road.\n\nThe acrimonious encounter shook me considerably. Technically the urban Rambos were correct \u2013 the elephants were 'fair game'. We had just heard on our two-way radios that the KZN Wildlife authorities, whom we had alerted as soon as the herd had broken out, were issuing elephant rifles to their staff. I didn't have to be told that they were considering shooting the animals on sight. Their prime concern was the safety of people in the area and no one could blame them.\n\nFor us, it was now a simple race against time. We had to find the elephants before anyone with a gun did. That's all it boiled down to.\n\nAfter another mile up the road the herd's tracks veered into the bush, exactly as the motorist had told us. Thula Thula is flanked by vast forests of acacia trees and ugagane bush, which grows thickly with interwoven thorn-studded branches that are as supple and vicious as whips. It's a riotous tangle of hostile thickets; lovely and wild to view, but torturous to track in. The wickedly sharp thorns scarcely scratch an elephant's hide, of course, but to us soft-skinned species it was the equivalent of running through a maze of fish hooks.\n\nThe forest spread north as far as the eye could see. Could we find the animals in this almost impenetrable wilderness?\n\nI looked up to the heavens, squinting against the harsh yellow-white glare that indicated we were in for a savage scorcher of a day and found my answer \u2013 air support. For us to have a fighting chance of catching the elephants before some gunman did, we had to have a helicopter tracking above. But to get a chopper up would cost thousands of dollars, with no guarantee of success. Also, most commercial pilots wouldn't have a clue as to how to scout elephants hiding in such rugged terrain.\n\nBut there was one man I knew who could track from the sky \u2013 and, fortuitously, he was a family friend. Peter Bell was not only a technical genius at Bell Equipment, an international heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer, but also an expert game-capture pilot and a good man to have on your side in an emergency. I quickly drove back to Thula Thula and phoned him.\n\nPeter didn't have to be told how serious the problem was and unhesitatingly agreed to help. While he got his chopper ready, we continued the chase on foot. But we had barely infiltrated the acacia jungle when our Ovambo game guards, staring at what appeared to me to be a flinty patch of dirt, shook their heads. After some deliberation, they proclaimed the elephants had turned back.\n\nI had inherited the Ovambos from the previous owner, who thought highly of them. There are thousands of Ovambos in Zululand today, many of whom had fought in the South African Army during the apartheid wars. They're mostly employed in the security industry and are valued for courage and weapon skills. They seldom socialized with my Zulu staff.\n\nNdonga had told me his team were expert trackers, which was why we were used them now.\n\n'Are you sure?' I asked the head tracker.\n\nHe nodded and pointed towards Thula Thula. 'They have turned. They are going that way.'\n\nThis was news I was desperate to hear. Perhaps they would voluntarily return to the reserve. I grinned and slapped David on the back as we headed back through the bush towards home.\n\nHowever, after twenty minutes of some of the toughest going I have ever experienced, I began to have doubts. Sweat was cascading down my face as I called over the chief tracker.\n\n'The elephants are not here. There is no spoor, no dung and no broken branches. No signs at all.'\n\nHe shook his head, as if patiently consulting with a child, and pointed ahead. 'They are there.'\n\nAgainst my better judgement we carried on a bit further and then I had had enough. There was something wrong here. It was obvious there were no elephants around. An elephant, due to its massive size and strength, does not need to be furtive. It leaves very clear tracks, piles of dung and snapped branches. It has no enemies apart from man, thus stealth is not in its nature.\n\nAlso, every indication was that they were heading towards their previous home. Why would they suddenly backtrack now?\n\nI called David, Ngwenya and Bheki and told the Ovambos they were wrong; we were returning to the original tracks. The Ovambos shrugged but made no move to join us. I was too wrapped up in the intensity of the chase to think much about that at the time.\n\nAn hour later we picked up the spoor again \u2013 fresh and heading in completely the opposite direction. Why had the Ovambos chosen the wrong route? Had they deliberately led me the wrong way? Surely not... I could only surmise that they were scared of stumbling without warning upon the elephants in the wild terrain. There was no denying this was dangerous work.\n\nIn fact, a few years back in Zimbabwe, an experienced elephant hunter had been killed on a safari doing exactly what we were doing \u2013 tracking elephant in thick bush. Following what he thought to be a lone bull, he suddenly discovered that he had walked slap into the middle of a herd spread out in the heavy undergrowth. The first sign of this comes when one realizes in horror that there are elephants behind, that you walked right passed them without noticing. They had turned the tables and the enraged animals came at the hunter and his trackers. Completely surrounded, he and his men had no chance. They died grisly deaths.\n\nWe kept in radio contact with Peter who flew tight search grids over the bush ahead while John Tinley, a KZN Wildlife ranger from our neighbouring reserve called Fundimvelo, visited nearby settlements asking headmen if any of their people had seen the herd. The answer was negative, which was good news. Our biggest concern was that the animals would wander into a village and stomp thatched huts into floor mats or, worse, kill people.\n\nHot and scratched, shirts dark with sweat and nerves jangling, we kept moving, every now and again finding signs confirming we were on the right track. I reckoned we were at least two hours behind, but who knows \u2013 they could have been just ahead, waiting in ambush as the Zimbabwean herd had for the hunter. That fear was always with us. More than once we froze, hearts in our mouths as a kudu or bush-buck burst from its hiding place in a crackle of snapping sticks, often barely yards away so thick was the bush. It really was dangerous work and I could feel tensions starting to surface as we became more and more irritable.\n\nAlthough progress was torturous, it was impossible to move faster. Thorns parted as one man squeezed through a gap and then snapped back like a hornet at the man behind.\n\nWhat I was banking on was the animals stopping at a watering hole to rest, allowing us to catch up precious miles. A factor in our favour was that they had Nana's two-year-old son, who we called Mandla, in tow. We named him Mandla, the Zulu word for 'power' in honour of his incredible stamina in staying with the herd during the long chase. He would slow them down significantly. Or so I hoped.\n\nEventually after a long, hot, thirsty and frustratingly empty day, the sun dipped below the horizon, and we stopped. Nobody looks for elephant stumbling around a thorn jungle at night. Tracking the animals in the thick stuff during daylight is bad enough; in the dark it's suicide.\n\nReluctantly I called off the search and Peter agreed to fly again the next day.\n\nWe arrived home bedraggled and despondent and flopped onto the lawn in front of the house. Fran\u00e7oise came out and took over, issuing instructions for food and handing out ice-cold beers.\n\nWe were exhausted. But a hearty meal followed by a soaking hot bath does wonders for morale, and an hour later I wandered out onto the open verandah, sitting beneath the stars, trying to make sense of it all.\n\nMy Staffordshire bull terrier Max followed me. He was a magnificent specimen of the breed, forty pounds of brawn and muscle. I had got him as a just-weaned puppy and from that first moment he had tottered after me with unconditional devotion. His pedigree name was Boehringer of Alfa Laval, but Max suited him just fine. He would have been a trophy winner at shows except for one physical flaw: he had only one testicle. Which I thought was ironic \u2013 Max had more cojones than any creature I knew, man or beast. He was absolutely fearless.\n\nAnd yet, he was an absolute pushover with children, who could pull his ears and poke his eyes and get nothing but a sloppy lick in return.\n\nMax flopped at my feet, tail thumping on the floor. He seemed to sense my dismay, nudging me with his wet nose.\n\nStroking his broad head, I mulled over the day. What had possessed the herd to smash through two electrified fences? Why had the Ovambos made such a careless mistake with their tracking? Why had they then abandoned the search?\n\nThere was something that didn't gel; some piece missing from the jigsaw.\n\nMax's low growl jerked me out of my thoughts. I looked down. He was fully alert, head up, ears half-cocked, staring into the dark.\n\nThen a soft voice called out: 'Mkhulu.'\n\nMkhulu was my Zulu name. It literally means 'grandfather', but not in the limited Western sense. Zulus venerate maturity and to refer to someone as an Mkhulu was a compliment.\n\nI glanced up and recognized the shadowy figure squatting on his haunches a few yards away. It was Bheki.\n\n'Sawubona,' I said, giving the traditional greeting. I see you.\n\n'Yehbo.' Yes, he nodded and paused for a while, as if pondering what to say next.\n\n'Mkhulu, there is a mystery here. People are making trouble,' he said, his tone conspiratorial. 'They are making big trouble.'\n\n'Kanjane?' How so?\n\n'A gun spoke next to the boma last night,' he continued, aware that he now had my full attention, 'and the elephants were shouting and calling.'\n\nHe stood up briefly and raised his arms, mimicking an elephant's trunk. 'They were crazy, maybe one was even shot.'\n\n'Hau!' I used the Zulu exclamation for surprise. 'But how do you know such important things?'\n\n'I was there,' he replied. 'I know the elephants are valuable, so I stayed near to the boma last night, watching. I don't trust the amagweragwer.' The word meant 'foreigners', but I knew he was referring to the Ovambo guards.\n\n'Then the big females came together and pushed a tree onto the fence. There was much force and it fell hard and broke the fence and they went out, they were running. I was afraid because they came close past me.'\n\n'Ngempela?' Really?\n\n'Ngempela.' It is true.\n\n'Thank you very much,' I replied. 'You have done well.'\n\nSatisfied that his message had been delivered, he stood up and stepped back into the darkness.\n\nI exhaled loudly. Now that would explain a lot, I thought, my mind racing. A poacher shooting next to the boma unaware of the elephants' presence would certainly have put the jitters into the herd, particularly as their previous matriarch and baby had been shot barely forty-eight hours ago.\n\nBut much as I liked Bheki, I had to treat his suspicions about the Ovambo guards with caution. Tribal animosity in Africa often runs deep and I knew there was little love lost between the Zulus and the Namibians. There was a possibility that the indigenous staff may use the confusion surrounding the escape to implicate the Ovambos so locals could get their jobs.\n\nHowever, Bheki had certainly provided food for thought.\n\nAs dawn glimmered we drove to where we had left off yesterday and saw Peter's helicopter coming in low, circling like a hawk to select the best landing spot on the ribbon of potholed road. Seeing the chopper landing in billowing dust a group of Zulu children came running up from the nearby village, gathering around the thudding machine and chattering excitedly.\n\nThe tracking team plunged back into the thorny bush to pick up the spoor on the ground, while I assisted Peter in tracking from the air. As we took off, I gazed out over the endless panorama of this charismatic stretch of Africa, so steeped in history. Originally home to all of Africa's onceabundant wildlife \u2013 now mostly exterminated \u2013 it was where conservationists like us were making a stand. The key was to involve local communities in all of the benefits and profits of conservation and eco-tourism. It was a hard, frustrating struggle but it had to be fought and won. Tribal cooperation was the key to Africa's conservation health and we neglected that at our peril. It was vital that those rural kids who had been clamouring around the helicopter \u2013 kids who lived in the bush but had never seen an elephant \u2013 became future eco-warriors on our side.\n\nWe flew north along the Nseleni River, scanning the spear-leafed reed beds for jumbo tracks and barely skimming the towering sycamore figs whose twisted roots clasped the steep banks like pythons. It was difficult to see much as the rains had been good and the lush growth could have hidden a tank.\n\nThen at last some news. KZN Wildlife radioed in saying they had a report of a sighting: the herd had chased a group of herd boys and their cows off a waterhole the previous afternoon. Fortunately there had been no casualties.\n\nThis underscored the urgency of the situation, but at least we now had a confirmed position. Peter dropped me near the team, lifted off and dipped the chopper as he altered course while I jumped into the waiting Land Rover.\n\nThen we got another call from KZN Wildlife. The elephants had changed direction and were heading towards the Umfolozi game reserve, KZN Wildlife's flagship sanctuary about twenty miles from Thula Thula. They gave us an estimated bearing, which we radioed to the chopper.\n\nPeter found them in the early afternoon, just a few miles from the Umfolozi reserve's fence and some distance from our position on the ground. They were moving along steadily and Peter knew it was now or never; he had to force them around before they broke into Umfolozi as he would be unable to get them back once they were within the reserve's fences.\n\nThere is only one way to herd elephants from the air, and it's not pretty. You have to fly straight at the animals until they turn and move in the opposite direction \u2013 in this case back towards Thula Thula.\n\nPeter banked and then whirred down, blades clattering and coming straight at Nana, skimming just above her head and executing a tight U-turn, then coming back from the same angle again, hovering in front of the animals to block them going forward.\n\nThis is stomach-churning stuff, requiring top-level flying skills, rock-steady hands and even steadier nerves. If you fly too high, the elephants will slip through underneath and be gone; too low and you risk hitting trees.\n\nAt this stage the elephants had been on the run for more than twenty-four hours and were exhausted. They should have turned wearily away from the giant bird furiously buzzing them from above. That is what 99 per cent of animals \u2013 even a creature as mighty as an elephant \u2013 would have done.\n\nThe herd stood firm.\n\nAgain and again the chopper came at them, the rotor clapping with rhythmic thunder as it virtually kissed the treetops. Yet still Nana and her family refused to retreat, trunks curled in defiance whenever Peter came in low, judging his distance by inches. But they didn't budge. He radioed to us what was happening, and I realized that my herd was something else. Maybe I was biased, but they were special...\n\nEventually, through superb flying, Peter inexorably wore them down. Inch by inch he edged them around until they were finally facing Thula Thula. Then he got them moving, herding them from above, deftly manoeuvring his machine like a flying sheepdog.\n\nI started to breathe easier, daring to believe everything was going to be all right. Back at Thula Thula workers had spent the day mending the ruined fences, both at the boma and the border, and they radioed me to say everything was ready. We would still have to cut open a section of fence to drive them through, but we wouldn't know where to cut until they arrived.\n\nFinally after hours of tense aerial herding, we saw the helicopter hovering low on the far horizon. They were going to make it. I gave instructions to the fence team to drop a wide section of the fence to provide instant access into the reserve and prayed the frazzled matriarch would go straight in.\n\nThen I caught sight of her for the first time, pushing slowly through the bush just below the thundering helicopter. All I could make out was just the tips of her ears and the hump on her back, but it was the most welcome thing I have ever seen.\n\nSoon they all came into view, plodding on until they were at the road. Just a tantalizing fifteen yards from the lowered fence, Nana tested the air with her trunk and halted.\n\nThe mood suddenly changed. From fatigued acceptance, the herd now was charged with defiance. Nana trumpeted her belligerence and drew her family up in the classical defensive position, bottoms together facing outwards like the spokes of a wheel and they held their ground with grim determination. Peter continuously buzzed them... goading them to make that last little sprint into the reserve. But to no avail.\n\nSeeing he was getting nowhere Peter peeled off and put the helicopter down. Leaving the motor running he sprinted over to me.\n\n'I don't like to do this,' he said, 'but the only thing left is to go up and fire shots behind them. Force them to move forward. Can I borrow your gun?'\n\n'No, I don't like it...'\n\n'Lawrence,' Peter interrupted, 'we have spent a lot of time on this and I can't come back tomorrow. It's now or never. You decide.'\n\nGunfire was last thing I wanted. It meant more shooting around the already traumatized creatures, causing more distress.\n\nBut Peter was right; I had run out of alternatives. I unholstered my 9-mm CZ pistol, checked that the 13-shot magazine was full, and handed it to him.\n\nHe took it without a word, lifted off and hovering just behind the animals he started firing rapid shots into the ground.\n\nCrack, crack, crack... the shots rang out, again and again and again.\n\nHe might as well have used spitballs. Nothing would move them. This was where they were going to make their stand. They were saying no more. It was something I understood with absolute clarity; a line in the sand.\n\nDusk fell, and in the glow of the strengthening stars I could see the murky shapes of the elephants still holding firm with iron defiance.\n\nI felt sick with despair. We had been so close to pulling it off. Peter banked and flew off radioing that it was too dark for him to land without lights and he would drop my gun off at Thula Thula.\n\nRealizing their 'persecutor' had left, Nana turned her bone-tired family around and they melted into the thick bush.\n\nI groaned. Now we would have to do it all again the next day.\nchapter five\n\nOnce again I was up before my 4 a.m. alarm rang, gulping down coffee strong enough to float a bullet, desperate to get going. It hadn't been a good night.\n\nDavid and the trackers were standing by and as the first shards of pink dawn pierced the darkness we picked up the spoor from where Nana and her family had made their determined stand against the helicopter last night. The tracks again pointed north towards the Umfolozi game reserve and we followed their new path through the thorny thickets, going as fast as we dared.\n\nBy now it was obvious we had some very agitated, unpredictable wild elephants on our hands, and I couldn't rid myself of the vision of them trampling through a village. The words 'conservation's Chernobyl' were etched on my mind as we picked our way through the dense bush.\n\nPeter was unable to fly that day so the chase was pared down to the bones \u2013 an elemental race on foot between the herd and us. But with their ten-hour lead, the odds were definitely uneven.\n\nMeanwhile Fran\u00e7oise, tired of pacing around the house in anticipation, decided to do some sleuthing of her own. As the elephants had been in the area last night, she jumped into her car with Penny our almost pure-white bull terrier, who was a couple of years younger than Max, and scoured the dirt tracks surrounding the reserve asking anyone in sight, 'Haf you zeen my elefans?'\n\nFew rural Zulus can understand English, let alone navigate the intricacies of a rich Gallic accent. Even fewer have clapped eyes on an elephant in their lives. Yet here, way out in the sticks was a beautiful blonde stranger with an almost albino-white dog asking if there happened to be any strolling around. No doubt they thought the sun was frying foreign heads.\n\nHowever, Fran\u00e7oise's search became quite famous as a local news agency picked it up and by the time the report reached the boulevards of Paris, it had been rehashed so extensively that Fran\u00e7oise was portrayed as single-handedly pursuing elephants down a multi-lane highway.\n\nIn fact the story of the elephants' escape and our chase was now being carried in local papers. People were following our progress and fortunately for us the media coverage focused on the plight of the elephants and the fact that there was a baby with the herd.\n\nLater that morning with some relief I heard from KZN Wildlife that the elephants had broken into the Umfolozi reserve during the night at two different points several miles apart, crashing through the electric fence with ease as it was only live-wired from the inside. There in the reserve they would be safe, at least from the macho hunting brigade.\n\nThe herd had split into two groups during the night, with Nana, her two calves and Mnumzane in the one and Frankie and her son and daughter in the other. Only once they were deep in the sanctuary did they meet up again. How they did that defies human comprehension. It seems impossible to navigate in the dark so precisely without compasses or radios \u2013 yet the two groups had travelled up to seven miles apart and then came together in dense bush at a given point. When you consider that, there is no doubt that elephants possess incredible communication abilities. It's known they emit stomach rumblings at frequencies far below human hearing that can be detected even when they're many miles apart. The animals either pick up these sensory impulses through their vast ears, or \u2013 as a newer theory postulates \u2013 they feel the vibrations through their feet. But whatever it is, these amazing creatures have some senses far superior to ours.\n\nClose to where the two groups had rendezvoused was a thatched rondavel, a circular Zulu hut used by KZN Wildlife anti-poaching units. The rangers inside were fast asleep when they felt the flimsy structure of the building shaking as if caught in an earthquake. Then the top half of the stable door burst open and in the moonlight they saw a trunk snake through. The elephants had smelt the rangers' stock of rations, sacks of maize meal, the Zulu staple, and were going to take their share, which of course meant all of it. The men scurried under their beds for protection as the trunk weaved like a super-sized vacuum cleaner around the hut and yanked the maize sacks out.\n\nSeveral other twisting trunks shattered the windows and the elephants jerked the furniture around, smashing it as they searched for more food. One man's bush jacket was wrenched from his hands and peeking through the splintered door he saw shadowy figures of the young calves stomping on it and flipping it into the air in a game between them.\n\nNot once did the men on the floor reach for their weapons. Their lives were devoted to saving animals; they would only kill as a last resort. Shaken as they were and watching their possessions being strewn around a hut about to cave in was not considered a last resort.\n\nAs soon as the rampaging behemoths left, the rangers radioed through to the game reserve's headquarters.\n\nAt dawn Umfolozi's vastly experienced conservation manager, Peter Hartley, decided to assess the situation first-hand. While driving off-road he spotted the animals in the distance and got out to approach on foot without disturbing them. He knew from the number and descriptions that this was the Thula Thula herd. Cautiously advancing, he was still some distance away when suddenly Frankie swivelled. She had nosed his scent.\n\nElephants seldom charge humans unless they get too close, but with a bellow of rage, Frankie came thundering at him. Hartley, caught by surprise, turned and ran for his life through the thornveld, cutting himself as he scrambled through the barbed foliage. He leapt into his 4x4 and fortunately the vehicle started instantly as he dropped the clutch and sped off with five tons of storming juggernaut just yards behind, verifying the old rangers' maxim that there is no dignity in the bush.\n\nCharging the conservation manager \u2013 of all people \u2013 seriously blotted the herd's already spotty reputation. Grim-faced, Hartley arrived back at reserve's headquarters and told of his close escape. The senior rangers were now extremely worried. This was getting out of hand and Hartley suggested they contacted the former owners in Mpumalanga to get a more comprehensive background report. And what they heard they didn't like at all.\n\nI was still in the bush when I got the radio call to come to Umfolozi to 'chat' about the situation. Urgently.\n\nIt sounded ominous and I drove despondently along the rutted dirt tracks through tribal areas to the sanctuary's headquarters. While I was relieved that the elephants were safe, I was fearful about what was going to happen next. I had a terrible foreboding that I was about to hear their death sentences.\n\nThere was a funereal mood as I walked into the office. I knew most of these honest men of the bush and despite warm greetings they didn't look happy.\n\nAfter a few pleasantries they got to the point. They spoke the words I was dreading. If they had known about the elephants' troubled background, they said they would never have granted the Thula Thula permit. The fact the animals had broken through two electric fences, chased cattle, raided a guard's hut, refused to be cowed by a buzzing helicopter and had charged the conservation manager clearly indicated that this was a dangerous, unsettled herd. A rogue herd. The risk of letting them remain in an area with rural settlements was too high.\n\nIn conservation 'speak', that meant only one thing. The rangers were going to destroy the herd.\n\nI interrupted, determined to deflect the ominous direction the discussion was going before it became irrevocable. 'Guys, you have to remember that there's been a ton of publicity surrounding this breakout. The news is everywhere and public sympathy is pretty much with the elephants. The matriarch's baby especially has attracted a lot of attention and people all over the country are following the chase and rooting for them. If you shoot them now that they're safe and haven't done any harm, all hell will break loose in the media.'\n\nI then stressed that it was just bad luck the herd had escaped. We had done everything by the book. Even KZN Wildlife's resident expert had pronounced the boma safe. Even he had not believed the herd would have been able to muscle down that single tree in the boma that initiated the breakout.\n\nOnce free, it was only natural that they would attempt to return to their original home. That's wired into their psyche. But as soon as I could acclimatize them at Thula Thula, they would be OK. I also pointed out that they hadn't hurt any humans, despite being on the run for three days.\n\nI paused, acutely aware that I was arguing for the animals' lives. 'Please, gentlemen; can you give them one more chance? This won't happen again.'\n\nA sombre silence enveloped the room. There wasn't much more I could say.\n\nThe rangers were ethical men who did not want to kill any animal unless it was absolutely unavoidable. However, in this case they said they didn't think Nana and her family had much going for them. They said hard experience had shown any herd that refused to respect an electric fence had crossed the shadow line and that there was little hope of rehabilitation.\n\nI knew what they were saying was true.\n\n'Look, Lawrence,' said one, 'we understand how you feel, but you know as well as we do that this is going to end badly. This herd is beyond help. They have been badly interfered with too many times and now see humans purely as enemies. They nearly killed Peter Hartley, for God's sake. He's never even heard of an elephant charging from that distance before. We're going to have to put the adults down.'\n\n'Well, I don't know how you're going to do it,' I said, grasping at straws. 'The media are going to be all over you and it will be a real PR mess.'\n\n'We've thought about that. What we propose is we dart and capture the herd for return to Thula, but while doing so we quietly overdose the adult females and suckling baby, and send only the youngsters back to you.'\n\nI was dumbfounded. 'The press will smell a rat,' I responded, trying to stonewall any talk of death. 'Or blame you for incompetence. Either way you lose. You guys are in the limelight right now so let's just let things settle down. I'll get them back to the boma at Thula and keep them locked up there. Let's watch them carefully and then make a decision. If they're still out of control in a couple of months then we'll have no choice. I'll take full responsibility.'\n\nThere was a long pause and I sensed that I had touched a nerve. After what seemed like an eternity, they said they would think about it.\n\nI returned to Thula Thula, exhausted and forlorn, where I explained to David what had happened.\n\nThe next day out of nowhere I got a call from a stranger introducing himself as a wildlife dealer.\n\n'Listen, man,' his voice boomed from the receiver, 'I've heard about your elephant problem.'\n\nI grimaced. Who hadn't?\n\n'Well, I may just have the perfect solution for you.'\n\nMy curiosity was instantly piqued. 'Like what?'\n\n'I'll buy the herd off you. Lock, stock and barrel. Not only that, I'll give you another one as a replacement. A good herd. Normal animals that won't give you any hassles.'\n\n'You mean circus elephants?' I couldn't keep the sarcasm from my voice.\n\n'No, no, man. Nothing like that. These are wild animals; just not as aggressive as yours. And I'll give you $20,000.'\n\n'Why would you do that?'\n\n'If your animals stay here, one way or another they will be shot. If I take them, they will be relocated to a sanctuary in Angola where there are no humans to worry them. At least they will be allowed to live.'\n\nThat certainly shook me. Here was a man offering to solve my problems in one single stroke. I would recover my initial costs of trucking the elephants and building the boma \u2013 and I would get another herd for free. Considering that I also was about to be hit with more capture and transport costs to get my herd back from the Umfolozi reserve, it was quite an attractive proposition. If I didn't accept this offer I was going to have to fork out a lot of cash.\n\n'Give me your number and I'll get back to you,' I said.\n\nHowever, something niggled. Perhaps this was just too good to be true; just too pat. I have always followed my gut instinct and something didn't smell right.\n\nIn fact, the more I thought about the dealer, the more irritated I became. I should have been grateful for the lifeline being offered; that would have been the sane reaction. But instead of profound relief that a solution was in sight, I felt strangely annoyed.\n\nIt then dawned on me that something fundamental \u2013 something innate but indefinable had happened. That phone call triggered the startling revelation that I had unwittingly forged a bond with this delinquent herd, even though I barely knew them. The strength of this connection shocked me.\n\nThe experiences of the past days had illustrated for me that despite fashionable eco-tourism, elephants didn't really count for much in the real world. This was a group of desperate and bewildered animals who had been on the run. But to the brandy and bullets brigade they were target practice with a yield of ivory; to the local tribesmen they were a threat. No one gave a fig that these were sentient creatures whose ancestors had roamed this planet for eons.\n\nIt hasn't always been like that. Indeed, just a few decades ago Zulus revered elephants. They still roar 'Wena we Ndlovu' \u2013 You are the Elephant \u2013 as praise to their king at public gatherings. The crescendo of thousands of martial voices is haunting, evoking memories of a time when these iconic creatures were hugely esteemed.\n\nNo longer. In Africa today elephants are simply competitors in the race for the land. In the West, they are mere curiosities while the East values only their ivory.\n\nOur desperate three-day chase had hammered home to me the reality that these immensely powerful giants were actually as vulnerable as babies. Wherever this lost and confused group went, they would be at risk without someone fighting in their corner. As it was, Nana and Frankie were in all likelihood about to be executed.\n\nOnce I grasped that, an almost irrational link was established, which would re-chart my life. Like it or not, I felt part of the herd. Life had dealt them a cruel hand and I was determined to rectify what I could. I owed them that at least.\n\nFinally some good news arrived, something in short supply at Thula Thula during those depressing days. KZN Wildlife agreed to a stay of execution. The elephants would be captured and returned to the boma at Thula Thula. Nana and Frankie had been reprieved.\n\nBut if they escaped again, the entire herd would be shot on sight. There would be no encore of the last chase. There would be no further discussion. This was no casual threat. I was told Africa's infamous elephant gun, the .458 was now being issued as standard equipment to all rangers in the area.\n\nThis was to be both their and my last chance.\nchapter six\n\nWith the strings-attached stay of execution, I felt as though I could breathe again, now that the stresses of the past few weeks had been eased. To my overwhelming relief, I had been given another chance.\n\nThis time I had to succeed. It was literally a matter of life or death; KZN Wildlife was not going to compromise on that. This was the final throw of the dice, and the price of failure was simply unthinkable.\n\nThe boma had been repaired and I now could only wait while KZN Wildlife prepared to capture the herd. I spent most of this time trying to figure out how we could get the animals to calm down when they were returned. Not only must this be done for their sakes, I also had to consider the implications of having an agitated, delinquent herd on the reserve. Before I let them out into the freedom of the greater reserve I had to be absolutely certain they were settled. But how?\n\nWhile this was churning in my mind, I received another call from EMOA. It was good to hear Marion Garai's voice, my only ally in this fiasco.\n\n'Lawrence, I have an idea that may help.'\n\n'I need all the help I can get. What's up?'\n\n'I've heard of an animal psychic...' She paused and laughed nervously. 'But before you say \"no\" please hear me out.'\n\nHmmm... I was somewhat concerned that our situation seemed so desperate that she was considering paranormal solutions.\n\n'Shoot,' I said, then bit my tongue. 'Sorry... wrong choice of words, go ahead.'\n\n'Apparently this psychic's done good work with troubled animals and has a unique way of communicating with them. Maybe she'll reach out to the matriarch, perhaps get her to settle down and then the rest of the herd will follow. I know this sounds really unusual, and I really can't guarantee anything, but it may be worth a try.'\n\nWell, OK. I know first-hand that communication with animals can defy normal comprehension. Orthodox behaviour is not always the answer in the bush. But bringing in a psychic seemed way over the top. But what else was on offer? And what harm could it do? At best it may work; at worst it was merely quixotic.\n\n'OK. But tell her politely to stay out of my way. I'm going to have my hands full when the elephants return.'\n\nThe psychic arrived a couple of days later; a middle-aged Canadian woman with curly red hair.\n\nThe next day for lunch she ordered peanut-butter sandwiches.\n\nFran\u00e7oise was aghast. The mere mention of peanut-butter sandwiches in her French kitchen was sacrilege. They were sent back for not being properly prepared. 'How many ways can you make a peanut-butter sandwich?' Fran\u00e7oise protested.\n\nWe later went down to the boma where she spent several hours sniffing the bush and sprinkling what she called 'cerebral vibrations of family, love and respect' onto the fences.\n\n'That,' she said, 'will keep them in.'\n\nThe next day she pointed to my favourite tree in the garden: a magnificent wild fig with half-submerged roots as thick as a man's leg stretching into the lawn.\n\n'That tree,' she said with a shudder, 'it has an evil spirit. You can feel it, can't you? Come... I'll exorcize it.'\n\nAs we walked over I studied the grand, gnarled trunk closely. I always considered it a giant benign umbrella providing shelter for flocks of birds that chimed in perfect melody every morning. They were my bush alarm clock. I wondered what malignant ghosts were lurking in those branches... then quickly shook my head clear.\n\nShe began some sort of religious incantation. I stood by, hoping like hell she would finish soon.\n\n'It's gone,' she said after a few minutes, obviously pleased with herself.\n\nAs we were about to walk off, she turned and pointed to the sky.\n\n'See those clouds? They're not clouds at all. They're spaceships carrying evil aliens who are preventing the elephants from returning home.'\n\nAll I could see was some cotton-puffs of cumulus. She must have noticed my scepticism.\n\n'I should know,' she said, patting her ample bosom and leaning in close. 'I have travelled in them.'\n\nThe next day she walked into the kitchen to order her staple diet of peanut-butter sandwiches. But this time her instructions were that our ranger David must deliver the meal to her room.\n\nThe sandwiches were made to her specification: loaded with peanut butter and placed on a tray. As directed, David took the food and knocked on the door. It swung open and there in front of him was the psychic. She was stark naked.\n\nDavid put the tray down and muttered, 'Your sandwiches, ma'am.' Then he turned and fled, his face the colour of beetroot.\n\nFinally something real happened. KZN Wildlife phoned to say the herd would be delivered the following day.\n\nElephant capture is done throughout South Africa, but not in KwaZulu-Natal. In fact the team at Umfolozi, who had famously pioneered capturing white rhino, saving the species from extinction, did not have the heavy equipment required for loading family groups, elephant herds, which comprise only adult females and their young. Babies are never separated during capture. Adult bulls are always transported individually. However, a new dual-purpose heavy trailer designed for transporting both giraffe and elephant had recently been purchased and now was the time to put it to the test. Which begged the questions: Would it be strong and large enough to accommodate all seven elephants? And would the team be able to move the hefty creatures into the trailer without the specialized equipment and sleds used elsewhere in the country? My elephants were going to be guinea pigs, so to speak.\n\nI was comforted by the fact that my good friend Dave Cooper, Umfolozi's internationally respected wildlife vet and probably the top rhino expert in the world, would be in charge of the welfare of the elephants.\n\nCapture always takes place early in the day to avoid heat stress. At six o'clock a helicopter carrying an experienced marksman in the shooter's seat thudded off to where the herd was last sighted. Dave remained on the ground so that any problems could be confronted as quickly as possible. After a few false alarms, the elephants were spotted and the pilot swooped down, coming in just above the treetops in a tight bank and then dropping until he was hovering almost on the ground to turn the now-running animals.\n\nThis is where African bush pilots' famed flying skills come into their own. The pilot toyed with the chopper, swaying this way then that, first blocking then lifting then dropping, all while threatening, cajoling, and charging forward at the now frantic elephants, herding them towards a dirt track he could see scarring the plains several hundred yards ahead. That rudimentary road was pivotal as the ground crew needed to get the heavy transport truck as close as possible to where the animals went down.\n\nThe marksman loaded the dart gun and readied himself as the pilot radioed his position to the ground crews.\n\nThe herd was now in full flight, crashing through the bush with the clattering chopper blades egging them on.\n\nSuddenly Nana, family in tow, broke through the tree cover and into open ground at the area chosen for darting.\n\nThe pilot deftly shifted to just behind the stampeding animals, offering a clear view of their broad backs.\n\nCrack! The .22 shell fired a hefty aluminium dart filled with M99, a powerful anaesthetic customized for elephants and other large herbivores, into Nana's rump. The matriarch is always darted first followed by the other larger animals. The calves are darted last to prevent them from being trampled or smothered by the larger family members. Nana's calf was in fact too small to safely dart from the air and Dave was warned to make up a dart and immobilize the calf on the ground.\n\nAs soon as one dart hit another was rapidly loaded and fired. The fluffy bright red feathers of the dart stuck out of the rumps of the running animals like beacons. The shooter must work quickly. Any delay between shots would have comatose elephants spread out all over the bush complicating matters immeasurably.\n\nOnce the last dart struck true the marksman gave a thumbs-up and the pilot gained altitude and hovered as first Nana, then the others started to stagger and sink to their knees before collapsing in slow motion. It is surreal when these galloping giants suddenly lose momentum and their tree-trunk legs turn to jelly as they buckle in the dust.\n\nThe ground team's speeding trucks were now less than a mile away. The timing was spot on and the helicopter bumped gently down in a whirlwind of red dust.\n\nDave hurried to where Nana lay in the dirt. The baby, Mandla, was standing nervously next to her fallen body. He flapped his ears and reared his tiny trunk, instinctively trying to protect his prostrate mother. Dave got into position and fired a light plastic dart loaded with the smallest effective dose into the baby's shoulder.\n\nAs Mandla's knees folded, the vet broke a twig off a nearby guarri tree and placed it inside the end of Nana's trunk to keep the airways open. He did the same to the other elephants, and then went back to Nana, squeezing ointment into her exposed pupil, pulling her huge ear over her eye to protect it from the blossoming sun.\n\nThe other slumbering beasts got the same treatment and he methodically checked each one for injuries. Fortunately none had fallen awkwardly, breaking bones or tearing ligaments.\n\nThe ground team arrived and immediately reversed up to Nana. As the matriarch, they wanted her loaded first. This is done by unceremoniously winching the animal up into the air feet first and depositing the body at the rear entrance of the huge purpose-built truck. Then it is pulled and pushed into the truck by teams of men where it is revived by Dave with an injection of M5050. A five-ton slab of meat, muscle, blood and bone, hanging upside down is not a pretty sight, but it was done as gently and rapidly as possible. However without the specialized equipment this process took much longer than normal. While the larger animals were laboriously being loaded the effects of the drug started to wear off in some of those waiting their turn. When a drugged elephant starts waking up, you don't waste time hanging around. As trunks started to twitch and elephants attempted to raise their heads, Dave was kept busy running from one to the next, administering additional drugs intravenously into a large vein pulsing in the ear. Once all were aboard and awake, the trucks revved off to Thula Thula. The animals recovered during the ninety-minute journey and although a little wobbly, Nana again led her family into the boma, followed by Frankie looking as defiant as ever. Their bid for freedom had, if anything, increased their resentment of captivity. I knew we would have a rough few months ahead of us.\n\nAs the capture team drove off, one game ranger shouted over his shoulder, 'See you soon!'\n\nThis was no polite goodbye. His meaning was clear. He was saying these animals were bad news. He had no doubt that the herd would break out again and he would be back; this time with bullets, not darts. I felt like making an angry retort but couldn't think of one quick enough.\n\nThe next day the wildlife dealer phoned, doubling his bid to $40,000 and repeating the offer of a tamer replacement herd. Again it sounded unreal, just too good to be true. Again I stalled, saying I would consider it. And again, I felt irritated by the offer. I couldn't shake the belief that fate had a hand in all of this. Fate had sent me these elephants \u2013 I hadn't asked for them. And maybe some things were meant to be.\n\nJust before nightfall I took a drive down to the boma, parked some distance away and with great caution walked towards the fence. Nana was standing in thick cover with her family behind her, watching my every move, malevolence seeping from every pore. There was absolutely no doubt that sooner or later they were going to make another break for it.\n\nThen in a flash came the answer. I decided there and then that contrary to all advice, I would go and live with the herd. I knew the experts would throw up their hands in horror as we had been repeatedly instructed that to keep them feral, human contact in the boma must be kept to the barest minimum. But this herd had already had too much human contact of the very worst kind, and their rehabilitation, if such a thing was even possible at all, called for uncommon measures. If I was to be responsible for this last-ditch effort to save their lives, I should do things my way. If I failed, at least I would have done my best.\n\nI would remain outside the boma, of course, but I would stay with them, feed them, talk to them, but most importantly, be with them day and night. These magnificent creatures were extremely distressed and disorientated and maybe, just maybe, if someone who cared about them was constantly with them, they would have a chance. There was no doubt that unless we tried something different, they would continue trying to break out and would die in the attempt.\n\nIt boiled down to this: we had to get to know each other or else all bets were off. We didn't have time for the 'stand-off' measures proposed by the experts. As I said to David one evening, we had to get the matriarch to trust at least one person. Unless that happened, the herd would always be suspicious of humans and would never settle down.\n\n'That human will have to be you,' he said.\n\nI nodded. 'We'll see.'\n\nI discussed this with Fran\u00e7oise and she agreed that the conventional approach to settling in the animals didn't seem to be working. I asked David if he wanted to come along and was answered by his broad smile. The boma was about three miles away from our house and so we packed the Land Rover with basic supplies. The vehicle would be our home for as long as it took.\n\nI also brought along Max, who was always great company outdoors. When he was young and got his first taste of the bush he tended to chase everything in sight. This is a problem on a sanctuary as you don't want dogs harassing animals or incessantly barking as it may attract predators. I had to show Max the errors of his youth fast.\n\nHe was a surprisingly quick learner, even though his first experience with wildlife had not been particularly pleasant. A large troop of vervet monkeys had made their home in the trees surrounding our home and delighted in taunting Max. They would gather on low hanging branches just out of his reach, tumbling over one another and screeching primate insults, sometimes even urinating on him or throwing dung at him with remarkable accuracy. Max would go berserk but was unable to respond to them.\n\nFor over a year this torment continued until one day something almost unheard of happened. A big young male eager to lead the chorus of jeers slipped out of the tree, landing at Max's paws. For a moment both animals looked at each other, stunned. Max circled silently as the male bared his teeth, then they pounced on one another. By the time I managed to get them apart Max had wrought revenge for those months of abuse.\n\nA little later I went back to remove the monkey's carcass. The troop was still there and as I approached they became extremely belligerent. I backed off and witnessed a strange ritual, something I had never seen before. The monkeys descended and silently gathered around their dead colleague. Then after a few moments they gently lifted the corpse and carried it from branch to branch, tree to tree, as a funeral procession into the distance. An hour or so later they were back. I had no idea what they did with the body.\n\nHowever, it was a turning point for Max. From then on the vervets ignored him. A truce had been struck.\n\nMax was a true bush dog. A hushed command from me would see him crouched by my side or on the Land Rover seat, fully alert but as silent as a gecko whenever an animal approached. I knew he would behave around the elephants.\n\nTo Max camping out with us at the boma would be another chapter in his adventurous life. We would be with the elephants around the clock, living in the bush, catnapping in the truck or stretching out under the stars with our wristwatch alarms set regularly to remind us to patrol the fences. We would share the cold nights with them and we would sweat together in the searing days. It would be mentally and physically exhausting, particularly as the herd had already let us know in no uncertain manner that they didn't want us around.\n\nThe first day we spent watching from a distance of about thirty yards. Each day we would get closer, but it would be a gradual exercise. Nana and Frankie watched us continuously, rushing up to the fence if they thought we were getting too close.\n\nNight came, swiftly and silently as it does in Africa. There is perhaps half an hour of gloaming and then it is dark. But darkness can be your friend. The wilderness seethes with life as the nocturnal creatures scurry out from holes and trees and crevasses, brave in the knowledge that most predators are resting. The sky switches on its full power, untainted by urban electrical static. I never tire of watching the megawatt heavens, picking out the Zodiac signs and revelling in the glory of the odd shooting star.\n\nDavid's whisper woke me. 'Quick. Something's happening at the fence.'\n\nI threw off my blanket and blinked to adjust my eyes to night vision. We crept up to the boma through the bush. I could see nothing. Then an enormous shape morphed in front of me.\n\nIt was Nana, about ten yards from the fence. Next to her was Mandla, her baby son.\n\nI strained my eyes, searching for the others. Despite their bulk, elephants are difficult enough to see in dense bush during the day, let alone at night. Then I saw them, they were all standing motionless in the dark just a little way behind her.\n\nI quickly glanced at my watch; 4:45 a.m. Zulus have a word for this time of the morning \u2013 uvivi \u2013 which means the darkness before the dawn. And it's true. In the Zululand bush, the darkness is most intense just before the first shreds of haze crack the horizon.\n\nSuddenly Nana tensed her enormous frame and flared her ears.\n\n'Jeez! Look at her!' whispered David, crouching next to me. 'Look at the bloody size of her.'\n\nNana took a step forward. 'Oh shit! Here she goes,' said David, no longer whispering. 'That bloody electric wire better hold.'\n\nWithout thinking I stood and walked towards the fence. Nana was directly ahead, a colossus just a few yards in front.\n\n'Don't do it, Nana,' I said, calmly as I could. 'Please don't do it, girl.'\n\nShe stood motionless but tense like an athlete straining for the starter's gun. Behind her the rest of the herd froze.\n\n'This is your home now,' I continued. 'Please don't do it, girl.'\n\nI felt her eyes boring into me, even though I could barely make out her face in the murk.\n\n'They will kill you all if you break out. This is your home now. You don't have to run any more.'\n\nStill she didn't move and suddenly the absurdity of the situation struck me. Here I was in thick darkness talking to a wild female elephant with a baby, the most dangerous possible combination, as if we were having a friendly chat.\n\nAbsurd or not, I decided to continue. I meant every word and meant for her to get what I was saying. 'You will all die if you go. Stay here, I will be here with you and it's a good place.'\n\nShe took another step forward. I could see her tense up again, preparing to go all the way. I too was ready. If she could take the pain and snap the electric wire the rest of the fence wouldn't hold and she would be out. Frankie and the rest would smash through after her in a flash.\n\nI was directly in their path, something I was well aware of. The fence cables would hold them for a short while but I would still only have seconds to scramble out of their way and climb a tree, or else be stomped flatter than an envelope. The nearest tree, a big acacia robusta with wicked thorns was perhaps ten yards to my left. I wondered if I would be fast enough. Possibly not... and when had I last climbed a thorn tree?\n\nThen something happened between Nana and me, some infinitesimal spark of recognition, flaring for the briefest of moments.\n\nThen it was gone. Nana nudged Mandla with her trunk, turned and melted into the bush. The rest followed.\n\nDavid exhaled like a ruptured balloon.\n\n'Bloody hell! I thought she was going to go for it.'\n\nWe lit a small fire and brewed coffee. There was not much to say. I was not going to tell David that I thought I had connected for an instant with the matriarch. It would have sounded too crazy.\n\nBut something had happened. It gave me a sliver of hope.\n\nEach day was the same. As the sun came up, the herd would start endlessly pacing up and down the length of the fence, turning on us and charging if we dared get too close, halting only at the electric cable. The naked aggression and agitation, the fiercest I have seen from any animal, blazed nonstop whenever we approached the fence. And they would glare ferociously as we backed off and watched from a distance.\n\nAs they were in a confined area we had to provide them with extra food. This posed a problem as whenever we attempted to get close to the fence to throw bales of alfalfa into the enclosure they ignored the food and erupted in paroxysms of rage.\n\nThe only alternative was to arrange bales at opposite sides of the boma, and as I distracted the elephants at one end and they came at me, David \u2013 an immensely strong young man \u2013 would leap onto the back of the truck and toss more bulky bales over the fence on the other side.\n\nThen they would spot him and turn and charge in his direction. As he backed off I would throw food over from my side. Then they would come at me, and David would continue. They would only eat when we moved well away.\n\nThe belligerence see-sawed back and forth until we finished. There was no doubt that in their fury they would have killed us were it not for the fence. The hatred was so concentrated that I began to wonder what had previously happened to these creatures, especially as Marion had told me that while still babies Nana and Frankie had had some human contact. As far as I knew, they hadn't been physically maltreated, so was it something deeper? Was it some learned fear passed down from their ancestors who had been hunted to the brink? Was it because they instinctively knew humans were responsible for their confinement? That because of us they could no longer stride the great migration trails across the continent as their forebears had? Or was it simply that the death of their matriarch was the final straw?\n\nI spent the rest of the day just watching them, trying to pick up some vibe other than rage. It now seemed that Frankie, the second-in-command, was the main aggressor. Nana was fractionally calmer \u2013 although by no means settled. Could I get through to her? I didn't know; I just hoped.\n\nDavid and I were pushing up to 2,000 pounds of food a day over the wire and we shed weight like a snake sloughs off its skin. In a week alone, we each lost ten pounds, most of it in sweat. If I hadn't been so worried, I would have relished being in such good shape.\n\nBut one thing was certain: the elephants always knew David and I were around. I would spend hours walking around the boma, checking the fence and deliberately speaking loudly so they heard my voice. Sometimes I would even sing, which David uncharitably remarked was enough to make even him want to jump straight onto the electric fence. If I ever caught Nana's attention I would look directly at her and focus on positive gentle communication, telling her time and time again that this was her family's new home and that everything she would ever need was here. Most of the time, though, I spent sitting or standing still at a chosen spot near the fence, purposefully ignoring them, just being there doing nothing, saying nothing, showing I was comfortable whether they were close by or not.\n\nSlowly but surely we became an integral part of their lives. They began to 'know' us, but whether that was a good or bad thing, I wasn't sure.\n\nHowever, the alarming ritual that took place during uvivi, when they seemed most determined to break out, continued. Every morning at precisely 4.45 \u2013 I could virtually set my watch by it \u2013 Nana would line up the herd facing their old home in Mpumalanga. She would then tense up, yards from the fence, and for ten adrenalin-soaked minutes I would stand up to her, pleading for their lives, telling her that this was now their home. The words I used were unimportant as Nana obviously didn't understand English; I just concentrated on keeping the tone as reassuring as I could. It was always touch-and-go and my relief as she ghosted back into the bush with her family was absolute.\n\nWhen the sun eventually rose, David and I would retire to the truck, shattered by these tense stand-offs, saturated in sweat even in the early morning chill.\n\nSilently David would start a small fire near the Land Rover and put the coffee pot on, each of us wondering what the day would bring. Why were they always so aggressive, even while we were giving them food? Why did they hate us so much? Elephants are intelligent creatures; surely they must know by now that we meant no harm? I could understand them wanting to escape. Maybe I too would be frantic at being locked up... but this was something else. There had to be a way to breach this bulwark of torment.\n\n'Are we going to win?' David once asked over a steaming mug, demoralized after yet another awful day. We were drinking coffee by the gallon to keep alert.\n\n'We have to,' I replied, shrugging with despondency. 'Somehow we just have to calm them down.'\n\nThe fact was I still didn't know how to do it. All I did know was that the price of failure was unthinkable. But I was starting to wonder whether we could ever break through, whether we could ever settle them. The animosity was so intense that perhaps the barrier between us was impenetrable. Maybe too much damage had already been done.\n\nI just didn't know.\nchapter seven\n\nThe psychic arrived at the boma after a particularly harrowing 'dawn patrol' with the herd again threatening to break through the fence. She came down from time to time and as I saw her coming I made a quick excuse to go and check fences on the other side, leaving her to David.\n\nWhen I returned half an hour later, she had gone.\n\n'What did she want?'\n\n'Just to sprinkle some more of her good vibrations.'\n\nDavid's face was contorted and I could see he was battling valiantly to control a guffaw. 'She also said she had communicated with the elephants and they had told her it was now safe for me to go in and walk with them.'\n\nThat set us off \u2013 perhaps it was the tension, but we broke up laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.\n\nBut when I stopped wheezing, I realized that as I was not convinced the psychic was helping matters it was best if she left us to our own methods.\n\nI radioed Fran\u00e7oise and told her to tell the psychic politely that we had no further need of her services and to book a flight for her back to Johannesburg. As far as Fran\u00e7oise was concerned, that at least meant no more peanut-butter sandwiches on the menu.\n\nHowever, in a bizarre way the psychic's prophecy did come true several days later. We did indeed have to go into the boma with the herd.\n\nNana and Frankie still regularly toppled trees towards the fence, but the ones close enough to do any damage had all been felled. However, there was a particularly tall acacia in a thicket some distance away that they started working on. Initially I didn't worry too much as it seemed too far from the electric barrier. But when it crashed down, it 'bounced' and some of the top branches snagged the wires, straining them to breaking point.\n\nThis caused an electrical short with lots of crackling which fortunately frightened the elephants off. Even more fortuitously, the wires didn't snap so there was still current. But the elephants would soon sense that this was a weak link and launch an assault. All they had to do was bump the fallen tree forward, the wires would give and there would be no stopping them.\n\nWe had to act quickly. We examined all options but it soon became crystal clear that there was only one solution: someone had to sneak into the boma with a bowsaw and hack the branches off the fence. But who would do such a crazy thing, and how?\n\nDavid stepped forward. 'I'll go \u2013 as long as you keep them off me,' he said, eyeing the giants flapping their ears angrily on the other side.\n\nI needed to think it through. David was volunteering for something I had never heard of being done before: getting into a sealed electrified enclosure with seven wild elephants and no quick escape route. It was insane, no matter how you looked at it.\n\nI anguished for an hour or so. Could it be that by condoning this I was sending a young man to his death? What would I tell his parents, good friends of my family, if something went wrong?\n\nDevising a plan would help me decide, so I concentrated on visualizing the scene. Then we would dry-run it until we had it right. David's life depended on that.\n\nFirst we would miss a feed, then once the elephants were really hungry we would throw bales of alfalfa over the other side of the boma to keep the animals occupied as far away from David as possible.\n\nThen I would place two rangers with radios at the energizers to control the current. This would be switched off at exactly the moment David was ready to climb in. As soon as he was in the boma the electricity had to be turned back on, otherwise the animals might sense the power cut and break out while we were busy. This, of course, would leave David trapped with 8,000 volts imprisoning him with the elephants.\n\nThird, a ranger would be with me as my 'communicator' to relay instructions and operate my radio. I would have the rifle, ready to shoot but only if David's life was unquestionably threatened.\n\nWe rehearsed this several times until we were as prepared as we would ever be. David seemed calm \u2013 almost nonchalant \u2013 and I marvelled at his courage. He had been on the receiving end of the animals' intense aggression every day for the past week, and he was still prepared to go in.\n\nI gave the signal and the rangers started heaving food over the fence to entice the herd away from us and hopefully keep them engrossed long enough for David to finish the job.\n\nAs Nana led her hungry charges to the food bonanza, I looked at David. 'You still want to do this?'\n\nHe shrugged. 'If I don't, we'll lose them.'\n\n'OK,' I said, sweating at the mere thought of the enormous risk he was taking.\n\nI nodded to the ranger next to me who picked up his radio and shouted to the energizer crew: 'Power off \u2013 go!'\n\nDavid scaled the fence. Once he was in I threw over the bowsaw and gave the order: 'Power on \u2013 now!'\n\nThe switches went up. David was now caged inside the boma.\n\nI loaded the rifle, steadied the barrel on the Land Rover's open door and zeroed in the sights on the animals on the far side.\n\nDavid had his back to the herd and was sawing the offending branches with piston-pumping arms while I gave a running commentary from over the rifle sights. 'Everything's OK. No problem, no problem. It's working. You are doing fine; it's a piece of cake. Just a few more moments...'\n\nIn a blink everything changed. Frankie, who was slightly behind the rest of the herd, must have heard a noise as she suddenly looked up. Enraged that someone was in her territory, she broke into a charge... fast and deadly as a missile.\n\n'David, get out! Now! Cut the power! Cut the power! Now! Now! She's coming!' I yelled.\n\nBut the message didn't get through to the rangers at the energizer. The drama of the charge had mesmerized the radioman next to me. He froze, completely stupefied by the dreadfully magnificent sight of an elephant in full charge.\n\nDavid was trapped with Frankie hurtling at him like a rocket. He clambered wildly over the felled tree, grabbing at the fence as five tons of enraged elephant thundered up at impossible speed. He only had seconds to escape.\n\nWith my heart in my boots I swore and took aim. I knew it was too late \u2013 everything had gone horrible wrong. I would put a bullet in Frankie's brain but she was speeding at over thirty miles an hour and, dead or alive, her momentum would smash into David and he would be pulverized. No creature alive can survive being hit by an elephant.\n\nMy trigger finger tightened \u2013 and in the microsecond that I was about to squeeze I heard the foulest language you could imagine.\n\nIt was David, right next to me, cursing the radioman who hadn't relayed the 'cut power' message. I jerked the rifle up as Frankie broke off and belted past us, trunk high, ears flared, turning tightly to avoid the wires.\n\nSlowly I lowered the rifle and stared at David, dumbstruck. He had just scaled an eight-foot-high electrical fence. If he was shaking, it was with anger \u2013 not an overdose of electrons.\n\nI know plenty of stories of people doing impossible things in dangerous situations, but 8,000 volts will smack you flat on your back no matter how much adrenalin is pumping. It's got enough juice to stop a multi-ton creature \u2013 you don't get bigger league than that.\n\nYet David had done it. Against infinitesimal odds, it seems he somehow missed touching all four of the prominent live wires in his frantic scramble for safety. How, we don't know. And neither does he.\n\nBut one thing is certain: if David had been hurled backwards by the shock, Frankie would have been onto him, whether I killed her or not. She was too close and too fast. Nothing would have saved him.\n\nAs soon as everyone calmed down, David insisted on climbing back into the boma and finishing the job. I looked at him with total admiration; this young man had real cojones.\n\nFrankie and the rest of the herd were again distracted by food at the far side, and David once more scaled the fence. But not before warning the radioman that if he messed up again, he would personally kill him.\n\n'But you'll be dead,' said one ranger.\n\nDavid led the booming laughter.\nchapter eight\n\nLeaving two rangers at the boma, David and I drove up to the main house for a much-needed break and a cold beer \u2013 not necessarily in that order. We were chatting on the front lawn when something suddenly seemed out of place. Something wasn't right.\n\nIt was my favourite fig tree. All its leaves were wilting. I strode across for a closer look and saw it was dying. Shocked, I called David over. There were no signs of disease, rot or any other external problems. It looked like it had simply given up.\n\n'Magnificent trees like this don't just die,' I said, dismayed. 'What's happened?'\n\nDavid prodded the trunk. 'I don't know. But remember \u2013 the psychic did exorcize an evil spirit from it,' he said with a wry grin.\n\nI'm about as non-superstitious as you can get but even so, something shivered down my spine as we walked back to the house.\n\nIn the Zululand bush, the supernatural is as much a part of life as breathing. That's just the way Africa is. I remember years back, long before I acquired Thula Thula, I was rushing a Zulu to hospital after he had been bitten by a puff adder in a nearby village. The bite was potentially lethal but that did not concern him. What he was really worried about was that he believed it was not a coincidence. In his mind the snake was actually inhabited by a spirit sent to punish him for some transgression. Fortunately we got him to the hospital in time and he survived.\n\n'So you reckon the tree's been killed by an evil spirit?' David interrupted my thoughts as we walked back to the house. He was chuckling, no doubt planning to milk this psychic stuff for all it was worth.\n\nI laughed. 'This is Africa,' I said, and then heard Fran\u00e7oise scream.\n\nShe came running towards us.\n\n'What's the matter?' I asked.\n\n'Snake... big one! On the stove, in the kitchen.'\n\n'What happened?'\n\nShe had been cooking pasta when a rat suddenly jumped out of the air-vents above the stove and landed on a pot next to her. A split second later a grey blur streaked down, whipped itself around the bar on top of the stove and sank its toxic fangs into the mesmerized rodent in one lightning hit. Fran\u00e7oise, who had never seen a snake that close before, dropped the spatula and bolted.\n\nI ran to the kitchen to see the snake gliding fast towards me, heading for the lounge. It was a Mozambican spitting cobra, known locally as an mfezi. Despite what Fran\u00e7oise had said, it was average size \u2013 about four feet long. But mfezis have certainly earned their reputation of being second only to mambas as the most dangerous snakes in Africa. A bite is fatal if untreated, although spitting is their main form of defence and when they do so they unleash copious amounts of venom from virtually any position.\n\nIt was heading in Fran\u00e7oise's direction, so I rushed to get a broom to catch it. I have a strict rule that no snake is killed on Thula Thula unless the situation is life-threatening. If they're in the house, we capture and put them back into the bush. I have learned that with a cobra, this is most easily done by slowly easing a broom towards it as it rears up and then gently pushing it along the floor and under the snake until it leans over on top of the bristle-head. It's then lifted up, carried outside and allowed to slither off.\n\nAlthough some neurons in my brain still jump whenever I see a snake \u2013 the same atavistic impulses that kept our ancestors in caves alive \u2013 I have no problem with them. They are vital for the environment and do immeasurably more good than harm by keeping vermin populations from exploding. Like almost all wild creatures, they will only attack if threatened; they're far happier running away.\n\nI rushed back with a broom but I was too late. Max had already cornered the reptile, now reared to almost a third of its length with its long thin hood flared, exposing a yellowpink underbelly scored with black bars. It was a compelling sight; loathsome yet stunning.\n\n'Come here, Max! Leave him, boy.'\n\nBut the usually obedient Max didn't listen. Fixated on the mfezi he silently circled the upright serpent, which tried to twist round to face him.\n\n'Maxie... leave him, boy,' I commanded. If the snake bit him, he could die. The neurotoxic and cytotoxic (celldestroying) venom would reach his vital organs far quicker than in a human.\n\n'Max!'\n\nThen Max lunged, biting the mfezi behind its head. I heard the crunch as his jaws snapped shut like a bear trap. He bit again, and again.\n\nHe dropped the snake and came towards me, wagging his tail. The snake was chopped into three distinct pieces, its head still quivering from contracting nerves.\n\nMax looked mighty pleased with himself. I was just relieved \u2013 until I saw his eyes. He was blinking furiously. The spitting cobra had lived up to its name and hit bang on target. Mfezis are extremely accurate up to about eight feet and actually spray instead of spit. This means a fine mist of highly toxic venom comes at you as a sheet, rather than as a single globule and it's vital to wear glasses and shut your mouth when threatened by them \u2013 especially when you're trying to move them off with a broom.\n\nFran\u00e7oise quickly got some milk. We bathed Max's eyes and I rushed him to the Land Rover. The nearest vet was twenty miles away in Empangeni, and if we didn't get there soon, Max could go blind. However, the fact we had managed to clean out most of the poison with milk so soon after the attack augured well.\n\nThe vet agreed that the milk had countered the poison, squeezed some paste into the pupils and said Max would be fine.\n\nAs we left, he jumped into the car, tail thumping like an overjoyed windscreen wiper.\n\n'Who the bloody hell do you think you are?' I admonished. 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?'\n\nIndeed, Max had been as quick as Kipling's Jungle Book mongoose. Throughout the fight he had never barked, extremely unusual for a dog. His utter silence had been his key asset. Most dogs prance in front of a snake yapping furiously, giving the reptile an easy target. Instead, Max had slowly padded around it without uttering a sound. The mfezi had trouble twisting to face him on the slippery tiled floor, enabling Max to get behind it.\n\nI stroked his head. 'You're a natural bush dog, my boy.'\n\nLater that night David and I returned to the elephants. Max, who adopted an almost bored expression whenever I checked his recovering eyes, came with us.\n\nWe inspected the boma and catnapped for a few hours in the Land Rover. Then at 4.45 a.m. I heard a slight rustle near the fence. I knew, with dread, it was Nana preparing for her pre-dawn breakout attempt, as she did every morning. I walked down, by now knowing exactly where she would be. Once again, Mandla was at her side, the rest of the herd queuing behind.\n\n'Please don't do it, girl,' I said.\n\nShe stopped, tense as a spring as she watched me. I carried on speaking, urging her to stay, keeping my voice as low and persuasive as I could. I kept using her name.\n\nThen she suddenly shifted her stance to face me head-on. The furious stare from her mucous-rimmed eyes faded for a moment. Instead there was something else flickering. Not necessarily benign, but not hostile either.\n\n'This is your home now, Nana. It's a good home and I will always be here with you.'\n\nWith unhurried dignity, she turned away from the fence, the others breaking rank to let her through and then following closely behind.\n\nAfter a few yards she stopped and let the others go ahead. She had never done that before \u2013 she had always been the first to disappear into the bush. She turned and again looked straight at me.\n\nIt was only for a few seconds, but it seemed to go on forever.\n\nThen she was swallowed up by the darkness.\nchapter nine\n\nAs the weeks progressed, the herd gradually started to settle down. So much so that we were now able to approach the fence at feeding time without being charged by enraged elephants. We also got some much-needed sleep.\n\nLiving rough in the wilderness is a salve for the soul. Ancient instincts awaken; forgotten skills are relearned, consciousness is sharpened and life thrums at a richer tempo.\n\nUnlike being on a wilderness trail where each day is another trek to another place, David and I were not just transients and had to adjust in order to become accepted by the permanent residents on our wild patch. We had to blend into our environment as seamlessly as fish in a lake.\n\nInitially the abundant wildlife regarded us as unwelcome colonizers. They wanted to know who we were, what we were, and what were we doing on their turf. Wherever we went, hundreds of eyes watched. I had that prickly sensation of being under constant surveillance and whenever I looked up, a mongoose, warthog, or tawny eagle would be peering from a distance... taking in everything, missing nothing we did.\n\nBut soon we too were creatures of the wild. The larger animals got used to us and sensing we posed no danger, started to move around us freely. The resident impala ram and his harem, normally as skittish as colts, grazed thirty or so paces away as if we were part of the scenery. Zebra and wildebeest came past regularly while kudu and nyala browsed nearby, completely at ease.\n\nThat didn't mean we were entirely welcome. A troop of baboons led by a posturing male complained bitterly as they sauntered past for their daily ablutions at the river. We had inadvertently pitched camp slap in the middle of their domain and their fearsome leader had no hesitation in venting his ire. Sitting on top of a Natal mahogany tree, he would show his dagger-shaped yellow teeth and snarl HOOH, HOOH, HAAA across the valley. BOH, BOH, his deep territorial call echoed down the riverbed. To him we would always be trespassers.\n\nIt was late spring and birds of all shapes and sizes, feathered in an explosion of African colours, chirped and sang the stories of their lives to all who would listen, while snakes \u2013 including the lethal black mamba \u2013 sought shade from the baking sun. My favourite was a beautiful rock python that lived in a group of boulders beside a gully. He was still a youngster, less than five feet long, but watching his olive and tan body rippling over the ground was as special as you could get.\n\nI always kept a firm grip on Max's collar whenever this yard of elastic muscle glided past. Although he had long since learnt not to chase most wild animals, he still had a thing about snakes. Given half a chance he would have been onto the python in a blink.\n\nThe Land Rover's two-way radio aerial also made a great scaffold for a one-inch bark spider that imperiously took up residence. Despite her diminutive size, she was an absolute dynamo. Every evening she strung out her web using the aerial as a support, and every morning she gobbled it all up, saving each precious milligram of protein snared in the gossamer threads, only to rebuild it again at dusk. We named her Wilma and her three-yard-wide web was an engineering marvel, an absolutely formidable, super-sticky trap that seized any flying insect in a grip of silky steel, including four-inch longhorn beetles, which she would methodically suck the life out of.\n\nSometimes we needed to drive to the far end of the boma and as we started the vehicle she would hang on to her just-completed web in a flat panic at the engine's vibrations. In the end, we always took pity on her and walked instead.\n\nAt dusk, animals that lived in the sun went off to sleep wherever they felt safest. The landscape emptied, but not for long. It was soon repopulated under the light of the African stars by creatures of the night. Warthogs gave way to bush pigs with short, stiletto tusks; tawny and martial eagles were replaced by giant eagle owls that scouted the skies on silent wings, swooping down on vondos, plump oversized bush rats whose sluggish vulnerability is countered only by its prolific breeding capacity. Fiery-necked nightjars with bear-trap mouths customized for snatching insects in mid-flight soaked up the fading heat from the baked ground before soaring into the heavens. Bats, thousands upon thousands, scudded through the air and bushbabies, among the cutest creatures alive with their cuddly looking little bodies and huge eyes screeched raucous mating calls from the treetops.\n\nHyena, perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood of all Africa's animals for their unfair reputation of being savage scavengers, but one of my favourites, skulked in the alleys of the dark looking for dinner. YOOUP YOOUP, YOOOOUP they called, marking their territory with their manic cackles. Huge dog-like footprints the next day sometimes showed that they had come in for a closer look at us. We used the spotlight intermittently to track this seething theatre, only because leaving it on for too long lured swarms of bugs that attacked us in squadrons. It's bad bush practice to keep a light on continuously as light attracts insects, insects attract frogs, and frogs attract snakes. Our only permanent illumination was the campfire.\n\nOne morning we woke to find leopard droppings near the Land Rover. The local male had marked his territory right where we were sleeping, delivering a firm feline message \u2013 this was also his space.\n\nLiving so close to the ground, so to speak, also gave me plenty of time to study the herd and I became fascinated by their individual quirks. Nana, huge and dominant, took her matriarchal duties seriously and like a fussy housewife utilized every inch of the boma's confines to the maximum. She marked out the best spots for shade, the best shelter from the wind and \u2013 uncannily \u2013 knew feeding times to the minute. She also knew exactly when the waterhole and mud pond were due to be refilled by us.\n\nFrankie was the herd's self-appointed guardian. She delighted in breaking away from the rest and storming past us at full speed, head held high and glaring fiercely just for the hell of it.\n\nMandla, Nana's baby boy, was a born clown whose antics kept us endlessly amused. Full of bravado he would regularly mock-charge us \u2013 just as long as his mum was close by.\n\nMabula and Marula, Frankie's thirteen-year-old son and eleven-year-old daughter were always quiet and well behaved, seldom straying far from their mother.\n\nNandi, Nana's teenage daughter and mirror image, was much more independent and would often wander around exploring on her own.\n\nAnd then there was Mnumzane, the young bull and son of the previous matriarch who had been demoted from crown prince to pariah after his mother's demise. He was no longer part of the herd's inner circle and spent most of his time alone or on the periphery of the group. This was the eons-old elephant way; herds are fiercely feminized and once a male approaches puberty he is evicted. This is nature's way of scattering its seed otherwise all herds would be interbred. But sadly the trauma of young males being ostracized from their families can be heart-wrenching; similar to desperately homesick boys being sent to distant boarding schools. Usually in the wild they meet up with other young evicted males and form loosely knit askari bachelor herds under the guidance of a wise old bull.\n\nUnfortunately we didn't have a father figure for Mnumzane, so he was simultaneously going through the agony of losing his mother and sister, as well as being evicted from the only family he knew and loved. Come feeding time, Nana and Frankie would roughly shoulder him away and he only got scraps after everyone else had had their fill.\n\nWe saw he was losing weight and David made a point of feeding him separately. His gratitude was wrenching to watch, and David, who has a natural affinity with all wildlife, started paying him special attention, slipping him extra alfalfa and fresh acacia branches every day.\n\nMnumzane's lowly status was confirmed one evening when we heard a series of prolonged high-pitched squeals. Denied the use of the Land Rover by Wilma's web-building activities, we sprinted to the other side of the boma to see that Nana and Frankie had the youngster cornered and were shoving him onto the electric fence.\n\n'Look at that,' David panted as we ran up. 'They're using him as a battering ram, trying to force him through to make an opening.'\n\nSo they were. Mnumzane, caught between hot wires and a mountain of flesh and tusk, was screaming himself hoarse as electricity jolted through his young body. The more he screamed, the more they pushed.\n\nEventually just as we were about to intervene \u2013 although I'm not quite sure how \u2013 they released him. The poor fellow bolted and ran around the boma at full speed, loudly trumpeting his indignation.\n\nHe calmed down and found a quiet spot as far away from the rest of herd as he could. There he stood and sulked, miserable to his core.\n\nThis incident showed conclusively that Nana and Frankie understood exactly how an electric fence worked. They knew that if they could bulldoze Mnumzane through the live wires, they could break free without getting shocked.\n\nDespite this, to my intense relief, by now the dreaded dawn patrol had stopped. Nana no longer lined up her brood at the northern boundary, threatening a mass breakout and despite the odds we seemed to have made some sort of progress in the few weeks they had been there. But neither of us expected what happened next.\n\nThe next morning soon after sunrise I glanced up to see Nana and baby Mandla at the fence right in front of our little camp. This had never happened before.\n\nAs I stood, she lifted her trunk and looked straight at me. Her ears were down and she was calm. Instinctively I decided to go to her.\n\nI knew from hard experience that elephants prefer slow deliberate movements, so I ambled across, ostentatiously stopping to pluck a grass stem and pausing to inspect a tree stump \u2013 generally taking my time. I needed to let her get used to me coming forward.\n\nEventually I stopped about three yards from the fence and gazed up at the gigantic form directly in front of me. Then I took a slow step forward. Then another, until I was two paces from the fence.\n\nShe did not move and suddenly I felt sheathed in a sense of contentment. Despite standing just a pace from this previously foul-tempered wild animal who until now would have liked nothing better than to kill me, I had never felt safer.\n\nI remained in a bubble of well-being, completely entranced by the magnificent creature towering over me. I noticed for the first time her thick wiry eyelashes, the thousands of wrinkles criss-crossing her skin and her broken tusk. Her soft eyes pulled me in. Then, almost in slow motion, I saw her gently reach out to me with her trunk. I watched, hypnotized, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.\n\nDavid's voice echoed in the surreal background. 'Boss.'\n\nThen louder, 'Boss! Boss, what the hell are you doing?'\n\nThe urgency in his call broke the spell. Suddenly I realized that if Nana got hold of me it would all be over. I would be yanked through the fence like a rag doll and stomped flat.\n\nI was about to step back, but something made me hold my ground. There it was again, the strange feeling of mesmeric tranquillity.\n\nOnce more Nana reached out with her trunk. And then I got it. She wanted me to come closer and without thinking I moved towards the fence.\n\nTime was motionless as Nana's trunk snaked through the fence, carefully avoiding the electric strands, and reached my body. She gently touched me. I was surprised at the wetness of her trunk tip and how musky her smell was. After a few moments I lifted my hand and felt the top of her colossal trunk, briefly touching the bristly hair fibres.\n\nToo soon the instant was over. She slowly withdrew her trunk. She stood and looked at me for a few moments before slowly turning and returning to the herd that had gathered about twenty yards away, watching every move. Interestingly, as she got back Frankie stepped forward and greeted her, as if to welcome her return to the fold. If I didn't know better I would have said she was giving her a 'well done'. I walked back to the camp.\n\n'What was that about?' asked David.\n\nI was silent for a while, absolutely awestruck. Then the words tumbled out, 'I don't know. But what I do know is, that it's time to let them out.'\n\n'Let them out? From the boma?'\n\n'Yes. Let's take a break and talk about it.'\n\nWe drove to the house for a mug of fresh coffee, animatedly discussing what had happened.\n\n'Nana's now a very different elephant to the one that arrived here, that's for sure,' said David. 'In fact the whole herd is different. The aggro has gone like it's been switched off. Maybe we should phone KZN Wildlife and see what they say.'\n\n'No... we should just let them out. Wildlife has already said we must keep them in for three months. They're not going to change their minds now.'\n\nDavid nodded. 'You're right. Remember what we said one night after they came back from Umfolozi? That to get this herd on side we had to get the matriarch to trust at least one human? Well, that's now happened. She trusts you.'\n\n'OK. Radio Ndonga and tell him to make sure the outer fence is fully powered. We'll let them out into the reserve early tomorrow.'\n\nWe drove back to the boma and the enormity of what we were about to do hit me. If I was wrong and the herd broke out, they would be killed. I started having second thoughts, but while doing the final fence patrol for the night, I noticed the elephants were more relaxed and calmer than I had ever seen them before. It was almost as if they anticipated something special was about to happen. Sensing that made me feel better.\n\nAt 5 a.m. a game guard radioed me from the energizer shed to say that power was 'off' in the boma. David lifted the gate's hefty horizontal eucalyptus poles off their hinges.\n\nI called out to Nana, who was standing at the fence about fifty yards away, and deliberately walked in and out of the entrance a couple of times to show it was open. Then David and I went and stood on top of an anthill at a safe distance from the entrance to get a grandstand view.\n\nFor twenty minutes nothing happened. Eventually Nana ambled over to the gate and tested the space with her trunk for some invisible impediment. Satisfied, she moved forward, herd in tow, and then inexplicably stopped halfway through the exit. For some reason she would go no further.\n\nTen minutes later she was still standing there motionless. I turned to David, 'What's going on? Why doesn't she go out?'\n\n'It must be the water in front of the gate,' he said. 'The trench we dug for the delivery truck is full of rain and she doesn't like it. I think she won't go through because it's too deep for Mandla.'\n\nThen, for the first time, we witnessed a graphic demonstration of Nana's Herculean strength.\n\nOn either side of the gate stood two eight-foot-high, eightinch-wide eucalyptus poles sunk thirty inches into concrete. Nana inspected these with her trunk, then put her head down and gave a push. The shafts buckled as the concrete foundations popped out of the ground like corks.\n\nDavid and I stared at each other, stunned. 'My God,' I said, 'we couldn't even have done that with the tractor. And to think that yesterday I was letting her touch me!'\n\nThe way around the trench was now clear and Nana wasted no more time, hurrying the herd down a game path directly to the river. We watched the thick summer bush swallow them up.\n\n'I hope we've done the right thing,' I said.\n\n'We have. She was ready.'\n\nI could only hope that he was right.\nchapter ten\n\nAs soon as the herd disappeared, we struck camp. All this entailed was throwing sleeping bags and a fire-blackened kettle into the back of the Land Rover, but it was symbolic in the sense that we were moving on.\n\nMax was still at the boma gate, watching the woodland that had seemingly gobbled up the elephants. I called him and he looked up askance, as if asking if I wanted him to pursue the animals. If I had said 'Fetch!' I have no doubt he would have bounded into the bush. Size meant nothing to him; he was absolutely without fear and had no concept that a single lift of Nana's foot would have converted him into a pancake.\n\nAfter dropping David off at the lodge, I drove to the Ovambo guards' cottage to give an update.\n\nI was about hundred yards away when Ndonga came sprinting up waving his arms. 'Quick, Mr Anthony. Turn off the motor and keep quiet,' he whispered. 'There's a leopard about forty yards ahead... just to the right of us.'\n\nI killed the engine and squinted into the bush, my eyes scouring every inch of the area where he was pointing... and saw nothing.\n\n'A leopard out in broad daylight? Can't be.'\n\nNdonga put a finger to his lips. 'I saw it just two minutes ago as you were driving up. Just keep still... it'll come out again. Just watch that big bush over there. That's where it came down.'\n\nThe thicket was certainly big enough to hide a leopard. But leopards are primarily nocturnal and it would be highly unusual to see one wandering around at midday.\n\nThen out of the corner of my eye I spotted one of the Ovambos come out from behind the house and nod at Ndonga. He was wiping his hands with a rag, which he quickly stuffed into his pocket when he saw me looking at him.\n\nNdonga, who had been crouching near the car, stood up.\n\n'Well, I suppose you're right, boss. Your Land Rover would have frightened it off anyway. Pity. It's the first leopard I've seen on Thula.'\n\nI nodded. We knew there were several leopards on the reserve from their tracks and the markings I'd seen recently by the Land Rover had confirmed it, but they had been vigorously hunted before we took over and as a result were so secretive that few had seen them. Thus Ndonga's account of one of these beautiful dappled cats bounding out of a tree in brassy sunlight so close to human habitation was absolutely amazing.\n\n'So what's happening, Mr Anthony?' he asked.\n\n'We've let the herd out. I want all of your guards to go on patrol and track them. Also, check the fences. Make sure the power stays up permanently. And double-check that there are no trees anywhere even remotely close by. I don't want the elephants shorting the wires again.'\n\n'I've already done that. All trees near the fence have been chopped.'\n\nThe last time I had heard that was just before the herd had escaped from the boma. I didn't want to risk it again.\n\n'You're sure?'\n\n'Of course.'\n\n'Well... OK. See you later.'\n\nI drove off. The recent rains had brushed the bush in colours of green and gold and the fecund earth throbbed with life. Unfortunately, as beautiful as it looked, this rampant foliage would make the elephants more difficult to track. We needed to know all the time exactly where they were in case they attempted another breakout.\n\nBiyela, our loyal gardener and everybody's friend, ran up to welcome us back as Max and I got out the car, glad to be home. As I walked through the door Fran\u00e7oise told me that Ngwenya, my security induna or foreman, wanted to see me.\n\nHe was sitting on a tree stump outside the verandah of the rangers' quarters about thirty yards from our house. This was unusual. He obviously didn't want to be seen approaching me. I walked over.\n\n'Sawubona, Ngwenya.' I see you.\n\n'Yebo, Mkhulu.'\n\nWe spoke for a bit about the unusually wet weather and the elephants. Then he got to the point.\n\n'Mkhulu, we all know strange things are happening.'\n\n'Such as what?'\n\n'Such as the shooting of nyamazane' \u2013 game \u2013 'on Thula Thula.'\n\nI stiffened. I had been so absorbed in the elephants that the poaching problem had been put on a backburner.\n\n'But now I am also hearing strange stories,' Ngwenya continued. 'And the strangest of all is that people are saying that Ndonga is the man who is doing the shooting. The man killing our animals.'\n\n'What?' The blood drained from my face. 'What makes you say such a serious thing?'\n\nNgwenya shook his head, as if he too couldn't believe it. 'Ndonga shoots the buck, but the skinning is done by the other Ovambos and by Phineas, the gate guard. Then sometimes a truck with ice comes late at night with no lights and fetches it. Or sometimes Ndonga takes the meat to town.'\n\n'How do you know this?'\n\n'It is what the people here are saying. Also, I am told the other Ovambos are unhappy. They complain in the village that they are doing all the hard work and Ndonga gives them no money. He only gives them meat. Not even good meat \u2013 they get maybe the head and shins. That's all.'\n\n'How long has this been going on?'\n\nNgwenya shrugged. 'Since the day you came. But I have only found this out now. That is why I have come to you.'\n\n'Thanks, Ngwenya. Good work.'\n\n'These are dangerous times.' He eased himself off the stump. 'The Ovambos must not know I have spoken to you. Sale gahle, Mkhulu.' Stay well.\n\n'Hamba gahle, Ngwenya.' Go well.\n\nI sat there, stunned as if I had been smacked on the head. This was a horrific accusation, not just because the poachers had killed so many animals, which was bad enough. But to add insult to injury, if Ngwenya's allegations were true, was that my own employees were guilty of poaching my animals with my own rifles. The Lee \u2013 Enfield .303s that the Ovambos had been issued with belonged to Thula Thula.\n\n'Boss.'\n\nI looked up. David was standing next to me.\n\n'The electrician has arrived. He's at the gate. Should we take him down to the energizers?'\n\nI nodded, remembering that we had booked the man to check the fence's electrics thoroughly now that the elephants had been freed. As we got into the Land Rover the radio crackled into life. It was Ndonga. I tensed with anger. My head guard may be innocent and I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Ngwenya's story rankled deep.\n\n'We've found the elephants. They're right on the northern boundary.'\n\n'Excellent,' I replied, fighting to keep the fury out of my voice. 'Keep an eye on them and wait for us. We'll be there in about fifteen minutes.'\n\nWith the electrician squashed between us straddling the Land Rover's gear stick and Max on David's lap we drove off. It made sense that the herd had emerged at the far border, the direction of their previous home, but nevertheless it was chilling news. Were they still determined to break out, I wondered?\n\nAs Ndonga had said, gangs of workers had indeed chopped down all trees within felling distance of the wires. Narrow vehicle tracks had been hacked out to make a rough road for anti-poaching patrols and maintenance checks along the boundary, so it was relatively simple to keep the animals in sight as we followed from a distance.\n\nNana was moving down the line, the tip of her trunk just below the top electric strand, sensing the pulse of the surging current. With her clan following, she had walked almost the entire twenty miles of the reserve's perimeter using her natural voltmeter to check if there was any weak link \u2013 any section without power in the fence.\n\nBy now it was nearly four o'clock. It had taken the animals most of the day to circumnavigate the reserve and I was relieved to see that despite checking for breaks in the power, Nana was not attempting to make direct contact with the fence. She wasn't going to take the pain and smash through like the previous matriarch had at the Mpumalanga reserve.\n\nBut just as the herd was completing its tour, we saw a large acacia standing proud right next to the wires that Ndonga's clearing gang had inexplicably missed. It was the only 'danger' tree along the entire border that had not been felled, and it stood out stark as a monument.\n\n'Dammit,' groaned David. Both he and I knew what was going to happen next.\n\nSure enough Nana and Frankie stopped, saw the tree and loped over for a closer inspection.\n\n'No, Nana no!' I shouted as they positioned themselves on either side of the acacia and started shouldering it, testing its resistance. There was no doubt they were going to shove it down and if we were going to prevent the inevitable breakout we needed to get closer. Fortunately a gate was nearby and we sped out of the reserve and onto an adjacent track putting us on the opposite side of the fence.\n\nAs we arrived, the tree was creaking wildly on its roots and Nana gave a mighty heave. With a rending 'crack' the trunk splintered down onto the barrier, collapsing the poles and snapping the current, causing an almighty short circuit. Forsaking caution I rushed up and snatched at the wires to see if they were still live. As I feared, the fence was dead. And with the herd almost on top of us, we had a real problem.\n\n'No, Nana, don't do it!' I yelled with only a tangle of dead wires and flattened poles between us. My voice was raspy with desperation. 'Don't do it!'\n\nFortunately the frenetic clicking and snapping as the wires shorted had spooked her and she took a hasty step backwards. But for how long?\n\nThank God the electrician was there and as I pleaded with the agitated animals he and David got to work. With Nana, Frankie and the youngsters barely ten yards away, they calmly untangled the bird's nest of wires, chopped the tree free, reconnected the cable, straightened the poles and got the power going again.\n\nWhile all this was happening, I continued speaking directly to Nana as I had in the boma, using her name often and repeating again and again that this was her home.\n\nShe looked at me and for at least ten minutes we held eye contact as I kept talking.\n\nSuddenly, as if baffled by what all the fuss was about, she turned and backtracked into the bush. The others followed and we exhaled with relief.\n\nIt was only then that I realized I hadn't even considered picking up a rifle in case everything went amiss. My relationship with the herd had certainly changed for the better.\n\nHowever, something else caught my attention during the commotion, something more sinister. It was the Ovambos. As the tree had come down, to a man they had bolted like startled rabbits. This was strange, I thought. These much vaunted rangers were actually petrified of elephants, not quite what you would expect from experienced men of the bush.\n\nThen it flashed. It was as if I was seeing clearly for the first time. A fog had miraculously lifted. Despite their braggadocio, these men were not game rangers at all. They never had been. They were soldiers who could shoot straight, but otherwise knew precious little about conservation. They were now out of their element. I had always wondered why the Ovambos, who were supposed to be top-drawer trackers, had led us the wrong way during the original breakout. Now I knew.\n\nAny remaining niggles of doubt in my mind dissipated. It was suddenly as obvious as the sun beating down on us. The guards were indeed the poachers, just as Ngwenya had said. They were the ones who had been plaguing the reserve for the past year, decimating the buck population. The last thing they wanted was a herd of wild elephants on Thula Thula.\n\nHaving no experience with elephants, let alone this unpredictable herd, they realized that with angry jumbos around their poaching racket would be ruined. The reason was simple. Most poaching is done in the dark and one would have to be a brave \u2013 or monumentally foolish \u2013 man to trample around in the bush at night with this temperamental herd on the loose. It would be suicide. They desperately needed to engineer another escape so their lucrative sideline could continue.\n\nEven though the evidence was completely circumstantial, the jigsaw pieces started fitting together. I suddenly remembered Bheki telling me a 'gun had spoken' at the boma on the night the elephants first escaped. Could someone have deliberately fired those shots to panic the herd and prompt a frenzied stampede?\n\nThis also explained why the fence wires had initially been strung on the wrong side of the boma poles. And of course there was no leopard at the cottage earlier this morning. I would bet the farm that they had been butchering illegally slaughtered animals and my unexpected arrival had almost caught them red-handed \u2013 literally. Ndonga had to distract me while they hurriedly hid the evidence. That's why the game guard had come out from the back of the house wiping off his hands: they had been covered with blood.\n\nAnd what about the tree that had been left standing right at the fence? That was probably the most obvious clue of all. It was far too coincidental not to have been deliberate.\n\nI had been set up. Totally fooled.\n\nHowever, not only had we been grotesquely betrayed, but \u2013 more importantly \u2013 the elephants were now in danger.\n\n'David,' I said, pulling him aside. 'I need to talk to you.'\nchapter eleven\n\nWe climbed into the Land Rover and I fired the engine. I was fuming, not just at the Ovambos, but at myself for being so gullible. I had been taken in like a naive child.\n\n'What's the problem?' asked David.\n\n'The problem? The damn Ovambo game rangers. That's the problem.'\n\n'Bloody idiots. They shouldn't have missed that tree. I mean, how dumb is that?'\n\n'No,' I shook my head vigorously as I drove off. 'No, it's not that. It's the poaching. The Ovambos \u2013 they're our poachers. They're not rangers at all. They're the bloody poachers.'\n\nThere was a stunned silence.\n\n'You're kidding me,' said David. 'Nah... ?'\n\n'It's them all right.' Red with anger, I listed all the evidence, from the wires on the wrong side of the boma poles to what Ngwenya had just told me.\n\nDavid's face hardened as he took it all in. He, more than anyone else, had been at the frontline of the clashes with poachers.\n\nHe sat still, fists clenched. Then he said quietly, 'Turn around, boss. I need to have a chat with them about a few things.'\n\nDavid's nickname in Zulu was Escoro, which means boxer, or fighter. Well-built, fit and unafraid, he had a reputation as someone you didn't mess with. He now had his sights set firmly on the Ovambos.\n\n'Uh-uh.' I refused. 'I understand you're pissed off. I feel the same, but we have to do this cleverly. This is our biggest opportunity to smash this damn poaching ring once and for all. They can't know we're on to them.'\n\nDavid looked at me, unconvinced.\n\n'We've got to pretend everything's OK until we get all the evidence,' I continued. 'Otherwise we'll blow it. At the moment all we've got is hearsay and they will just deny everything.'\n\n'OK,' he said with some effort. 'But when it's over we are going to have a little chat.'\n\n'That's up to you. But until then we can't let the guards out of sight, even for a minute. We've got to get two of our best rangers up to their house permanently. Get Ngwenya to brief them so they know what's going on. I want them living and working with the Ovambos twenty-four hours a day and reporting their every move. That'll stop them doing any further shooting and buy us time.'\n\n'Done, boss,' said David and a slow, wicked grin started to spread. 'Ndonga is also going to be seeing a lot more of me. I will be his new best friend, starting tonight.'\n\nThe next morning we were out early to see what the elephants were doing. After a couple of hours bouncing around in dense bush we found them grazing in the middle of the reserve, about as far from the fence as you could get. Mnumzane was a hundred yards or so from the main group, stripping leaves from a small acacia. We eased forward until we were close enough to see them clearly and I did a head count. Seven \u2013 all there, engulfed by long grass and succulent trees and stuffing their mouths like kids at a birthday party. With nearly double the rainfall, which meant double the food yield of their previous home, Thula Thula truly was a pachyderm paradise. I knew Nana, the most astute of matriarchs, would not fail to notice this rich bounty, especially after a dry Mpumalanga winter and the confines of the boma.\n\nThe tranquillity of the scene made it all worthwhile. After all the stress, drama, danger and frustration this hugely aggressive herd seemed at last serene in their new home. At least for the moment.\n\n'They're exploring, and they like what they see,' said David. 'This must be better than anything they've known before.'\n\nI nodded. Maybe, just maybe, our gamble in letting them out of the boma early had paid off.\n\nWe drove back up to the house where Fran\u00e7oise greeted us with a trencherman's breakfast of boerewors \u2013 spicy Afrikaner sausage \u2013 bacon, eggs, tomatoes and toast, and mug after mug of home-made coffee. Bijou, Fran\u00e7oise's little Maltese poodle, and Penny, the bull terrier, were with her and I always chortled at the contrast between her two dogs \u2013 both snow-white but one fluffy and soft, the other muscular and hard. Penny's loyalty was infinite. Thula Thula was her home and as self-appointed protector of the realm she guarded it with her life.\n\n'Please tell Phineas I want to see him.'\n\nNgwenya shifted uncomfortably He knew what was coming.\n\n'Manje?' Now, he asked.\n\n'Yes, now.'\n\nNgwenya moved reluctantly to the door and then turned back to face me. 'We must be very careful Mkhulu. If the Ovambos hear we are talking to him they could kill him. These men have killed before. They are tsotsis, thugs of the worst kind and people in the village are very frightened of them.'\n\n'That's why the village will help us when we go to the police,' I replied.\n\nPhineas was the gate guard who had been used to skin the slaughtered animals. He was a simple, sickly young man, having long been afflicted by Aids, the scourge of modern Africa. On the streets the slang for Aids was 'slow puncture', a particularly apt description of how the disease gradually saps one's life and frail Phineas was no exception. We had moved him from the labour team to far less demanding gate duties to ease his day.\n\nI was gambling that he would side with us and become a key witness. All I needed was the correct approach.\n\nPhineas arrived and as is customary in rural Zululand, he came in without knocking. Crouching low, he moved across the room and then sat down without being asked. He averted his eyes and stared at the floor, which is considered good manners.\n\n'Yehbo, Phineas,' I greeted him.\n\n'Sawubona, Mkhulu,' he replied without looking up.\n\nInstead of first politely discussing one's health or the weather, again customary in rural Zululand, I went straight for the jugular.\n\n'Phineas, I hear that you have been tricked into skining animals that the Ovambos have stolen.'\n\nThe effect was instant. Phineas glanced around wildly, as if looking for an escape route. Then his sickly pallor turned even more ashen as his breath laboured out in wheezes, no doubt cursing his bad luck. If he had known what this meeting was about he would have headed for the hills and never returned. Now he was trapped.\n\n'Come, Phineas,' I said, pressing the obvious advantage of surprise. 'Everybody knows what has happened and I don't want to hand you over to the police. Jail will be a bad place for you. I am offering you the chance to help us.'\n\nHis head slumped on his chest. Then, without warning, he started sobbing. Even though I knew that Aids had crippled his immune system, ravaging his physical and mental health, I was taken aback at how quickly he broke and my heart went out to him. No doubt his conscience had also been preying brutally on his weakened state of mind.\n\n'Ndonga promised me money,' he said, voice quavering. 'Then he did not pay me.'\n\n'You told me the truth, thank you,' I said. 'But you will have to make a full confession to the police. If you do this, not only will you be protected from the Ovambos, but you will also keep your job.'\n\n'I will do what you ask,' he said rubbing his eyes. 'I am sorry, Mkhulu.'\n\nHe then gave me full details of the poaching ring, exactly how many animals and what species they had shot as well as times and dates. I was astounded at the scale of the operation. These bastards had slaughtered at least a hundred animals \u2013 which translates into several tons of meat, and thousands of dollars of profit.\n\nI now had my first witness. We spent the rest of the day piecing together information, interviewing other staff fingered by Phineas, collecting facts, and taking more statements until we felt we had a case. But I decided to stew on it all for a while and see what other stories emerged over the next few days.\n\nIn the meantime my rangers were busy moving into quarters next to the Ovambos while David was Ndonga's 'new best friend', constantly shadowing him and seriously curtailing any poaching activities. I also started calling Ndonga over the radio at all hours, day and night, asking where the Ovambos were, setting meetings in the bush and making surprise visits to their house.\n\nThe tension was starting to tell. Ndonga didn't suspect we knew anything but he was as jumpy as hell, never knowing what was coming next. Whenever the Ovambos went out in a group, my rangers would radio me and we would drive up to them from nowhere, exchanging pleasantries and just hanging out. The confusion on their faces was almost comic. The main thing was that they be given no opportunity to poach.\n\nOblivious to all this human intrigue, Nana and her family appeared to be settling in well and I decided to spend a morning watching them, just to see for myself.\n\nAfter about an hour's drive I found them shading themselves under a sprawling giant fig right next to the river. It was still early, but already the mercury had rocketed to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I stopped the Land Rover, crept forward and settled down under a leafy marula tree about fifty yards downwind. They stood motionless but for the gentle flapping of their ears, cooling themselves as best they could. Elephant ears are the size of a hefty woman's skirt and act as a natural air conditioner. Behind each massive flap of cartilage is a roadmap of veins that pumps gallons of blood just beneath the skin and gentle fanning cools the corpuscles, which in turn lowers the body temperature.\n\nMnumzane was about twenty yards nearer to me than the rest and sensed my presence. He moved closer and watched from a comfortable but wary distance, then continued grazing, glancing up every now and again. It seemed he preferred my company to that of the herd and made no effort to raise the alarm.\n\nHe was a superb specimen, well proportioned with strong tusks. He would soon grow into a great bull, lord of all he surveyed. But at the moment he was a confused and lost teenager, still aching from the death of his mother.\n\nIn the background Nana found a succulent young paper-bark acacia tree and decided it was ideal for a family lunch. She pushed gently, testing the tree's strength, and then adjusted her angle; put her head down and with a push-relax-push motion worked up massive momentum. The tree rocked violently and as it swayed at the very end of its tether she gave a final shove and it came splintering down.\n\nThe rest of the herd ambled across to join in the feast. If there is one thing that elephants have, it's time, large dollops of endless time spent without having to commute to offices like less-privileged mortals. Even when a juicy bush banquet is on offer, they don't rush.\n\nThe sound of the tree crashing stilled the bush for a few moments and I noticed a nearby family of nyala prick up their ears. The bull scented the air, knowing instinctively what had happened. Once the elephants moved off, he and his harem would also be able to gorge on the felled acacia's juicy top leaves that they would never otherwise be able to reach. In fact, during dry winters when grazing is poor herds of antelope often shadow elephants for days waiting for the matriarch to bulldoze a tree down.\n\nThe noise also alarmed a leguaan, a large African monitor lizard that had been raiding birds' nests up in a red-flowered weeping boerbeen tree overhanging the river. Startled, the four-foot-long, black-grey reptile sprang off a high branch, twisting through the air and belly-flopping into the river.\n\nAt my feet Max heard the splash and thinking the reptile was a snake, was off like a shot into the reeds before I could grab him. Splashing about in crocodile territory was suicidal for even large animals, let alone a dog, and when he came out shaking his dripping torso like a sprinkler, I tersely reprimanded him. Try as I may, I was unable to wean him off his snake fetish.\n\nNone of this perturbed the elephants. Nana, Nandi and Mandla stood on one side of the fallen tree with Frankie, Marula and Mabula on the other, methodically converting leaves and bark into edible mulch with the most powerful molars in the animal kingdom. Although they were now one family, each group was the remnant of a much larger herd that had been cruelly whittled by sales and execution. They still sometimes instinctively bunched in their original two groups.\n\nA draught eddied through the saplings and cosseted my back. The wind was edging to the south. When I had arrived I was downwind, but with the subtle shift I now had to move fast.\n\nAs I stood I saw the tip of Nana's trunk suddenly angle and swivel towards me, snatching a trace of scent. She then stood back and, lifting her trunk to verify the odour, turned to face in my direction.\n\nCollecting my binoculars and water bottle I climbed into the Land Rover with Max just as she started advancing towards me, the rest of the herd falling in behind her. There was plenty of time to drive off, but I was intrigued by the fact that she was actually heading my way. Normally she would have hurriedly herded her family in the opposite direction.\n\nI manoeuvred the Land Rover into a good getaway position, steeled my nerves and waited. At the last moment, just yards away from me, she changed direction ever so slightly and walked past the vehicle, followed by her family who each turned to stare as they passed. Frankie, who was bringing up the rear, splayed her ears and gave an aggressive shake of her head towards me.\n\nThen suddenly, she swung off the back of the line, triumpeted harshly, and started coming at me, fast as a truck, her ears flared and trunk raised high. I knew instinctively it was a mock charge, and the worst thing to do would be to drive off as this could encourage her, perhaps spark a real charge. I braced myself as she pulled up spectacularly just yards away in a whirlwind of flapping ears, dust and rage. After tossing her head in anger once or twice, she stomped off back to the herd with her tail angrily erect.\n\nI stared after her, transfixed. Even though I had seen it many times a charging elephant is one of the most awesome physical spectacles in the world. I'll have to be careful with Frankie, I thought, once I had regained my ability to think. She was still too ill-tempered, too eager to vent her fury. Even though Nana was the matriarch, Frankie was far more dangerous.\n\nI followed them for a bit, thorns squeaking and stabbing the Land Rover's paintwork until the bush became too wild and I turned off on an old overgrown track and set course for home.\n\nI had just gulped down a pint of ice-cold water when the phone rang. The wildlife dealer was on the line.\n\n'Really, Lawrence, I can't for the life of me understand why you're wasting your time with this herd,' he said. 'I can let you have a much better one within a week and your problems will be over. You know, you could easily get yourself killed by this lot. They need more space, to be completely away from humans. Surely you owe that to them.'\n\n'You may be right,' I said, fumbling for a pen and some paper. 'By the way, I never got the name of your company \u2013 or even your phone number. What is it?'\n\nI wrote down the details and immediately dialled the Elephant Managers and Owners Association in Johannesburg, asking for Marion Garai.\n\n'Marion, do you know who these people are?'\n\n'Oh God, Lawrence. Please don't tell me you're dealing with them.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'This lot was trying to get your herd first but I beat them to it. They are registered wildlife dealers, perfectly legitimate, and I had heard they had already pre-sold your animals to a Chinese zoo \u2013 that's why I was in such a hurry to get them to you. They're pretty upset with me and are now trying to get the animals back to fulfil their contract. If you sell them to him, your elephants' lives will be a misery. There're few animal rights laws in China, so anything could happen. And even worse, the zoo only wants the babies so the two adults will probably be shot. Please... please don't deal with them.'\n\n'Well, you can relax,' I said, relieved finally to hear the truth. 'My elephants are going nowhere.'\n\nI phoned the dealer and told him politely never to contact me again.\n\nHe was flummoxed. 'You can have all this money plus a new herd and you prefer to keep the problem, which is only going to get worse. Don't come crying in three months' time because it will be too late for us. And for you.'\n\n'I'm not selling.'\n\n'OK, OK.'\n\nHe then hesitated for a bit and I could tell he was mentally wrestling with something. 'Listen... don't tell my boss I told you this, but the previous matriarch, the one they shot, wasn't so bad. I reckon she was just trying to get the herd to better water and grazing, that's why she kept busting the fences. She was just doing her job.'\n\nI put the phone down as that revelation slowly sunk in. The old matriarch had been doing her duty to her family \u2013 and she had paid for it with her life. They had even shot her baby daughter. My anger flared; no wonder this herd was traumatized.\n\nI never heard from the dealer again.\nchapter twelve\n\nDuring the next few days fresh information about the poachers kept popping up, all of it helpful.\n\nThe Ovambos, unable to hunt due to our constant surveillance, had taken to slipping out into the village at night and getting rat-faced drunk at the local shebeen, a traditional, usually illegal, tavern. The more they drank the more they talked, and we made sure we always had an informer there. With alcohol-fired machismo, they bragged openly about their exploits. Slowly we were piecing together our case.\n\n'OK, what do we do now?' David asked.\n\n'We go to the police and give them the statements. I have set it up with a lieutenant who's expecting us.'\n\nThe next day we drove into Empangeni, met with two senior policemen and recounted the full story, handing over all the affidavits.\n\n'This is an open and shut case,' said one after reading Phineas's statement. 'They're as guilty as hell. We'll be out there later to make the arrests.'\n\nThat was exactly what I wanted to hear and at 5 p.m. on the dot two police vans arrived. David and I led them through the reserve to the Ovambos' cottage. It was strangely silent, with no one to be seen. Leaving the cars quietly, we split into two groups, heading for the front and back of the building.\n\nWe were too late. As we burst into their rooms, all we found were rifles strewn on the floor and cupboard doors flapping open. All their personal possessions were gone. No doubt they saw us coming and instantly hotfooted it. They were now running for dear life through the bush and without knowing which direction they had taken, there was no way we would catch them before dark.\n\nThe police said they would put a general alert out for the fleeing guards, which was all we could do for the moment. 'They are probably halfway to Namibia by now,' one of the police said ruefully.\n\nBack at the house I recounted the drama to Fran\u00e7oise and we strolled outside, watching the blood-red sun ease itself down beyond the sweeping hills. The reserve looked tranquil. Perhaps I was imagining it, but with the guards gone the whole mood had changed \u2013 as if some particularly malignant force had been purged.\nchapter thirteen\n\nThula Thula, at last, was finding its equilibrium.\n\nThe elephants weren't trying to be serial escapers and the poaching problem was largely solved. I knew we would never entirely stamp out poaching. In Africa a few tribesmen shooting the odd impala or duiker for the pot is going to happen whatever you do, and spending night after night out in the bush from dusk till dawn on guard against a few poorly armed youngsters soon loses its romance. It's when the operations go commercial, as what had happened to us, that problems skyrocket.\n\nOn another front, my discussions with the amakhosi and the tribes about converting their surrounding cattle land to a game reserve were continuing well and progress was being made, albeit in tiny fractions, as the idea started taking hold. Trying to persuade thousands of Zulus, for whom cattle are an iconic form of wealth, that they should switch the use of their land to wildlife was an ambitious undertaking and fraught with many complications, cultural and otherwise. But there was no doubt it was the right thing to do. Patience and persistence were the keys.\n\nSo now for the first time I could concentrate on our core mission \u2013 running an African game reserve.\n\nIt is a tough, rewarding life. Each day starts at dawn and not only are there are no weekends, but if you are not careful you can also quickly lose track of the days of the week. Fences have to be checked and fixed daily, roads and tracks must be repaired and wrested back from bush encroachment or you lose them forever. The never-ending invasion of alien plants needs constant attention \u2013 some plants are invaders from other countries, varieties that don't have natural enemies in Africa and are not palatable to wildlife, so their growth is rampant. Then there are game counts and veldt assessments, dam inspections and repairs, fire breaks to maintain, anti-poaching patrols, maintaining good relations with neighbouring tribes, and a hundred other things to do. But it is a good, clean life with just enough danger and adventure to keep you on your toes and enjoying it.\n\nThe elephant herd was settling in nicely and staying away from the fences. I spent as much time as I could near them. Despite only being out of the boma for three weeks, they were already stuffing themselves on a myriad of delicacies and putting on weight noticeably.\n\nObviously I always kept a comfortable distance and was as unobtrusive as possible, watching and learning about their behaviour, where their favourite watering holes were, what they were eating and where. But sometimes things didn't always go to plan. Once I got a fright when I thought the herd was some distance away. I got out of the Land Rover to make a call on my brand-new cellphone.\n\nSomething made me look over my shoulder. To my horror, about twenty yards behind watching me was Frankie. And behind her was the rest of the herd.\n\nThe Landy was only a short distance away and with an alacrity that impressed even me, I yanked open the door and leapt inside. However, in my haste I had dropped my fancy new phone, and the elephants were now milling around it. I had no option but to wait until they moved off before I could retrieve it.\n\nThen it rang; the ringtone piercing the wilderness like a whistle blast. The elephants stopped, and then almost in unison, moved over to the source of the alien noise. Frankie was there first, snaking her trunk over the piece of plastic, trying to figure out what it was. The others joined in and I watched this bizarre spectacle of seven elephants swinging their trunks over a chirruping cellphone in the middle of the bush.\n\nFinally Frankie decided she had had enough. She lifted her mighty foot above the phone and thudded it down. The ringing stopped.\n\nThe herd moved off, ambling along in their own sweet time. When they were finally out of sight I got out of the Landy to fetch the phone. It was embedded an inch into the ground and I had to prise it free. The clear plastic section of the casing was shattered.\n\nAs an experiment I punched in a number \u2013 and it rang. It was working just fine.\n\nI later phoned Nokia and told them about the incident, congratulating them on the ruggedness of the phone. After a long silence the manager thanked me and hung up. I reckon even they didn't believe their products could withstand being stomped on by a wild elephant.\n\nHowever, it wasn't just the elephants that were adjusting. With the removal of the Ovambo guards, scores of other animals suddenly appeared on the landscape, as if by magic. Wherever I went I saw kudu, nyala, herds of wildebeest and impala and a host of smaller game scurrying about seemingly without a care in the world. Previously hunters had taken a shot at any creature that moved, and then the poachers had muscled in, blinding antelope with megawatt spotlights and shooting indiscriminately from vehicles both at night and during the day. No wonder the animals had been so skittish whenever a Land Rover drove past. Until now the only time I had really had occasion to appreciate the wildlife on Thula Thula was when David and I were camping outside the boma. A car engine would set the entire reserve in panic mode \u2013 with good reason, as I now realized.\n\nNo longer. Almost overnight, a radical transformation had occurred. Hyena became more brazen in the evenings and we even got occasional glimpses of leopard, lynx and serval, the beautiful tawny black-spotted cats of the night, whose pelts are unfortunately still highly prized. The more the creatures lost their fear, the more of them we encountered and with mounting jubilation I discovered that despite mass poaching, we still had healthy populations of almost all of Zululand's indigenous animals thriving on our doorstep. The whole reserve was now truly energized, and us with it.\n\nI found this totally astonishing. How could the simple removal of the guards have such an instant effect on the game? How could they know they were now safe; that the major poaching threat had been removed? Obviously this would not be regarded as evidence in a court of law, but to me, in the natural order of things, it was proof that the animals themselves now knew it was over.\n\nYears later I was in the Sudan on a conservation project when I heard an incredible story on good authority that sounded similar to my own. During the twenty-year war between northern and southern Sudan elephants were being slaughtered both for ivory and meat and so large numbers migrated to Kenya for safety. Within days of the final ceasefire being signed, the elephants left their adopted residence en masse and trekked the hundreds of miles back home to Sudan. How they knew that their home range was now safe is just another indication of the incredible abilities of these amazing creatures.\n\nImmersed in the bush each day with no pressing problems reignited another of my loves; birdwatching. With its diverse habitats Thula Thula has over 350 identified species of bird and is an absolute haven for 'twitchers', those unusual people obsessed with spending every free moment watching birds.\n\nOn one glorious Zululand morning David and I were following the herd on foot through thick riverine bush, our footsteps on the leaf litter the only sound, when we came across a troop of monkeys grouped on top of a tall, flat acacia robusta. They were chattering and screaming insults at a magnificent martial eagle circling just low enough to demand their attention, but high enough for them to show some bravado.\n\nOr so they thought. Emboldened by the distance, the little creatures with their animated black faces were recklessly exposing themselves at the edge of branches instead of hiding within the foliage.\n\nAs we watched, another martial appeared, coming in low and fast on huge silent wings. Flying barely ten feet off the ground and skirting tree trunks with deft twists and turns, her fiercely hooked beak and snowy undercarriage were just a blur as she glided under the tree canopy, hidden from the raucous monkeys. With a wingspan of more than seven feet, a martial in flight is always a stunning sight. But up as close as this it was pure wizardry \u2013 as she came over us we could feel the wind from her wings.\n\nWith an imperceptible twitch of her tail feathers she suddenly pulled into an almost vertical climb heading straight up for the troop like a Stealth jetfighter. Before the monkeys could even guess what was happening she had plucked one off a branch, and was soaring through the sky to meet her mate with the still squirming primate hooked in her gnarled talons.\n\nThe tawny eagle is also a masterful predator and, often hunting in tandem like the martials, it is a particular threat to newborn fawns in the breeding season. One day, Nana and the herd were browsing off on our left when for some reason I glanced skywards and picked out two of these majestic raptors, just specks in the azure sky, swooping vertically in perfect synchrony and eventually blasting into the tree canopy at impossible speed. They are going much too fast, I thought, as they plummeted through the tangled green foliage \u2013 they can't possibly stop in time.\n\nBut a tawny can plummet down from the sky, strike its prey, and then land in the space of just a few yards. As we rounded the corner we found them both with their claws sunk into a nyala fawn, flapping their giant wings in unison as they coordinated their take-off to lift the deadweight. The impact of the high-velocity attack had instantly killed the fawn, but the mother was determined to fight back with all her worth. She grabbed her baby's foot in her mouth and with legs locked stiff as metal shafts, she anchored herself in an awful tug-of-war to prevent the birds from flying off. The eagles, startled by our sudden appearance, dropped their booty and glided back into the heavens.\n\nNo matter how heart-wrenching the situation, we never interfered with nature. Brutal as the food chain is, that's the balance of life in the wild. Terrible as the tragedy was for the nyala mother, the eagles also had to feed their young.\n\nBut it's not all blood and gore; there are also the brilliant colours and exquisite song in Zululand birds. Plum-coloured starlings, turquoise European rollers that winter with us, the gorgeous bush-shrike, blood-red narina trojans and countless others boasting plumages so flamboyant, the visual feast was unbelievable. Catching sight of a gwala gwala in flight, the only time it flashes its vivid scarlet wing feathers, can send the soul soaring.\n\nIt did mine. Poaching, elephant charges... well, that was all yesterday, I thought happily.\n\nI didn't know how wrong I was.\nchapter fourteen\n\nOne morning Fran\u00e7oise joined me on the quad bike, a four-wheeled all-terrain motorbike, while I tracked the herd.\n\nAs we zoomed off on a dusty track, I marvelled at the profound transformation she had made in adapting to a life in the bush. Unlike me, her sophisticated upbringing in the buzzing metropolis and boulevard cafes of Paris were light years removed from the African outbacks of my youth.\n\nA good illustration of this was the first time she held a banquet at Thula Thula for some Parisian friends and laid a table out on the front lawn. It was groaning with Camembert and Brie cheese, exotic fruit, freshly baked rolls, salamis, p\u00e2t\u00e9s and decorated in the most splendid wreaths of scarlet, white and mauve bougainvillea you could imagine.\n\nThat I considered these, her favourite flowers, to be rampant alien invaders cut no ice with her at all. 'Zey are exotic and beautiful, and must be protected,' she had instructed Biyela the gardener. Biyela having fastidiously verified the translation with Ngwenya, thereafter defended the colourful bushes with typical Zulu tenacity, threatening me with whatever garden implement he was carrying whenever I appeared too close.\n\nShe was still laying out the table helped by a friend when a passing troop of monkeys swooped from the trees. Instead of merely chasing the mischievous animals away, Fran\u00e7oise and her companion fled into the house and resorted to shouting Gallic insults from behind a large plate-glass window.\n\nUndeterred by the colourful language and unable to believe their luck, the troop settled in and leisurely devoured the best French cuisine in Zululand. Fortunately they didn't have a taste for champagne, or else a few magnums of the good stuff would have gone down their gullets as well.\n\nBy the time Ngwenya and I had shooed them away it was too late. The monkeys had scattered into the trees grasping hunks of squelchy cheese and handfuls of p\u00e2t\u00e9 \u2013 not to mention every morsel of fruit and bread that had been laid out. The fact that I was almost paralysed with laughter didn't help the situation much either.\n\nBut that was more than a year ago. Now she was much more comfortable in the bush and with her arms tight around my waist we rode through as shallow section of the Nseleni River to a high lookout point to see if we could find the elephants.\n\nThe hill had a panoramic view and we spotted them briefly in thick bush bordering the river below, close to where we had just come through. We must have missed them by fifty yards or so and it worried me that I hadn't detected them \u2013 especially with Fran\u00e7oise riding pillion. I couldn't shake that niggling unease as normally I'm able to sense when the elephants are around.\n\n'There they are again,' I pointed, and we watched as the elephants loped into view about a mile away, moving in single file across the deep-green flood plain disappearing back into the riverbed.\n\n'They're moving off. Let's give them a bit of time to cross the river and go after them.'\n\nAbout ten minutes later we rode back down the hill onto the flood plain and I slowly eased the bike down the cutting into the lazily flowing river, driving through with feet held high to avoid a drenching. Once on the other side, I gunned the motor to scramble up the steep incline and we shot to the top of the riverbank.\n\nAbsolute disaster! I suddenly became aware of huge grey shapes morphing all around us. Incredibly we had ridden bang into the middle of the herd! The elephants had stopped to graze right at the exit of the river crossing \u2013 something I had not anticipated as I had thought they were on the move.\n\nShock shuddered through my body. I suddenly felt minuscule, puny, unprotected on a tiny bike surrounded by edgy five-ton mammals. And even worse, I had Fran\u00e7oise with me. My throat tightened as my mind raced; how do I get out of this? With a river and steep bank behind and a herd of agitated elephants in front, the options were limited.\n\nWhat was even more disconcerting was that we had also cut off Marula and Mabula, who were slightly behind us, from their mother Frankie. They panicked and started squealing loudly. And if there was one single thing that could aggravate our already dire predicament even more, it was getting between an aggressive female elephant and her frightened young.\n\nWe were in trouble. Deep trouble.\n\nNana who was a few yards away on our right took two menacing steps forward with her trunk held high, and then thankfully stopped and backed off. That was terrifying enough on its own, but the real problem was coming from behind her: Frankie.\n\nI frantically tried to turn the bike and make a bolt for it, but the riverbank was too steep, the bike's turning circle too wide. We were hopelessly trapped.\n\nTrying to sound as unconcerned as possible, I said to Fran\u00e7oise, surprised that my voice was still steady, 'I think we have a problem.' I was absolutely horrified that I had placed her in such mortal danger.\n\nBy now Frankie was furiously reversing out of a thicket, trying to swivel and charge us. I drew my 9-mm pistol and handed it to Fran\u00e7oise to protect herself if anything happened to me. Basically, it was a peashooter as far as an elephant was concerned, but as a last resort, a shot may distract Frankie.\n\nI then stood up on the bike to face Frankie who was now coming directly at us \u2013 fast, furious and deadly. Clive Walker, the famous African game ranger, describes the experience superbly in his book Signs of the Wild. 'An elephant charge is accompanied by the sound of screaming demons. Except perhaps for the prospect of imminent hanging, there is nothing that serves to concentrate the mind more wonderfully.'\n\nThat summed it up exactly. On Frankie thundered. I pleaded for this to be a mock charge, desperately looking for signs that she just wanted to scare us away from her young. The key indication of this was if her ears flapped out. But no \u2013 with mounting horror I watched her fold her ears back and roll up her trunk to take full impact when she hit. A rolled trunk meant she was going all the way. This was for real, and with that awful realization my sensations heightened surreally, like in a slow-motion car crash. I heard someone hammering in the far-off village as if it was next door, while high above me I watched an eagle soaring and marvelled at its graceful flight, as if I had nothing better to do. I had never seen a sky so blue.\n\nOn she hurtled, her huge frame blotting out all else. Lifting my hands as high above my head as I could I started yelling at her, then began screaming at the monstrous sight in a last-ditch attempt to pierce her mist of rage.\n\nThen just as I thought we were goners, her ears suddenly cracked out and she broke off and unrolled her trunk. But the massive momentum hurled her right up to the bike where she towered directly above us, glaring angrily through tiny eyes. I involuntarily sat down on the bike and looked up at the crinkled underside of Frankie's throat in petrified wonder. She shook her huge head in frustration, showering us in the thick red dust from a recent sand bath and then backed off a few paces.\n\nMarula and Mabula scampered past her. After making another two or three terrifyingly threatening gestures at us Frankie turned and followed her son and daughter into the bush, away from us.\n\nI eased stiffly down off the saddle and turned to Fran\u00e7oise. Her eyes were tightly closed and I gently whispered that it was over. It was OK. The two of us sat still, too stunned to do or say anything.\n\nEventually I found the energy to start the bike and pulled off in the opposite direction to the herd. We drove through the bush which seemed so still after the charge, as if the birds and trees themselves knew what had happened.\n\nEventually we saw a truck carrying some visiting friends, waved them down and got off the quad bike. As they came across, Fran\u00e7oise started vividly describing what had just happened, gesticulating energetically. The only problem was she still had the cocked 9-mm pistol in her hand, finger on the trigger and each time she emphasized some dramatic point she waved the gun around. Our friends scattered for cover until I managed to retrieve the gun and cleared the breech.\n\nBack home I told the astonished staff what had happened. 'I can't believe you're still alive,' said David, whistling through his teeth. 'She must have made a conscious decision not to kill you. Why do you think she did that?'\n\nA good question. Elephants rarely break off once they're at full steam and I still couldn't believe that Frankie had actually halted at the last minute. Why had she changed gears, dropping down from a lethal real attack to a mock charge? It was virtually unheard of.\n\nThe next day I got on the bike and drove back to the river crossing where we had so nearly lost our lives to try to figure it out. I needed some answers. But try as I might, the crucial moments of the charge were a total blank, as if my mind couldn't grapple with the horror.\n\nSo I retraced our route, driving through the same river crossing several times, mentally scrolling over the incident again and again. Slowly the details started fleshing out. I remembered I had been standing on the bike and screaming as she charged. But what was I yelling? My mind was still a void.\n\nThen in an instant it came flooding back. I was screaming, 'Stop, stop, it's me, it's me!'\n\nThat was all. In retrospect it sounds rather ludicrous, but that's exactly what happened. To shout 'It's me' at a charging elephant, the most aggressive female in a herd protecting her panicked babies is about as lame as it gets. Yet it stopped her, and I knew then that she had somehow recognized me from the boma. I still believe she had spared our lives because she had witnessed her matriarch's interaction with me the day before I let them out.\nchapter fifteen\n\n'The power's down again,' said David with a grimace, 'this time on the western boundary.'\n\nWe were having endless problems with the fence. Our electrified border was temperamental and unreliable, given to more mood swings and irrational behaviour than a menopausal rhino. Everything affected it. Too much rain drowned the current. Too little rain affected conductivity. Lightning struck it with regular monotony, sparking out the voltage. Hyena, bushpig and warthog constantly dug holes beneath it, shorting the circuit. These were just some of the obvious problems; sometimes I swear it went down just because it damn well felt like it. It certainly didn't make our task of keeping a herd of angry elephants \u2013 one of which had just charged me \u2013 inside the reserve any easier.\n\nWe had also just discovered that both Nana and Frankie had been impregnated by the dominant bull sometime before leaving the previous reserve. As elephants have such bulk, it's often difficult to tell early on when they are carrying, but it had by now become obvious that our two adult females were gestating.\n\nConsequently, rule number one on the reserve was that the power always had to be on or we risked losing the elephant. Not that they were trying to escape any more, but all it took was for Nana to be walking near the boundary and sense that there was no power \u2013 and who knows what would happen? That meant there were mandatory dawn and dusk inspections along the entire twenty-mile perimeter, and often others during the day as well. We never went to bed with the fence not fully operational.\n\nThe problem this time was not only that the power was down, the Land Rover also wouldn't start and it was getting dark.\n\n'No problem,' said David. 'I'll take the tractor.'\n\nI looked across at Gunda Gunda, the onomatopoeic Zulu name for our faithful twenty-year-old beast. She was reliable all right and would do the job but she had no headlights and a twenty-mile bush drive in the dark without night vision can be a hairy ordeal.\n\nThe African wilderness is merciless and to survive you need every genetic advantage you can muster. Consequently almost all animals have excellent night vision enhanced by a reflective membrane behind the iris, which catches even distant starlight and magnifies it. This membrane is why their eyes reflect so brightly in the dark when a light is shined at them. The big cats apparently have the best night vision but all species rely on acute eyesight either to hunt or to escape the predators of the night.\n\nWell, not all species. There's a notable exception; the planet's most dominant creature is completely night blind. And that's us \u2013 Homo sapiens.\n\nTry walking in thick bush on a moonless or cloudy night without a flashlight and see what I mean. It's so black you can't see anything... and I mean anything. Unless you can navigate by the stars (provided there is no cloud cover) you'll be lost, maybe even panic-stricken, within minutes.\n\nI once crashed on the quad-bike at night about four miles from the camp. I lost my flashlight in the accident and had to walk home in the dark. I still remember that journey with trepidation today. I was completely blind and walked through the bush with both hands in front of me so at least I knew if I was going to hit something. I could have fallen into a hyena den and wouldn't have known until I woke up \u2013 or more likely, didn't.\n\nIt took hours to get back and I was a bruised, nervous, thorn-scratched wreck when I did. What concerned me most as I blindly stumbled along was that every other living creature around was watching my antics as clear as day. To any predator I would have appeared as a wounded or disabled animal. Twice, when the bush seemed to suddenly come alive, I frantically fired shots into the air with my pistol. I was lucky to get home.\n\nSo how did our ancestors survive the eons without keenly developed night vision? I know plenty of scientists and not one of them has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me how puny, tasty, night-blind Homo sapiens endured so spectacularly when everything around us had to have excellent night vision if they were to make it through a summer, never mind evolve.\n\nYet despite my reservations, David jumped up on Gunda Gunda and set off into the dusk. It was only when he was gone that I realized he had forgotten his radio.\n\nI went back to the house, made some phone calls and then walked out and sat on the lawn overlooking the reserve trying to spot David's flashlight blinking on the far boundary when I heard a low moan crescendo into a rasping roar that made my blood chill. Max also froze staring out into the dark, alert.\n\n'It can't be,' I thought, and then I heard it again, oscillating eerily across the wilderness. This time there was no mistake. It was the call of a male lion marking his territory. As we had no resident lions on the reserve, this meant an itinerant animal had broken in.\n\nBut even worse, the call was suddenly reciprocated, a curdling growl that bounced off the cliffs. That meant there were at least two lions roaming on the reserve. And of all places, the roars were echoing from the western boundary \u2013 exactly where David was driving along without headlights. They must have come in through the fence while the power was down.\n\nOut in the dark every creature on Thula would have heard the ominous call, for it was death itself calling, beckoning out for you.\n\nNana too would have heard it. I imagined her standing frozen, ears flared, trunk up, smelling the air to work out where the call came from and thinking of the youngsters in the herd. Her tactics and habits would now change, as would everything else on the reserve.\n\nI bent down and patted Max, reassuring him.\n\nIt sometimes happened that lions broke out of the nearby Umfolozi game reserve and went walkabout, raiding cattle and generally striking fear far and wide in the villages. When lions are on the loose they totally control the countryside. They're difficult to corner and find cattle or other livestock exceptionally easy prey. If they become too much of a problem, they are usually hunted down and killed by rangers.\n\nThe breakouts are a result of pressure exerted, often forcibly, on young males by the dominant lion to quit the pride. An alpha male will not tolerate competition and once male cubs mature, they are chased off. However, with all territories in the reserve already taken by other resident prides, the youngsters are often forced outside the protected areas and into the human domain.\n\nThese young males, usually brothers, are absolutely formidable and will stay out until they are older and stronger, all the while gaining hunting and fighting skills. They then go back into the reserve and challenge a patriarch for his territory and his harem. And at two against one, they're often successful.\n\nI love lions, one of Africa's most charismatic and iconic creatures, but I wished this pair had chosen somewhere else to do their 'gap year'. We weren't ready for them at Thula Thula just yet.\n\nHowever, my prime concern was for David. While he was on the tractor with its noise and greasy fumes he was relatively safe. But he was looking for an electrical fault, and to find it he would have to get off the vehicle and walk along the fence, sometimes for long distances. I knew he was carrying a small torch but no rifle, and walking in the bush at night unarmed with lions in the immediate vicinity is crazy stuff. If we had heard the lions earlier he certainly wouldn't have gone out and I was hoping against hope that he had also heard the calls. But Gunda Gunda is pretty noisy and I couldn't bank on that.\n\nI called Bheki who was at the rangers' house \u2013 he had also heard the big cats \u2013 and told him David was out alone. Bheki shook his head and clicked his tongue. I could see he was also worried.\n\n'We have to go to him,' I said. 'Please get my rifle and bring plenty of bullets.'\n\nI wasn't looking forward to the march in the dark but there was a rough outside dirt track running parallel to the fence for much of the way where there was little danger as the big cats were inside the reserve. If we were lucky we would find David and the hole the lions had dug.\n\nThen we heard it again: that spine-chilling roar. It was close, perhaps a mile or two away. By now I was acutely alarmed \u2013 the lions must have scented the tractor, but would they also smell the human driver? And just how hungry were they? They may not have fed for several days.\n\nThe answering roar came back \u2013 this time even closer.\n\n'Bheki, we must move faster,' I urged.\n\nThe Zulu grunted. He was as concerned as I was. David was extremely popular on Thula Thula.\n\nGripping our rifles tight, we broke into a jog \u2013 well, as fast as you can go in the darkness. Even with flashlights it is always difficult out in the bush at night. Neither of us noticed our numerous trips and falls over rocks and bush roots. There was one aim only: to get to David before the lions did.\n\nAbout two miles later we saw a dim flickering light and to our intense joy it was David at a gap in the fence with Gunda Gunda chugging away close by.\n\nI was about to yell a warning, but he beat me to it.\n\n'Lion! Big ones!' he shouted, then pointed to the hole. 'They came in there. I left the tractor running to keep them away. Their spoor is all over the place.'\n\nRelief washed over me. This guy was indestructible. 'Leave the tractor here for the night and walk back with us on the outside path.'\n\nWe closed the hole where the lions had dug under the fence pushing up the wires and shorting the electrical strands, which got the power up effectively trapping the lion in the reserve, and walked home. Tomorrow would be an interesting day.\n\nTelephone etiquette in the bush allows calls only after dawn. The sun was barely up before I had the Parks Board section ranger on the line.\n\n'Have you lost a couple of lions?' I asked.\n\n'Ja,' he replied. 'Two got out day before yesterday and have been causing chaos around a couple of villages. They're on the move, going your way actually. Have you seen them?'\n\n'They're both on Thula,' I replied. 'Do you want to come and get them?'\n\n'We're on our way. Try and keep tabs on them until we get there.'\n\nAll the reserve staff were told to be extra cautious and the work teams were sent home. None of our employees had experience with lions so we weren't taking any chances.\n\nWhile we were waiting for them to arrive I went out to find the herd. I picked up their tracks and shortly afterwards found fresh elephant dung within yards of fresh lion scat. They had crossed paths with the big cats but there was no real risk as an elephant herd is far too formidable for lions, however hungry they were. Provided of course the youngsters didn't wander off.\n\nI couldn't find them and went back to the house. Standing on the front lawn staring out into the bush, I remembered a harrowing incident last year when a hunting lioness charged Craig Reed, the senior ranger at Umfolozi. He was out on horseback with his five-months pregnant wife, Andrea, when the giant cat suddenly charged out of a reed bed at them. Craig's horse was spooked and bolted, but the lioness had already targeted Andrea and gave chase. An expert rider, she galloped through the bush at full speed. Scenting the danger, the horse needed no encouragement and was in full flight when Andrea's foot suddenly slipped out the stirrup and she started sliding out of the saddle.\n\nAs she fell she somehow managed to grab hold of the stirrup and was dragged through the bush as the horse galloped on with the lioness in hot pursuit. She watched horrified as the lioness got closer and closer until it was at her feet, and then, resigned to her fate, she let go. Amazingly, the lioness jumped right over her sprawling body, and got her claws into the horse.\n\nBy now Craig had managed to turn his horse and frantically rode up firing shots into the air, scaring the lioness off. Thankfully Andrea was OK, although badly bruised and shaken, and in true frontierswoman tradition, gave birth to a fine baby boy four months later.\n\nThe moral of the story is always to treat these magnificent creatures with absolute respect. I pondered this over a hurried breakfast and then met up with Bheki and his men to follow the spoor from the hole where the big cats had come in. But Thula Thula's hard clay soil makes tracking extremely difficult when it's dry and after a few hours the trail had disappeared altogether. There also weren't any vultures circling above, which meant the lions hadn't made a kill last night. That would have made our lives much easier.\n\nThe Parks Board arrived and we searched the reserve for two days, alternately picking up and losing the trail until a fence check revealed a big hole under the wire. They were gone. We later heard that they had returned to Umfolozi.\n\nA few weeks later I was in Umfolozi on a night drive, when I asked the driver to pull over for a 'pit stop', having drunk several cups of coffee. It was pitch-black and as I opened the door he said casually, 'Better check first,' and flashed a spotlight through the open door.\n\nThere lying in the long grass, just ten yards from where I was getting out, were two big male lions. I swear they were the same youngsters that had been on our reserve \u2013 it was close to our boundary and I simply had that uncanny feeling. We had just seen the resident male, a giant beast sporting an impressive golden mane, with his harem less than a mile away.\n\nNo doubt these two had returned from their walkabout at Thula Thula, hard and lean, to challenge him for the spoils.\nchapter sixteen\n\nThe southern white rhino is very big. Surprisingly big \u2013 especially if you are on foot and one steps out of the bush in front of you. It's the second-largest land mammal on earth and can easily weigh three tons. Prized by poachers for its horn, of which the one just in front of me had a particularly fine pair.\n\nWe had just had three delivered to the reserve and this female, still doped from the sedative, had groggily wandered away from the other two. This posed a big problem. The elephants were close by and unknowingly she was ambling directly towards them. We had to cut her off \u2013 and trying to dissuade a mountain of muscle and horn still hungover from travel tranquillizers from going in her chosen direction was not something I relished.\n\n'David,' I called into the radio. 'I've found her. Can you bring the Landy across? We're at the south end of the airstrip.'\n\n'Roger, boss,' came the instant reply. 'Thula Thula international airport it is!'\n\nI watched this beautiful creature not fifteen yards away walking unsteadily on short dumpy legs which could usually propel her into an unbelievably fast charge in no time. Clad in a prehistoric suit of armour impervious to almost anything except a bullet, she tottered along, completely unaware of my presence. A magnificent 40-inch horn like a sabre at the tip of her elongated head added gravitas to an already imposing form. This was the stuff poachers dream about.\n\nMax stood by me transfixed by the beast. Bush-hardened as he was, he was not used to rhino this close and apart from his twitching nose taking in the scent, he didn't move.\n\nI kept a wary eye on the herd browsing upwind when I heard a soft sound behind me and turned to see Mnumzane coming up the airstrip downwind, testing the air.\n\nDamn it! Of all the bad luck... we were too late; he must have caught either my or the rhino's scent and started to slowly walk in our direction.\n\n'David,' I whispered into the radio, 'Mnumzane's right here.'\n\n'So am I, boss,' he replied as the Landy bounced out of the bush onto the airstrip. Giving Mnumzane a wide birth, he pulled up next to me and jumped out leaving the motor idling.\n\n'Somehow we have to keep Mnumzane and the herd away from her,' I said pointing to the dazed rhino. 'They're too close. I really don't like this at all.'\n\n'I brought the horse feed you wanted. That should delay him for a while,' he replied.\n\n'Yeah, but the smell might also bring the other elephants over. We're going to have to shield the rhino with the Land Rover, put ourselves between her and any elephant that gets too inquisitive. But first let's try and get Mnumzane out of the way.'\n\nDavid jumped into the back of Landy and sliced the first of the large sacks of horse pellets with his Leatherman knife. He placed the open bag at the tailgate and crouched down next to it. 'I hope they like this stuff.'\n\n'We'll soon find out,' I said, getting behind the wheel and driving slowly towards Mnumzane.\n\nDavid was making light of it, but this was a deadly serious business. Elephants will usually only bother rhinos if they don't get out of their way \u2013 which rhinos invariably do. However, our latest addition was still shaking off the effects of sedatives injected to pacify her during the journey to Thula Thula, and thus would not be able to take in her surroundings. If she stumbled into Mnumzane or the herd... well, anything could happen.\n\nWhat we planned to do was divert Mnumzane's attention from the groggy creature by giving him a taste of the protein-rich pellets and then enticing him as far away as possible by laying a food trail. It was dangerous work as David would be completely exposed on the open back of the pickup as he poured the feed out to excited elephants following just yards behind. Mnumzane was only a teenager, but he still weighed about three and a half tons and we had to be very careful.\n\nI cut across in front of the youngster then reversed back to where he stood confused and a little petulant about the noisy intrusion into his space. David chucked out some feed and I drove off a short distance. To my dismay, he ignored the offering and resumed his meander up the airstrip towards the rhino.\n\n'Reverse again!' shouted David, holding the bag ready to pour. 'But this time get much closer.'\n\n'OK... but be bloody careful.'\n\nI gingerly edged the vehicle backwards... 'Closer, closer!' David called, keeping a wary watch on the young bull.\n\nSuddenly, not liking what was going on, Mnumzane lifted his head aggressively and turned sharply towards us, ears spread wide.\n\n'Just a little bit more...' said David ignoring the elephant's blatant warning, and just as I thought we were too close he quickly tipped the bag and I slammed the vehicle into first, easing off with David laying a long trail of feed away from the rhino.\n\nMnumzane watched us go; relaxing his flared ears and unfurling his trunk to smell the pile of pellets on the ground. He snuffled some into his mouth and a few seconds later he was piling in like a glutton. The ploy had worked.\n\n'That will keep him busy and we've plenty more chow if the others come across,' said David hopping off the back and getting into the passenger seat, shoving Max between us.\n\nAt the mention of the other elephants, I looked up to where they were grazing about forty yards away. As I did so, Nana's trunk suddenly snaked up. Even though she was upwind, elephants have such a superb sense of smell that they can pick up minute eddies swirling ever so slightly against the prevailing current.\n\n'Here we go,' said David. 'She's smelt something. Either the rhino or the food, and now she's inquisitive. Just pray that she doesn't come this way.'\n\nBut of course she did. With the herd following, she started moving towards us, checking the air continuously, sniffing for the source of the scent.\n\n'Damn it!' We now had the herd coming in on one side of the poor rhino and Mnumzane on the other. Even worse, they weren't advancing in single file which would have been much more manageable. Nana was in the centre with Frankie, her daughter Marula and firstborn son Mabula on the left, while Nana's young son Mandla and stately daughter Nandi spread out on the right.\n\nStraight in front of them, still secreted in the bush was the woozy rhino, which to my dismay had begun settling down for a rest, making herself even more vulnerable.\n\n'OK,' said David, 'let's do it again, draw them away with the feed.'\n\nHe leapt onto the back of the Land Rover and this time cut open two bags and got ready to pour a trail while I reversed in.\n\nThe reaction of the herd was interesting. They picked up the scent and cautiously came towards us while David scooped pellets out as fast as possible. Mabula and Marula stopped and started sniffing at the strange fare but the rest, led by Nana and Frankie, continued on, slowly following the trail left behind the Land Rover.\n\nThen \u2013 of all things \u2013 the Land Rover stalled and I couldn't restart it. Thankfully the cabin rear window had long since lost its glass and with Nana almost on top of him David somehow squeezed his large body through the tiny gap and dived onto Max in the passenger seat in a tangle of limbs.\n\nThen the elephants were on us. We were surrounded.\n\nDavid turned and stared at the miniature window that he had somehow scrunched through. 'Don't think I could do that again,' he laughed. 'Amazing what a shot of adrenalin can do.'\n\nFortunately it was the feed the elephants were after and the two adults yanked the remaining bags off the back and tried standing on them to smash them open. Frankie, frustrated in her attempts to open one bag, grabbed it by the corner with her trunk and flicked it high into the air \u2013 thankfully in the opposite direction from the now-sleeping rhino. It sailed above our heads for at least thirty yards and landed with a thud, scattering its contents. Given that the bag weighed 120 pounds and she had only grasped it with the tip of her trunk, the height and distance of the throw was truly awesome.\n\nThe elephants loped off after the broken bag and while they were busy gorging themselves we were able to sneak out to fix the Land Rover. It was a disconnected fuel line and soon we restarted it. Now knowing that they loved horse feed I radioed for more and we were able to lay juicy trails of food leading the herd far away from our new arrivals.\n\nWe weren't so lucky with Mnumzane. He had unfinished business with the rhino, and soon lost interest in the scraps of feed on the ground, walking back towards where she lay.\n\nThere was nothing left to do but get between them and keep him away as best we could. My heart jumped at the thought, for even at his age he could easily toss our vehicle over if he wanted to. Bull elephants don't like to be forced to do something against their will.\n\nI drove past Mnumzane up to the drowsy rhino and blocked his path, leaving the motor running. He could easily walk around us of course, so the plan was to keep moving in front of him, obstructing him from the rhino and hope he got the message without feeling he had been interfered with. And particularly without provoking a charge.\n\nOn he came until he was about ten paces away and then stopped and watched us guardedly, assessing the situation with elephantine intelligence. As we predicted he started making a wide circle around the vehicle. Now came the tricky part because not only would he be much closer, but he would realize he was being thwarted.\n\n'Hold on,' I said quietly as I gently moved the Landy forward to block him.\n\nAgain he stopped, this time less than five yards away and then he changed tack. I reversed and as we started moving his ears flared out and he swung to face us head-on. He had taken up the challenge and the tension in the Landy ratcheted up as he took an aggressive step towards us, head held high.\n\n'Shit!' said David quietly.\n\n'No! Mnumzane, no!' I called out the open window, ensuring that my voice conveyed intention rather than anger, or worse still fear. 'No!'\n\nAgain he stepped forward, ears belligerently splayed, tail up. This was no game.\n\n'No, Mnumzane! No!' I called again, as I reversed in a tight semicircle to keep him away. 'No!'\n\nOut of the corner of my eye I saw the rhino wake up, stumble to her feet and start moving off, giving us precious space in which to manoeuvre. Relieved, I swung the Landy around until we faced the temperamental elephant head-on with about ten yards separating us.\n\nAs we confronted each other he began swinging his front foot, a sure sign that he was going to charge. Without thinking I dropped the clutch and briefly lurched the Landy at him, and then again, challenging him directly.\n\n'Whoa!' said David, gripping the dashboard. 'Here he comes!'\n\nThen as we braced for the inevitable charge, he suddenly broke and ran off at a gait, trunk held high. I had to press home our advantage and immediately followed him, goading him away until he reached thick bush and disappeared.\n\n'Flippin' hell,' said David, expelling breath with a whoosh. 'That was a close one. I wouldn't try that with an adult bull.'\n\nHe was absolutely right. Mnumzane's youth was on our side, but it had worked and the rhino was safe. We posted a ranger with the rhino with instructions to call if any elephants reappeared and I went off to find Mnumzane and make my peace with him.\nchapter seventeen\n\nFrankie's charge at Fran\u00e7oise and me, terrifying as it was, had in its own strange way strengthened the bond that I had been building with the herd. The fact that the matriarch Nana had not joined in was an impressive breakthrough. She had launched a few aggressive steps towards us, which is only to be expected of a wild elephant, but then she almost instantly halted. To me, the fact that she had not overreacted was significant.\n\nFrankie, who had a sinister reputation already, had broken a full-blooded charge as soon as she recognized me \u2013 something virtually unheard of in the elephant world.\n\nHowever, what happened a few months later, was even more surprising.\n\nFran\u00e7oise and I were fast asleep when Bijou's persistent growling woke us. Bijou \u2013 jewel in French \u2013 is Fran\u00e7oise's tiny Maltese poodle, the obligatory accoutrement of almost an entire nation of French women. Bijou enjoyed a privileged life beyond anything Max or Penny could ever hope to aspire to. She had the choice food, even real steak, and slept on the bed between us where for a time her major accomplishment was nearly destroying our sex life.\n\nShe was not a watchdog, so when she started growling I realized something serious was going on.\n\nI jumped out of bed, grabbed my shotgun and then heard what the problem was \u2013 a heavy scraping on the roof accompanied by soft thuds. The other dogs were also alert. Penny's hair stood stiff as wire on her back and she was crouching protectively next to Fran\u00e7oise. Max was sitting at the door, ears cocked but calm, watching me quizzically for instructions.\n\nI pulled on some trousers and then tentatively opened the top half of the stable door leading to the garden, shotgun at the ready.\n\nWhoa! A giant figure suddenly loomed up and I got the fright of my life, hastily stepping back and tripping over Max, then staggering backwards until I slammed into the opposite wall, sprawling in an undignified mess on the floor. I somehow managed to keep the cocked shotgun from hammering into the wall and discharging a shot.\n\nFor there, standing in the doorway, casually pulling the grass from our thatched roof was Nana.\n\nWoken by the commotion, Fran\u00e7oise was sitting up in bed holding Bijou tightly \u2013 staring at the apparition in the doorway. Like her, I couldn't believe my eyes. Of all the spooky things that I could have imagined outside my front door at some ungodly hour, a full-grown elephant was definitely not one of them.\n\nRecovering my composure I got up and walked toward the door and \u2013 not really knowing what to do \u2013 began talking softly to her.\n\n'Hey, Nana, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here, you beautiful girl?'\n\nI will always remember her response. She stretched out her trunk and I did likewise with my hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world. For a few magnetic moments we connected. I stood a little closer, taking care to stay at the edge of her reach so she couldn't grab me, and she moved the tip of her trunk over my T-shirt and then touched me on the head and face. I held my ground, completely entranced by the exhilarating combination of danger and affection. Considering that she couldn't see what she was doing as her eyes were above door level, she was surprisingly gentle.\n\nShe then lowered her head and moved forward, almost as if she was trying to come inside, and with that Bijou barked. The spell was broken.\n\nI doubt whether many people have had a ten-foot, five-ton wild elephant trying to squeeze into their room via a narrow door, but take it from me, it is not a soothing experience.\n\nBijou and Penny went ballistic, sprinting around the room barking like banshees. Surprised, Nana backed off a few paces and flared her ears.\n\nAlarmed that the dogs were going to be stomped flat, Fran\u00e7oise grabbed Penny and stuffed her into the bottom of a built-in clothes cupboard. She then rushed after Bijou who, assuming the unlikely role as protector of the realm, was now for reasons known only to her having a go at Max, shrieking at him in high-pitched Maltese. I'm convinced that Nana was just too awesome for the tiny poodle to grasp and thus she assumed all the confusion was to be blamed on a bemused Max, who sat patiently ignoring her.\n\nFran\u00e7oise caught her and as she was putting the semi-hysterical pooch into the cupboard, Penny pushed open her door and came back into the fray. She wasn't going to let anything \u2013 not even an elephant \u2013 get between her and Fran\u00e7oise.\n\nFran\u00e7oise managed to scramble Penny into her arms again and as she pushed her back in the cupboard, Bijou bolted out. It was an absolute circus. Eventually we locked all three dogs in the bathroom, and I was able to concentrate on Nana.\n\nWith all the commotion she had moved off about ten paces and it was only then I saw that the entire herd was with her. I looked at my watch: 2 a.m.\n\n'This is amazing,' I said to Fran\u00e7oise who had joined me at the door. 'This is completely bloody amazing.'\n\n'What are they doing here?'\n\n'I have no idea. But we might as well enjoy it while it lasts.'\n\nEnjoy it we did. There was an air of contentment as the animals strolled around the lawn in the moonlight, casting giant shadows across the garden like ghosts of the prehistoric world.\n\nAs they moved off to the front of the house I dashed across the lawn to the rangers' quarters to wake David.\n\nHe shot up in his bed. 'Poachers again?'\n\n'No. The elephants are here. Come quickly.'\n\n'What do you mean... here?'\n\n'Here at the house. They're on the front lawn.'\n\n'Our front lawn? Our elephants... ?'\n\n'Come... get dressed.'\n\nI rushed back to Fran\u00e7oise.\n\n'You'd better wash before you come near me,' she said, pointing at me with feigned revulsion on her face. I looked at her, perplexed, then put my hand on my chest to feel a gooey, sticky mess.\n\n'Your head,' she said, wrinkling her nose. 'It's also all over your head.'\n\nI strode over to the mirror and saw exactly what she meant. I was covered in pachyderm slime. I must have had a half a pint of mucous from Nana's trunk spread all over me.\n\n'I'll wash later. David is joining us on the verandah. Let's go and watch.'\n\nI let Max out of the bathroom and the three of us sneaked across the lawn to the rangers' house, keeping a sharp eye out for any stray jumbos and then went out onto the front verandah. Here Fran\u00e7oise had a grandstand view of the herd destroying her cherished garden; they pushed over trees, tore apart her favourite bushes and ate every flower they could find. I must say she seemed less entranced by the visit than I was.\n\nDavid came out and joined us. 'This is unbelievable. They're all here,' he said, eyes straining against the gloom, 'except Mnumzane.'\n\n'No, he's here too. I saw him earlier.'\n\nDavid found him standing alone in the dark about twenty yards away. 'Poor guy. They tolerate him, but only just. He's got no adult relatives so he's always a Johnny-come-lately. I really hope he turns out OK.'\n\n'He's a big boy,' I replied. 'He'll be fine.'\n\nNana looked up from the garden she was demolishing and with a bunch of prized shrubs in her mouth ambled over to us. Max, who had moved a few paces onto the lawn, silently retreated to the relative safety of the verandah and then followed Fran\u00e7oise when I suggested she go inside in case Nana got too close.\n\nIt was something I just couldn't get used to; the daunting vision of this gargantuan form looming ominously closer, apparently fixated on demonstrating her affection by standing right next to me. It was like having an infatuated Tyrannosaurus rex showering attention on you. What was even more mind-blowing was that not that long ago she would happily have killed me.\n\nWe decided to play it safe and David and I moved back inside the double door and watched her imposing bulk approach. She stopped at the low verandah wall and for the second time that dark morning stretched out her trunk to me. She couldn't reach me, so I decided to hang back and watch and wait.\n\nHowever, I underestimated her persistence \u2013 and her strength. Frustrated at my reluctance to come to her, she decided to come to me, trying to squash her vast frame between the two brick pillars that straddled the verandah entrance. This obviously didn't work, and we watched openmouthed as she then gently placed her forehead on the left pillar and gave an exploratory shove.\n\nThat certainly got my attention. I remembered what she had done to the gate poles at the boma and had no doubt she would bring the whole verandah roof down if she wanted to. I hastily stepped forward and she stopped shoving and lifted her trunk. Once again she snaked it over the top of my body. It was a good thing I hadn't changed for I received another liberal basting of slime, while the sound of her deep rumbling stomach reverberated through the house, drowning out the thumping of my heart.\n\nSatisfied, she eventually ambled away and joined the rest of the clan as they finished off the few remaining exotic plants in Fran\u00e7oise's now obliterated garden.\n\nThen suddenly an eight-week-old kitten we had slipped past us and completely oblivious of the herd walked out onto the lawn. We only noticed after it was too late and watched in horror \u2013 there was nothing we could do to get her back as she was now among the herd. The elephants got very interested in this tiny thing and all sauntered over for a close inspection. Still the tiny cat didn't react \u2013 I think these alien creatures around it were simply too big for it to comprehend, just as they had been for Bijou. Soon it was surrounded and as the elephants put their trunks out, waving the tips around this tiny curiosity, it would swipe at them with its paw, playing with them.\n\nEventually the elephants got tired of it and walked off, leaving the kitten alone on the middle of the lawn.\n\nExcept Frankie. She initially walked away, and then when she was about twenty yards off, she suddenly turned and ran at it. It was a sight I don't think I will ever see again \u2013 a five-ton elephant charging a five-ounce cat.\n\nThe kitten finally realized something was wrong and skittered back to us just in time.\n\nWe stayed up watching until 5 a.m. when, at the first hint of light, Nana moved off with the herd in tow. They were soon eaten up by the dense bush.\n\nI stared after them. A sense of emptiness seeped into my universe. A part of me was leaving with them.\nchapter eighteen\n\nLater that morning I woke with a glorious glow of satisfaction. The herd's visit to our home had graphically demonstrated that we had made substantial progress. To think that not so long ago I was begging for their lives while the Parks Board issued elephant rifles to their rangers with 'shoot on sight' instructions. Now I was trying to keep them out of our living room.\n\nIt seemed the rehabilitation of the herd was all over bar the shouting and we had reason to celebrate our achievements. But whoever came up with the maxim 'pride comes before a fall' certainly knew what he was talking about.\n\nI was enjoying a leisurely late breakfast, still replaying Nana's extraordinary nocturnal display of affection in my mind when I was bumped back to earth by a frantic call from the rangers.\n\n'Mkhulu! Mbomvu! We are in danger; the elephants are trying to kill us.'\n\nIt was Bheki breathlessly shouting out the emergency Mbomvu \u2013 Code Red, the bush equivalent of Mayday.\n\nI grabbed the radio.\n\n'Mkhulu standing by. What's your position?'\n\n'We are at the fence near the river where it leaves the reserve. The elephants are chasing us. We are running. Mkhulu, it is bad!'\n\nI could hear the panic rising in the normally stoic ranger's voice. They were many miles away on the other side of the reserve and there was no chance we could get to them in time. The herd had certainly moved along quickly to be so far away from our house. A few hours earlier they had been trampling Fran\u00e7oise's garden flat.\n\n'How close are they?' I shouted into the radio.\n\n'They are here. She is trying to kill us! The big ones want to kill us!'\n\nBheki is a hugely experienced ranger and the horror in his voice startled me. He also is one of the toughest men I know.\n\n'Get out, Bheki!' I yelled into the radio. 'Take your men through the fence, cut it or find a place and go under.'\n\n'Ngwenya is out already. We are trying to go under.'\n\nThen I heard two shots over the radio.\n\n'Shit! Bheki what's happening? Who's shooting?'\n\n'It's Ngwenya. He's shooting...' The radio went off in mid sentence.\n\n'Go! Just get out!' I shouted, desperately trying to make contact, but Bheki's radio stayed dead.\n\nDavid who had been listening ran off and brought the Land Rover over, driving across Fran\u00e7oise's mutilated garden to our front door. I climbed in and he pulled off cursing the Landy's infamously wide turning circle as he spun the wheels through the soft sand of demolished flower beds and sped for the gate.\n\n'Bheki, Bheki come in, come in.'\n\nBut there was no reply. The radio remained ominously silent for the forty minutes it took us to hurry across the reserve, bouncing across the ridged tracks at breakneck speed, not knowing what we would find, and not daring to imagine the worst.\n\nThen about a hundred yards from the fence I saw the herd milling about restlessly. On the other side, barely visible in the thick bush huddled Bheki and his men. I did a quick head-count, first of the rangers, and then the elephant and exhaled deeply in absolute relief. They were all there.\n\nFrankie noticed us first and angrily lifted her foot, stamping the ground until it trembled, shaking her mighty head. She was extremely agitated by whatever had happened and was letting us know it.\n\nWe pulled over and called out to the rangers who gingerly emerged from the thicket, all eyes on the herd now starting to move off.\n\n'Are you OK?' I asked. 'What happened?'\n\n'Ayish... Mkhulu, these elephant are crazy,' Ngwenya said with a sweep of his arm at the departing herd. 'We found them here on the fence and they wanted to kill us. They charged us and we ran and ran but they chased us. Then just as we thought we were finished, we found the stream that goes under the fence and we crawled out. The electricity was biting us but we had to go on. My radio is finished. It was in the water.'\n\nI took out a pair of pliers, snipped the fence and lifted the electric wires with a stick so they could crawl back into the reserve.\n\n'You were lucky,' I said, as I rejoined the severed fence. 'Now you have seen up close how dangerous these elephants are. Tell the others, tell everyone working here to keep their eyes open and stay far away from them.'\n\nI knew this episode would quickly spread through the village \u2013 with hugely colourful embellishments \u2013 which I hoped would further discourage potential poachers.\n\nBut that was not my main concern. Instead, what really alarmed me was the fact the herd had no obvious reason to charge the rangers. Either the animals had been inadvertently provoked by Bheki and his men, or they were just hell-bent on ridding their new territory of all strange human beings. Perhaps the guards with their rifles reminded them of poachers from earlier encounters in their troubled lives.\n\nHowever, the more I thought about it, I began to believe the real reason was probably more innocuous. The rangers had probably been casually chatting among themselves and paying scant attention to their surroundings when, before they knew it, they had stumbled into the elephants' space. Suddenly they were in deep trouble. Or at least that's what I hoped had happened. We would never know, but what was certain was this was still an extremely dangerous herd and there was lots of work to be done before we could relax. If indeed we ever could.\n\nOn the upside, my rangers now knew exactly how alert they had to be in the bush and I was sure they wouldn't make the same mistake twice. And to their eternal credit, they hadn't shot directly at the animals but kept their heads and got out of the reserve.\n\nThey all climbed on the back of the Landy and we drove back to the house, whereupon they called all the other staff together and animatedly recounted their perilous experience as only Zulus, who are born raconteurs, can do, with everyone laughing loudly as they argued about who ran away the fastest.\n\nMy sons Dylan, twenty-one, and Jason, twenty-three, from my first marriage were arriving later that day to spend some time on Thula Thula and I was looking forward to seeing them. Jason is a city boy who enjoys the bush. Dylan on the other hand is nuts about the wild and spends every spare moment he can out in the sticks.\n\nWe had a treat in store for them as David and I had chanced upon an active hyena den a few weeks earlier and planned to stake it out that night. Soon after the boys arrived we packed some supplies and drove out to the den, but to our dismay found that it had recently been abandoned. The clan had moved on.\n\nDylan couldn't hide his disappointment and had walked off looking for their spoor. Soon we heard his low whistle.\n\n'Dylan's calling us,' I said. 'He's found something.'\n\nWe pushed through the undergrowth and eventually found him crouched in a clearing. 'Rock python,' he whispered excitedly and spread his arms wide. 'Huge.'\n\nThula Thula and its surroundings are prime python territory, so much so that the snake has become the totem of the local Biyela tribe who believe that the spirits of their ancestors sometimes return in the form of this magnificent constrictor. Whenever a python is seen in the village, instead of killing it as they would do with any other snake, the people gather to watch and sometimes tie a goat to a stake as an offering. Rock pythons are Africa's largest snakes and can be extremely aggressive when disturbed. And these are big reptiles we're talking about; ten or twelve feet long is not unusual.\n\nBut what Dylan had found astounded me. It was the biggest python I have ever seen, its golden brown body with tan and olive blotches stretched at full length in the bush.\n\nHowever, that's not what Dylan was looking at. Instead he was pointing elsewhere, and as we moved across I saw another snake \u2013 even bigger. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sighting and of course no one had a camera. It's axiomatic that if you want to see something really special in the bush, you leave your camera behind. Both snakes were resting, immobile after a day's basking in the sun and we were able to walk up reasonably close without alarming them. Dylan paced them out. The first was fifteen feet long, the second a super trophy size seventeen feet.\n\n'That puts paid to my snake reference book,' said David. 'It says that pythons only grow to fourteen or fifteen feet.'\n\nWe gazed at these incredible specimens, each as thick as a muscular man's arm, until it got dark, then continued our vigil by torchlight, leaving only when the batteries started running low \u2013 not surprisingly none of us wanted to be anywhere near these monsters in the dark.\n\nThe next day when we returned they were gone.\n\nI have not seen a snake of that magnitude since. And probably never will. But it was heartening to know they were out there, safe, protected and breeding.\nchapter nineteen\n\nEach day I made a trip into the bush to spend time with the herd, not only to check on their habits and movements, but because it was so invigorating being out there with them. Most importantly I wanted to continue investigating some strange aspects of their communication that intrigued me. I had opened the door to a brave new world and wanted to take advantage of every minute in the bush alone with them.\n\nI was on foot searching for elephants on a hot afternoon, when for a split second it felt as if the herd was right there, as if I had been daydreaming and walked into them. I quickly gathered myself and looked around, but surprisingly they were nowhere in sight.\n\nA little later it happened again. It was the lightest touch and then it was gone. Again I looked around but there was still no sign of them. Something inexplicable was going on. I was surprised that in all the time I had spent with elephants I had never noticed anything like this before.\n\nSo I waited, going back to doing exactly what I had been doing before \u2013 just being part of the bush, and not expecting anything to happen. Suddenly, I got it again, a strong sense of anticipation that the herd was close by, and with that Nana emerged out of a nearby thicket followed by the others. I was gobsmacked. I had somehow picked up that they were there well before seeing them.\n\nIn time I found that this experience also manifested itself in reverse. Sometimes while searching for them I would eventually realize that they were not in the area at all, that they were somewhere else. Not because I couldn't find them, but because the bush felt completely empty of their presence.\n\nAfter a couple of weeks of practice I started getting the hang of it and, eventually, under the right circumstances, it became easier and easier to find them. Somehow I had become aware that elephants project their presence into an area around them, and that they have control over this, because when they didn't want to be found I could be almost on top of them and pick up nothing at all. A little more experimentation and research and it became clear what was happening. Much like a lion's roar at an audible level, the herd's deep rumblings, well below human hearing, were permeating the bush for miles around them, and I was somehow picking this up even though I couldn't hear it at all. They were letting everything and everyone know where they were in their own elephantine way, in their own language.\n\nOne morning while driving gingerly along a boulder-strewn track I sensed that elephants were around and then heard a distinct trumpeting. I stopped and a few minutes later it echoed again, this time considerably closer. Suddenly a breathless Mnumzane lumbered out of the woodland, stopping right in front of the Land Rover, cutting me off and staring intently at me through the windscreen. He had never come that close before.\n\nHe was absolutely calm and I sat in the vehicle, my heart beating loudly. Twenty minutes later I was much more relaxed and he was still there, browsing all around the Landy and showing no inclination to leave.\n\nThen the radio squawked into life and he tensed at the guttural invasion of the elemental serenity. It was the office, requesting that I return to base. But as I started pulling off Mnumzane quickly moved in front of the vehicle, and without malice, deliberately blocked the way. Puzzled, I switched the Land Rover off and he nonchalantly returned to his grazing. However, as soon as I keyed the ignition he again moved into my path, relaxing only when I switched off.\n\nIt was clear that he didn't want me to leave. I rolled opened the window.\n\n'Hello, big boy. What's up today?'\n\nHe slowly, almost hesitantly, came around to the window, standing a yard or so away, looking down at me with his wise brown eyes. He rolled his head leisurely and seemed completely content, emanating easy companionship I felt as though I was in the presence of an old friend. This was what intrigued me: the emotions that I experienced when I was with them. For it seemed to be their emotions, not mine.\n\nThey determined the emotional tone of any encounter. This is exactly what Nana had done to me in the boma when she decided it was time to leave. And this is what Mnumzane was doing at this very moment \u2013 passing on the sensation of being with an old friend. I recalled too the hostility in the boma when they first arrived. The antipathy reached out across the wires and you could feel it all around the enclosure, whether they were in sight or not.\n\nMy attention returned to Mnumzane and then it dawned that he had chosen me for company over his own kind. That was why he had trumpeted out telling me to wait as I drove past, which is why he wouldn't let me leave.\n\nI felt absolutely humbled, the hairs on my arm stiff with goosebumps as this colossus towered above me so obviously wanting to be friends. I decided to make the most of the experience \u2013 or rather privilege \u2013 and stayed put.\n\nHe continued feeding and the nearby trees took a hammering as he moved from one to the next, snapping branches like twigs and stripping the leaves, creating a clear browse line. Every now and again he would lift his massive head and unfurl his trunk at me, sniffing to make sure I was still there.\n\nEventually, after about another thirty minutes he turned and stepped aside to let the vehicle through.\n\n'Thank you, Mnumzane. See you tomorrow, my friend.'\n\nHis tilted his head for a moment and then with that peculiar graceful swaying gait melted into the bush.\n\nI drove off. When the radio barked with David asking where I was, I didn't answer. I was too awed to speak.\n\nAs I spent more time with Nana and her charges, they too started coming closer and closer until they were happy grazing near the Land Rover. I was watching them on one occasion when Nana suddenly stopped feeding and walked up to the vehicle.\n\nI didn't move. I could sense that she was being friendly so didn't feel threatened, but I was totally unprepared for what happened next. Infinitely slowly \u2013 or so it felt \u2013 she stretched her trunk through the window to greet me. It was shockingly intimate, and although she had touched me before both in the boma and when she came up to the house, I believe this was the elephantine equivalent of an affectionate pat. She was letting me know that she was just fine with me being out there with them on their turf. Despite the obviously dangerous circumstances, I had never felt more comfortable, nor more at ease.\n\nEven Frankie was becoming more accommodating and would stand quite close to the vehicle with Mabula and Marula. The battleaxe had a soft side and once even started reaching out with her trunk, but lost her nerve and withdrew as soon as I put my hand up.\n\nDespite the feel-good factor, I never forgot that these were wild elephants and whenever they came close I manoeuvred the Land Rover continuously to ensure I was never cut off or put in a situation where I felt trapped or uncomfortable.\n\nThese encounters gradually became more and more spontaneous and as the months went by I started getting individual greetings from the rest of the herd. They didn't go as far as putting their trunks in the car as Nana did, but they would come right up and lift them as if waving. What they were doing, of course, was smelling me. I seemed to have been accepted as an honorary member of the group.\n\nBut in the process the Land Rover was taking a hell of a beating. Elephants are extremely tactile, always touching, pushing and brushing against each other, and when these hefty jumbos bumped the vehicle, which they did all the time, they left crater-sized dents. The Landy eventually looked as though it had been in a particularly eventful NASCAR race. It attracted a lot of attention on my rare town trips and was quickly named 'the elephant car'.\n\nThe herd also loved to play with anything that protruded on the vehicle. My side-view mirrors were long gone, yanked off as if they were made of paper. Both radio aerials went the same way and I had to have screw-ons fitted, which I could remove before venturing out to meet the herd. The windscreen wipers were stripped off so often that I gave up replacing them, just driving with my head out of the window if it rained. And of course anything left in the back was carted off into the bush, including a spare wheel that we never recovered.\n\nFor some reason they found the texture of metal fascinating and would spend hours feeling it. They loved the heat pinging off the engine, especially if the weather was cold, and would rest their trunks on the hood for long periods. In summer when the hood was searing hot they would lay their trunks down on it and then quickly yank them off, only \u2013 inexplicably \u2013 to scorch themselves again a few minutes later.\n\nNana and Frankie, who had both been impregnated before arriving at Thula Thula, were coming to the end of their term and I kept a special eye on them. Elephants have a gestation period of twenty-two months, which meant that, amazingly, they had gone through two dartings and captures, and had been on the run while pregnant without adverse effect.\n\nEvery week or two they came up to the house, so we eventually strung an electric wire around Fran\u00e7oise's garden otherwise they would have trampled it flat and gobbled up the shrubbery. But even that didn't deter them from visiting; they would stand patiently at the wire until I came down and said hello.\n\nOne week I went to Durban on business and on my return was surprised to see all seven elephants outside the house, waiting expectantly as if part of a reception committee. I put it down to coincidence. But it happened again after the next trip, and the next. It soon became obvious that somehow they knew exactly when I was away and when I was coming back.\n\nThen it got... well, spooky. I was at the airport in Johannesburg and missed my flight home. Back at Thula Thula, 400 miles away, the herd was on their way up to the house when, as I was later told, they suddenly halted, turned around and retreated into the bush. We later worked out that this happened at exactly the same time as I missed my flight.\n\nThe next day they were back at the house as I arrived.\n\nI soon accepted that there was something extremely unusual about all this; something that transcended the limited realm of my understanding. What has been scientifically proven is elephants' incredible communication ability. As I had learned, elephants transmit infrasound vibrations through unique stomach rumblings that can be received over vast distances. These ultra-low frequencies, which cannot be detected by the human ear, oscillate at similar wavelengths to those transmitted by whales; vibrations that some believe quaver across the globe.\n\nBut even if those wavelengths only vibrate for hundreds of square miles, which is now generally accepted in the scientific community, it still means elephants are potentially in contact with each other across the African continent. One herd speaks with a neighbouring herd, which in turn connects with another until you have conduits covering their entire habitat, just as you or I would have a long-distance telephone call.\n\nWhen scientist Katy Payne, of the Elephant Listening Project at Cornell University, discovered these elephant sound waves it was a startling breakthrough, one which would change our entire concept of elephant behaviour. There is a concrete link between advanced congenital intelligence and long-distance communication. For example, a frog's communication skills consist solely of primal mating croaks as its pond constitutes its entire universe. It has no need to expand further.\n\nBut elephants are communicating across vast distances, which shows that these giants of the wilderness are far more developed than we ever believed. They possess a vastly greater intellect than previously thought.\n\nIf you doubt this, consider the following: would elephants have evolved such incredible communication abilities just to transmit a series of meaningless rumbles and grunts? Of course not. Evolution is ruthless; anything not essential to survival withers on the gene-pool vine. Thus it is only reasonable to postulate that elephants are using these advanced long-distance frequencies for a specific purpose \u2013 to communicate coherently, one to another and herd to herd.\n\nSo are they are telling each other about what is happening to their world and what we as humans are doing to them? Given their intelligence there is no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what is happening.\nchapter twenty\n\nEven though the Ovambos were long gone, poaching continued sporadically and while we tried our best to stamp it out, losing the odd impala on a game reserve whilst galling, was tantamount to shoplifting from a department store. But suddenly the situation changed. The Buchanana police station commander called me in and said he had information that rhino and ivory poachers were in the area. As any game ranger knows, these thugs were in a different league altogether: highly organized, heavily armed professionals who wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way. They knew what they were doing, as we soon found out.\n\nWe didn't even hear the shot. It was fired from a .458 calibre rifle on the far side of the reserve, quiet and lethal. We only discovered the victim days later when out on patrol I noticed scores of white-backed vultures circling down in an aerial funnel.\n\nSomething had died. Something big and we needed to get there fast to find out what it was. However, the corpse was in dense thornveld, far off any track, and by the time we had hiked there we were scratched, tired and greasy with sweat.\n\nHyenas had already made gaping red inroads into the carcass, opening up the armour-plated skin for the vultures which swarmed over the rank grey cadaver. There must have been a hundred of them squawking, flapping and fighting to tear at the carrion.\n\nThose that had fought themselves into prime positions were stretching their elongated necks deep into the festering intestines, gorging themselves. Moving about on the edge of the melee were two black-backed jackals darting in and out between the huge birds and snatching at the meat. Judging by the state of decomposition the mound of putrefying flesh seemed about three days old.\n\nIt was a southern white rhino female, her gore-congealed snout grotesquely crumpled as both horns had been cleanly severed \u2013 probably with a chainsaw. Even though she had only been with us for less than a year, I knew her well, always stopping at a safe distance and 'chatting' to her whenever I saw her. She was the one we had distracted Mnumzane from with the horse feed, the day rhinos were first introduced on Thula Thula. My distress was compounded by the evidence that she was pregnant, the remains of the foetus scattered amongst the disgorged entrails.\n\nThis was the work of expert poachers. They must have been hiding inside the reserve for days watching the rhino's movements and ours and meticulously planning the murder of this magnificent animal. Nature had lost a prime breeding female and we would feel the loss keenly. We only had four rhinos so it was not only a financial setback, it was even more of a blow to our pride. We had been out-manoeuvred and that really hurt.\n\nBut we knew the poachers were still out there somewhere and would come back. Everyone was itching to have a go at them. We wanted justice \u2013 not just for the poor rhino, whose horns would be smuggled to the Orient to satisfy the nonsensical belief that it harboured aphrodisiacal qualities, but for all the animals they had slaughtered.\n\nIt was early evening a week later when we heard a muted rifle crack and saw spotlights periodically blinking far out in the reserve. This was the mistake we had been waiting for. Within minutes we were armed and ready for hot pursuit. We now only tracked on foot as the headlights and diesel-growl of a Land Rover were a dead giveaway, providing poachers with plenty of time to melt into the bush. It's a hard slog; done almost at a jog following the brief flashes of torches that the poachers flicked on and off to get their bearings.\n\nConversely, this meant we couldn't risk giving away our position using flashlights ourselves. However, our trump card was that we knew the shortcuts and could find our way through the bush far better than them. It was pitch-black and the biggest danger, of course, was stumbling blindly into the elephants, or another rhino. I didn't even want to think about that.\n\nA shootout with poachers is called a 'contact', copying military jargon, and it can be as hairy as a war zone. Everybody is armed, it's dark and both sides are overdosing on adrenalin. Our guards usually work in teams of two: one toting a .303 rifle and the other a pump-action shotgun loaded with heavy SG ball-bearing shot. I prefer a shotgun, as it's more accurate at close quarters. At night it's always close quarters.\n\nHowever, this time I had my son Dylan and four men \u2013 including Bheki and Ngwenya \u2013 with me and silently we approached, eyes straining to pick up the glimmer of a torch. We were almost at the boundary and closing in fast when I felt something brush against my leg. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Somehow suppressing a yell I looked down and there in the dark was Max, his tail wagging madly. He had somehow got out and followed our trail; it was another adventure he was determined to participate in.\n\nI obviously didn't want him with us but it was too late, so I ordered him to heel and he dutifully fell in behind me. He was small enough not to be a target, I justified to myself, and may even be able to help.\n\nThen we heard a suppressed cough, and a torch flickered briefly up and down the fence, searching for the hole they had earlier cut. We had them. They were coming along the fence in our direction.\n\nI nodded at Bheki who touched two of the others, whispering to one to circle around to the fence behind the poachers and the other to go up to the fence in front of them to cut off their escape routes. Bheki, Dylan and I moved over and took cover behind some termite mounds. The trap was set.\n\nThen I heard the soft scratch of Bheki's safety catch being clicked off. We all did the same and waited. Tension was building, and the adrenalin-driven anticipation that every soldier in every war has felt in the seconds before battle, pervaded my senses.\n\nThe poachers moved silently alongside the fence, flashing their torches on and off as they looked for their exit until they were only thirty yards or so away.\n\nBheki reached over, touched my arm and nodded. We both leapt up, switching on our spotlights and shouting at them to lay down their weapons.\n\nThe megawatt beam illuminated at least eight men all carrying rifles. These were the professionals all right.\n\nThen all hell broke loose as the startled poachers opened fire, most shooting wildly from the hip in their haste.\n\nBheki and I flicked off our lights as we dived for cover. I landed in some thorny scrub at the base of the termite mound, trigger finger twitching but I dared not shoot as they would see the muzzle-flash and target me. Impossibly I felt a wet lick on my face. Max, concerned as to why I was on the ground was checking on me. I grabbed him and held him down.\n\nNgwenya and the other ranger on the fence line had also opened fire and the gunmen knew they were well and truly cut off.\n\nIt was now a stand-off, both sides waiting for the other to fire first to give away their positions. They were trapped at the electric fence and although they outnumbered us almost two to one, they couldn't know that yet as they had been blinded by the brief burst of flashlight.\n\nI sensed Bheki a few yards to my right, an excellent man to have with you in a firefight: tough, loyal and ruthless. We had been in this situation before and I knew he was waiting for the exact moment as I was. The waiting would soon get to them and they would decide to run for it, firing wildly to deter pursuit. Then we could target them.\n\nThe black silence was stiflingly claustrophobic. Unbearable \u2013 but I knew it would be even more so for them.\n\nSuddenly a fusillade of lead cracked and twanged above our heads and we instantly fired back. There were so many muzzle-flashes that you couldn't tell who was who.\n\nThen silence again.\n\nI was sure we had got at least a couple of them. Shotguns at that close range are extremely effective, but there were no groans of the injured or the rasping breath of someone trying to choke intense pain.\n\nThen one of the poachers called out: 'Hey, amafowethu, why are you shooting your guns at your Zulu brothers? Why are you doing the white man's work?'\n\nSilence.\n\n'Amafowethu \u2013 my brothers. We do not want to kill you. Let us go and no one will get hurt.'\n\nSilence.\n\n'We have a big buck here. There is plenty of inyama for all. We will share it with you. Real bush meat \u2013 not the stuff women eat.'\n\nSilence.\n\n'Come and join us!' another called. 'We will feast like kings tonight.'\n\nBheki inched slightly towards me, whispering so low I could scarcely hear him.\n\n'They're trying to distract us while they climb the fence. I hear the wire moving.'\n\nThen suddenly he roared the ancient Zulu war cry, 'Uzodla iklwa lethu' \u2013 you will eat our spears \u2013 and as he opened fire someone screamed and pandemonium erupted, guns barking like a cacophony of wild dogs.\n\nI worked my pump-action shotgun furiously, spraying a maelstrom of SG in the direction I presumed the men would be scattering. Dylan did the same.\n\nAs suddenly as it started, the firing stopped and we reloaded. We waited for five minutes, an eternity in that deathly silence, but nothing stirred.\n\nThen I heard a low groan \u2013 at least one man had been hit. Shotgun at the ready, I moved to the edge of the mound, stuck out my arm and flicked the spotlight switch.\n\nIn fact we had wounded three of them; one sprawled at the foot of the fence, shot through the legs by a .303 and two others badly punctured with shotgun pellets. The rest had got away, but judging by the gouts of blood dripping from where they had scrambled through the fence, there had been some serious casualties.\n\nThankfully, the six of us were unscathed.\n\nBheki shouted at the injured men, brightly illuminated in the spotlight beams, telling them that if they so much as looked at their guns he would kill them. We adjusted the beams to their eyes to blind them while he walked over and snapped on handcuffs.\n\nThen Ngwenya came across and looked into their faces. 'These men are not from the village. They are not even Zulus,' he spat on the ground. 'They're Shangaans, bush-meat traders and ivory poachers from far away. Tonight they will have learned not to come back again.'\n\nOne of the rangers radioed for a vehicle while the rest of us patched the wounded thugs up as best we could. Max sniffed around for a bit, and then just sat and watched as if this was all in a day's work. The injured men watched him fearfully \u2013 Max can look pretty ferocious.\n\nSoon afterwards a Land Rover arrived and we drove the injured to the Buchanana police station where an ambulance was called. I handed in the poachers' weapons to the police, a .375 and a .458 \u2013 both calibres capable of killing an elephant. There were no bullets. They had shot at us with everything they had, emptied their magazines before trying to make a run for it. Our men still had fifty rounds left. That was the difference \u2013 they had run out of ammo and we hadn't.\n\nI was hoping also to track down the dead rhino's horns, but the police said they believed these had been shipped out of the country on a Taiwanese trawler moored in Richards Bay harbour on the same night that the animal was killed.\n\nFighting poachers is all about bush rumours and reputation. The poachers will always go where pickings are easiest and the syndicates, many of them employed by the same buyers, all speak to each other. The news of our victory tonight would spread like wildfire and we would be left alone for a while.\n\nWe were coming of age. We had taken on a team of hardened professionals and won.\n\nAfter a peaceful few weeks in which I was able to spend wonderful sessions with the herd we got the terrible news that Phineas, the gate guard and our prime testifier against the Ovambo guards, had died. Flu and bronchitis had swept through the village and Phineas's Aids-wracked immune system simply couldn't fight the virus. As sad as this was, I also had to reflect on the fact that we had lost our key witness.\n\nA few days later I got more bad news. The Ovambos, who had been tracked down to Durban, had abandoned their jobs in the city and for all intents and purposes disappeared from the face of the earth.\n\nI reported all this to the prosecutor who looked over the file and said matter-of-factly, 'I'm sorry Mr Anthony but we no longer have a case.' He closed the file and shrugged.\n\nAs always with running a game reserve, one problem disappears and another crops up. Our next challenge came with an unexpected visit from our accountant. He had bad news: our money was running out fast. We had not opened the reserve to guests as we were still settling the elephant herd, and so we had been operating on capital with no income coming in.\n\n'You need to increase your bottom line,' he said. 'Unless you do something to start making money and quickly, there's going to be a problem.'\n\nIt wasn't just cash flow. Thanks to a series of interest rate hikes, our budgets had been thrown into disarray. I scrutinized the numbers from all angles, trying to crunch them this way and that but to no avail. It seemed as though we had to throw in the towel. The thought of putting Thula Thula on the market made me feel ill.\n\nThen Fran\u00e7oise spoke. 'Let's build the little luxury lodge we've always wanted. We need to attract more guests if we want to generate income \u2013 and we can't do that without building some accommodation for tourists.'\n\n'No. That means borrowing money at these extortionate rates,' said the accountant. 'That means even more risk.'\n\nHe scratched his head, punched a whole lot of figures into his calculator and then looked up at us.\n\n'You know, Fran\u00e7oise may be onto something. Building a small \"boutique\" guest lodge may sound crazy in the current financial climate, but it actually makes sense. You need to start creating more revenue. And getting guests is one way to do it.'\n\nI stared at the figures gloomily. 'Well, I think the elephants are now settled enough for us to bring back visitors. But we don't have lions yet, and tourists will want to see big cats.'\n\nFran\u00e7oise looked at me, eyes shimmering with enthusiasm. 'You know what? I will cook to replace the lions. God knows Zululand needs a place with quality food.'\n\nShe came from a family of superb cooks and had been studying on and off under top French chefs in Paris. Suddenly it all clicked into place.\n\n'You're right,' I said, feeling as though a weight had been yanked off my shoulders. 'A small luxury lodge with a gourmet restaurant would give us an edge. It may just work.'\n\nI gave her a hug. 'Let's do it.'\n\nThe thrill of it seized the moment and I went off and came back with a bottle of champagne that we had kept for a special occasion.\n\n'I am afraid I can't stay,' said the accountant nervously looking at his watch. 'I must get home.'\n\nWithout a word I followed him out to his car, shot a hole in his tyre with my 9-mm pistol, and said to him, 'We will make up a bed for you. We don't have a lot of visitors and unfortunately you have an unexpected puncture. Tonight we are celebrating.'\n\nThe poor man sat down and resigned to his fate and took the beer I offered him.\n\n'The champagne's for Fran\u00e7oise.'\n\nShe deserved it. Fran\u00e7oise took over the project and before we knew it a beautiful lodge about two miles from our house started to materialize, rustic yet opulent and set in a grove of mature tambotie, maula and acacia trees on the banks of the Nseleni River. The new Thula Thula was being born. By the end of the year, two years after moving there, our boutique lodge was up and running.\n\nThere are two types of game reserve lodges in Africa: those owned by big corporations; and those owned by conservationists who need the lodge so they can earn income to continue their conservation work. We were certainly amongst the latter. But in any event, Fran\u00e7oise proved to be spectacularly right and our lodge, staffed entirely with local Zulus, was soon getting regular bookings. With plenty of hard work and a bit of luck we could be all right.\nchapter twenty-one\n\nDavid looked worried. 'Notice how quiet everything is?'\n\nWe were sitting on the lawn watching the tree-studded hills of Thula Thula shimmering like a mirage in the early morning thermals. I took a swig of coffee. 'No. Why?'\n\n'It's the elephants,' he said. 'They've gone to ground... we can't find them anywhere. If we hadn't checked the fences, I would've sworn they've broken out.'\n\n'Nah. They're happy here. Those breakout days are gone.'\n\nHe shrugged. 'Maybe. But where are they? We're not even seeing signs of them on game drives.'\n\nI pondered this for a while. The herd was now so calm that we had been able to take reserve guests up reasonably close, providing excited nature lovers with excellent photo opportunities.\n\nThen an image of Nana suddenly flashed through my mind, mirroring the last time I had seen her when she had stretched out her trunk into the Landy. Her belly was as swollen as a barrel... of course, she must have gone deep into the bush to give birth. As we didn't know the date of conception, we weren't sure exactly when she was due.\n\nI loaded up the Land Rover with a day's supplies and set off, searching as far into the most impenetrable parts of Thula Thula's wilderness as I could get. But there were no fresh signs of them whatsoever. I looked in all the lush feeding areas and their favourite hidey holes, but again not a trace of them. The largest land mammals had seemingly vanished into thin air.\n\nWell, not quite. Finally, in the early afternoon I noticed some fresh tracks in an area we call Zulu Graves, a 200-year-old burial ground dating back to the days of King Shaka, founder of the Zulu nation.\n\n'Coooome, Nana!' I called out, singing the words in the timbre they were now used to. 'Coooome, my babbas...' They always seemed to respond to the Zulu word for 'babies'. In this case, I didn't realize how prophetic my call was.\n\nSuddenly the bush started moving, alive with the unmistakable sound of elephants, and the mixture of thrill, fear and affinity I experienced every time I was in their presence coursed through my veins. I called out again, high on anticipation.\n\n'Coooome, babbas?'\n\nThen I saw her. She was standing well off the rough dirt road, watching me but reluctant to advance further. 'That's strange,' I thought, 'she normally comes.'\n\nShe dithered for some time, neither coming forward nor retreating into the bush, almost as if she was uncertain of what to do next. Then I saw why. Standing next to her was a perfectly formed miniature elephant, about two-and-a-half feet high \u2013 perhaps a few days old. As I had suspected, she had just given birth. I was looking at the first elephant to be born in our area for over a hundred years.\n\nNot wanting to intrude I stood there with my heart pounding, wishing I had brought a camera. Then she took a few steps forward, then a few more, and finally started walking slowly towards me with the baby tottering alongside on tiny unsteady feet, its little trunk bobbing like a piece of elastic.\n\nShe was still about thirty yards away when suddenly Frankie appeared, ears flared. It was a stark signal for me to back off. I jumped into the Land Rover, reversed to create a safe zone, then switched off and watched.\n\nGradually the rest of the herd emerged from the bush, eyeing me warily while milling around Nana and the baby.\n\nI watched enthralled as the tactile creatures continually touched and caressed the little one. Even Mnumzane was partially involved, standing at the periphery as close as he was allowed, watching the goings on.\n\nThen Nana, who had been facing me, started walking up the road. I quickly got in, slammed the vehicle into reverse and edged further back, acutely aware of the granite bush maxim that you don't go anywhere near an elephant and her baby. But she kept coming and I figured they wanted to use the road, so I reversed off at right angles into the long grass to allow them to pass well in front of me.\n\nTo my absolute surprise Nana left the road and followed me, with Frankie and the others just a few yards behind. I was no longer in her way so there was no need for this. They could have just strolled past \u2013 this was a conscious decision to come after me and my heart started thumping overtime. I quickly shoved Max off the front seat onto the floor and threw my jacket over him. 'Stay, boy,' I said as he settled down. 'We have visitors.'\n\nSquinting hard into the sun, I tried to detect any hint of hostility... any edginess that I was intruding in matters maternal. There was none, not even from fierce-tempered and still-very pregnant Frankie. All around, the bush breathed peace. It was as if a group decision had been made to come to me.\n\nNana ambled up to my window and stood towering above the Land Rover, dominating the skyline. Below her was her baby. Incredibly she had brought her newborn to me.\n\nI held my breath as her trunk reached into the Land Rover and touched me on the chest; the sandpapery hide somehow as sensitive as silk, then it swivelled back, dropped and touched the little one, a pachyderm introduction. I sat still, stunned by the privilege she was bestowing on me.\n\n'You clever girl,' I said, my voice scratchy. 'What a magnificent baby.'\n\nHer massive skull, just a few yards from mine, seemed to swell even larger with pride.\n\n'I don't know what you call him. But he was born during the first spring showers, so I will call him Mvula.'\n\nMvula is the Zulu word for rain, synonymous with life for those who live with the land. She seemed to agree and the name stuck.\n\nThen she slowly moved off, leading the herd back the way they had come. Within minutes they'd evaporated into the bush.\n\nTwo weeks later they disappeared again and I made another trek to Zulu Graves. They were there, at exactly the same place and time as before. This time it was Frankie with a perfect new baby. I went through the same backing-off procedure to ensure I didn't invade their space and eventually she too came to me, herd in tow. However, she didn't stop like Nana had, just doing a cursory walk past to show off her infant.\n\n'Well done, my beautiful girl,' I said as she slowly came level with the window, maternal pride in full bloom. 'We will call him Ilanga \u2013 the sun.'\n\nI shook my head in wonderment. A little over a year ago she had almost killed Fran\u00e7oise and me on the quad bike. Now she was proudly parading her baby. It blew my mind just thinking about it. We had travelled a long road together.\n\nThat evening they all came up to the house. Frankie's little one had walked nearly four miles through thick bush and she was only a week old. This time Frankie stood in front of the others right at the wire facing me.\n\n'Hello, girl. Your baby is so beautiful! She really is!'\n\nFrankie stood caressing her calf, visibly glowing with pride. All the while she was looking directly at me. This was the closest we had come to linking directly with each other. We both knew something precious had passed between us.\n\nThese almost inconceivable experiences had a sequel several years later when my first grandson was born and the herd came up to the house. I took baby Ethan in my arms and went as near to the patiently waiting elephants as his worried mother would allow. They were only a few yards away. Their trunks went straight up and they all edged closer, intensely focused on the little bundle in my arms, smelling the air to get the scent and rumbling their stomachs excitedly.\n\nI was repaying the compliment to them, introducing them, trusting them with my baby as they had with theirs.\n\nA few days after Ilanga's birth a message arrived from the principal chief in the area saying he wanted to see me and I drove out to his kraal \u2013 homestead \u2013 in the country. As was customary, I called out my name and waited at the rustic gate next to the cattle enclosure to be invited in.\n\nNkosi Nkanyiso Biyela was the essential cog in the Royal Zulu project to involve tribes in conservation, and he and I had become good friends. Descended from Zulu royalty, he conducted himself as an aristocrat and with his beard, handsome wide features and regal pose, looked remarkably like King Goodwill Zwelethini, the reigning monarch of the 10-million-strong Zulu people, to whom he was related.\n\nI was then shown to the isishayamteto, the large thatched hut reserved for important matters. Some freshly brewed Zulu beer was placed on the floor and after tasting it himself, his aide brought the beer to me for a sip straight from the traditional calabash. This drinking bowl was then passed to the other two aides who did likewise. Zulu beer is a wholesome, low-alcohol drink brewed from maize meal and sorghum. While the yeasty ripeness smells like cheesy feet and is guaranteed to turn up a tourist's nose, it's a taste I acquired years ago and this was a particularly good brew. I asked the Nkosi to pass my compliments to his wife, the brewmaster.\n\n'Thank you for coming,' he smiled, accentuating the wrinkles on his good-humoured face. 'I want you to attend the tribal court and speak about our game-reserve project. My people must hear directly from you on the matter.'\n\nWe left the hut and walked across to the courtroom where the Nkosi held council and tried cases once a week.\n\nThere were perhaps a hundred people squashed inside the hall, many in traditional clothes with others standing outside. I was shown to a chair in the front row while the chief went to the podium.\n\nHe introduced me and I stood to speak.\n\nThe project was sensitive, principally because it involved both actual and potential cattle land. I had already spent the better part of two years holding meetings and workshops throughout the area, explaining the workings of conservation and outlining the benefits that eco-tourism would bring to communities in this desperately deprived area.\n\nIt was a tough task. Over the last month I had been taking tribal leaders into the Umfolozi reserve and was shocked to discover that most of them had never seen a zebra or giraffe \u2013 or much of the other indigenous wildlife so iconic of the continent. This was Africa, their birthright. They lived on the borders of an internationally acclaimed game reserve, yet as a direct result of apartheid they had never been inside. Historically they considered game reserves to be 'white concepts, mere excuses to seize their land', and as they had never been included by the previous government, even with the abolishment of apartheid this was not going to change overnight. They had absolutely no idea what conservation was about, or even why the reserve was there. Worst of all, a large chunk of it was traditional tribal territory that had been unilaterally annexed and this resentment had festered over the generations. It was historically their land and it had been wrested from them with no consultation whatsoever. No wonder that they were at best ambivalent about what they perceived to be the 'white man's' concept of conservation.\n\nLooking at the sea of faces before me in the room, hardy sons and daughters of the soil, I talked about the huge potential the Royal Zulu promised in improving their lives. I spoke of job opportunities, skills training, wealth creation, and education \u2013 all which would spring from the project. I appealed to them to all support the project, not only for themselves, but for the sake of their children \u2013 and, most importantly, for the sake of the earth, the mother of us all.\n\nBut old habits die hard; old resentments burn long. As soon as I finished speaking, cattle owners who coveted the land for their herds sprang to their feet, giving impassioned speeches about the Zulu heritage of keeping cattle. However, there was plenty of land for all. It was all about tradition, and the conservative cattle owners did not like the idea of change. In rural Zululand cattle are a primary form of currency and they didn't want the status quo to alter, whatever the reasons or benefits.\n\n'How will you pay your lobola, your dowry, if there are no cattle? We will have no wives!' one thundered to sustained applause.\n\n'And what about sacrificing cows to the ancestors? Are we now going to use bush pigs?' shouted another to derisive laughter.\n\nThe discussion went on in the same vein for the next couple of hours until the Nkosi finally put up his hand to end it. Despite obvious opposition, I was not displeased with the outcome of the meeting. I had achieved an important goal. Everybody now knew I had been invited by the Nkosi and that he would not have brought me if he was against the project.\n\nBut if I was aware of that, so were the cattle owners. The significance of the Nkosi's summons would not be lost on them and I sensed bitter clashes ahead.\n\nI then decided to stay and watch the Nkosi, renowned for his biblical Solomon-style wisdom, preside over a trial of one of his subjects who had stabbed another during an argument.\n\nBoth parties gave their version of events and when they were finished the Nkosi delivered his verdict. The stabber was sentenced to a substantial fine, albeit in keeping with his modest income, as well as eight lashes. Judging by the murmurs of the crowd, this was considered a fair outcome.\n\nThen everything went into overdrive. Chairs were scattered, as the court orderlies stepped forward, grabbed the poor man, stripped off his shirt and forced him onto his stomach in the middle of the room. They sat, one on each arm to ensure he couldn't move, as out of a side door emerged a huge man carrying a sjambok, a wicked six-foot-long whip made of twined hippo hide. Without any ceremony he ran up to the prostrate criminal and brought the whip whistling down on his bare back with as much force as he could muster. The violence of the strike shocked me and I waited for the man to scream. He stayed silent.\n\nEight lashes later and the skin on the man's back was a pulped bloody mess and he was pulled to his feet and led groggily out of the door. Yet still he did not utter a sound.\n\n'He didn't cry out once,' I said to the aide next to me. 'I'm impressed.'\n\n'He must not,' he replied. 'A criminal gets an extra two lashes every time he squeals.'\n\nTough justice indeed, but it was justice quickly dispensed in keeping with Zulu traditions and one thing was certain: the knifeman wasn't going to stab anyone else in a hurry.\n\nA few months later I was privy to another incident of brutal justice, which gave a jolting reminder that just below the thin skin of civilization lay much of what is wrong with this exotically beautiful country.\n\nI was driving in the deep rural areas surrounding Thula Thula when I noticed a vocal group of men from a neighbouring tribe walking down the road dragging something. At first I thought it was an animal, perhaps an impala they had shot, but to my surprise it was a man who had been so severely assaulted that he couldn't stand. As I pulled up they dropped the semi-conscious body onto the ground like a rag doll.\n\n'Sawubona, Mkhulu,' said one who recognized me.\n\n'What's happening?' I asked, getting out of the Land Rover, shotgun in hand, horrified at the bloodied condition of their prisoner.\n\n'This man has raped and murdered a woman. We are taking him down to the river to kill him,' one replied casually, almost in a 'why don't you join us' tone.\n\n'Are you certain it's the right man?' I asked, trying to defuse the situation. As I spoke the crumpled victim moaned and tried to crawl away, only to be viciously kicked back by one of the group.\n\n'It is him,' they replied. 'His house has already been burned.'\n\n'Why don't you take him to the police? He will be severely punished by the magistrate.'\n\n'Ha!' spat one caustically. 'The magistrate... he will do nothing.'\n\nTiring of the conversation they grabbed the beaten man and started dragging him along.\n\n'But surely there must be another way. Is there nothing I can do?' I said, blocking their way.\n\nAs I stood before them, their mood changed in an instant. The leader of the group's eyes hardened.\n\n'This is not your business Mkhulu. Leave us,' he said, ignoring the fact that I was carrying a shotgun. The tone of his voice was final. If I pushed more I would be transgressing the shadow line into a tribal matter, with possibly violent repercussions. I stepped aside.\n\nAs I drove off, I thought of going to the police but the nearest station was thirty miles away on a barely drivable road. I wasn't even sure they would have a vehicle to respond with. As for a search, they would never find the body and the perpetrators would have long since disappeared into the surrounding huts and hills.\n\nSuch is Africa, the flawed, beautiful, magnificent, beguiling, mystical, unique, life-changing continent... its seductive charm and charisma, its ancient wisdom so often stained by unfathomable spasms of blood.\n\nThat night after returning from the meeting I got further bad news. David told me he was resigning to go to England. He had met an attractive young British guest at the lodge, whom I noticed had kept extending her stay.\n\n'It's just \"khaki fever\", David,' I teased, referring to the well-known attraction some female guests have for uniformed rangers. 'When you get to England, whatever you do don't take off your uniform or it will all be over.'\n\nNevertheless he left and it was a massive blow to us. He was an integral part of Thula Thula and had been my right-hand man and friend for so long it was like losing a son. He loved the bush so much \u2013 I just couldn't imagine him in rainy England.\n\nThe lodge had just opened and David had been a tremendous help to Fran\u00e7oise in getting it up and running, but she took it with her customary good humour. 'I know guests sometimes steal a towel or soap,' she said, 'but this one stole our ranger.'\n\nSadly we had to move on and she advertised in various wildlife publications for a new reserve manager. The first applicant phoned from Cape Town.\n\n'I'd like to come up for the interview but the flight's expensive,' said the caller. 'So if I come all that way and spend all that money, I must get the job.'\n\nThis was not the conventional method of impressing potential employers; in fact, it bordered on impertinence. I was about to tell him to take a running jump when I paused for a moment... perhaps Brendan Whittington Jones, a name more suited to a firm of august lawyers than a game ranger, could afford a touch of 'unusualness'. He certainly had impressive credentials on paper. But how could I decide on his merits \u2013 or, as his phone call suggested, otherwise \u2013 without first seeing him? This really intrigued me. All my life, I have been attracted by unusual approaches.\n\n'Do you play sport?' I asked, the question coming out of nowhere.\n\n'Yes. Field hockey.'\n\nI mulled this over for a second or two.\n\n'You can start as soon as you get here.'\n\nField hockey is a gentleman's game. My father was an international player and for whatever reason he always said it was a sport which attracted the right sort of people. I decided to follow his advice, though probably not the way he intended it.\n\nBrendan arrived a few days later with a battered suitcase containing his sum total of worldly goods. He was an athletically built young man with a shock of strawberry-blond hair, a slow smile and a deliciously sardonic sense of humour. He would need it to sustain him at Thula Thula.\n\nHe had a degree in zoology and wildlife management with a major in entomology and loved insects with an almost mystic passion. Through him I learned that everything in the wild happened 'down there' on the ground and in water. In the mulchy stew of undergrowth and seething-yet-still ponds and rivers, the often invisible bug world is the font of any wild eco-system.\n\nHowever, he also loved animals and his bright attitude and innate sense of fairness quickly won over Fran\u00e7oise and the staff.\n\nIt wasn't long before he had adopted an epileptic young warthog which he called Napoleon. The grandly named hog had been abandoned as an infant by his mother and we had found him wandering aimlessly on the reserve, lost and alone and easy prey for any passing leopard or hyena. The poor creature we found out later, sometimes had seizures, which is probably why it had been dumped by his mother. However, Napoleon soon regarded Brendan as his surrogate mother and even joined him in his bed at night. Max also took to Brendan immediately and tried to emulate Napoleon by slipping out of our room one night and getting into the new ranger's bed.\n\nGoing into Brendan's room the next morning was an experience. Once you had cut through the fog of sweaty bush clothes, Max's jowly head emerged from the blankets, followed by the quizzical Napoleon, then a little later blearyeyed Brendan.\n\nFran\u00e7oise, who took to Brendan immediately, was aghast at this somewhat eccentric m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois.\n\n'How will you ever find zee wife if you sleep with zee dog and zee pig?' she asked, shaking her head.\n\nSoon after Brendan had settled in I received a surprise call from David. He had just landed in Johannesburg.\n\n'It didn't go well in England, boss. I've just got back to Johannesburg. I'm stuck in a traffic jam and I hate it. Can I have my job back?'\n\n'But I've just employed someone else.'\n\n'I don't care. You don't have to pay me, I'm coming anyway. I'll be there tonight,' he said, putting down the phone before I could reply.\n\nHe certainly meant it. The summer rains had fallen in torrents over Zululand and the Ntambanana River had burst its banks, cutting off Thula Thula from Empangeni. The roads were quagmires and virtually impassable.\n\nDavid's father drove him as far as he could, just past the Heatonville village where the Ntambanana was in full spate and completely swamping the concrete bridge. No problem for David; he somehow forged the raging river in the dark on foot and then hiked a sodden twelve miles until he reached Thula Thula.\n\nHe arrived sopping wet and covered in mud but ecstatically happy to be back in the bush. Brendan took one look at this drenched, muscular apparition and then shook his head, laughing.\n\n'OK. I'm handling the scientific side and will concentrate on the environmental studies \u2013 which you really need to get done. He could have his old job back.'\n\nThey complimented each other extremely well and in time they became the closest of friends, so much so that the staff nicknamed them 'Bravid the clone ranger'.\nchapter twenty-two\n\nLate winter, with its mantle of copper, chocolate and straw, had cloaked the land. The bush had shed its dense summer foliage and game viewing had soared magnificently for the increasing number of guests who were discovering Thula Thula.\n\n'We must put in burns this year,' I said to David and Brendan, 'we have to open up some of the thicker areas.'\n\nAll game reserves burn sections of the land in late winter, primarily because the act-of-God fires that have raged through the countryside since time immemorial are nowadays always extinguished as soon as they take hold. A wilderness needs fire for a variety of reasons, not least to regenerate itself. Dead growth is burnt off and the land is reborn as green shoots take root among the fertile ashes.\n\nWe always burned our lands late in winter as all smaller life forms were hibernating and thus safe underground. Burns are done in selected blocks usually defined by roads and rivers which act as natural firebreaks. They are called controlled burns, which is a misnomer for I've yet to see a fire that could safely be labelled 'controlled'. Fires have an inconvenient habit of jumping breaks and wind shifts can switch their direction in an eye-blink. Thus even 'controlled' burns often end up with a lot of people chasing one crisis after another.\n\nMalicious fires \u2013 arson, in other words \u2013 are even worse because by the time you reach them they are already at inferno stage.\n\nDavid and Brendan nodded at my instruction. 'When do you want to burn?' asked Brendan, eyeing the skies. It was vital to pick the weather just right, with a mild wind blowing in the direction you want your fire to run.\n\n'Let's select the areas, and if the wind is right do it the day after tomorrow.'\n\nWithin hours, the decision was wrested from our hands.\n\n'Fire!' shouted David into the radio with binoculars fixed on the highest hill on the reserve. 'Fire behind Johnny's Lookout! Code Red! Code Red!'\n\nEven with the naked eye I could see the first wisps of smoke streaking crazily into the sky.\n\nEvery able-bodied man on the reserve responds immediately to a Code Red: rangers, guards and work teams instantly stop what they are doing and rush to the main house as fast as they can. Those close by sprint; those far off leap into the nearest truck.\n\nWithin minutes we had about fifteen men assembled and David and Brendan gave a quick briefing and organized them into teams. They clambered onto the vehicles grabbing as many bottles of drinking water as they could carry. They knew from experience it was going to be a hard, thirsty day.\n\nDavid was in the first truck and braked briefly to pick me up. 'This was started on purpose,' he said as I got in. 'Three men were seen running away. I've sent Bheki and Ngwenya to the other side of the reserve to check for poachers in case it's a diversion.'\n\nArson was a new poaching tactic \u2013 or at least new on Thula Thula. One group had cottoned on to the idea that starting a fire on the far side of the reserve would suck up all our manpower and thus they could hunt on the other side at will. It had worked, but only once, as we soon wised up. Bheki and Ngwenya were experienced veterans and would be more than a match for any thugs they came up against.\n\nIt was a mild day and as we already had plenty of firebreaks set up in preparation for the controlled back-burns to arrest the fire, I wasn't overly concerned and expected we should wrap this one up quickly. Our teams split up with Brendan's group driving a half a mile or so in front of the blaze, ready to set the first back-burn where fires are lit across the front of the approaching fire in order to destroy anything inflammable in its path. It's called back-burning as the fire is set to burn backwards into the wind, towards the main fire coming at it.\n\n'OK, everybody is in place,' barked David into the radio. 'Go!'\n\nBrendan's team immediately lit clumps of grass and started dragging the back-burn along the edge of the road, spreading it out wide in front of the fast-advancing flames.\n\nWe couldn't have timed it worse. Ten minutes later the wind switched and a squall came screaming out of nowhere, sweeping the back-burn away from us to join the main fire already flaring rapidly across the veldt. Instead of one fire to fight, we now had two. From a routine drill, we now were in big trouble.\n\nFour hot, sooty hours later our water was finished, our back-burns were failing, and the flaming monster was ripping through the bush completely out of control. Watching it effortlessly jump block after block I realized with horror that we were now fighting for the life of Thula Thula itself.\n\nAll animals understand fire well. Their survival synapses instinctively know that fire is a friend as well as a foe as it re-energizes the bush. Provided they are not trapped, which can cause blind panic, they watch developments carefully and will either cross a river or backtrack behind the blaze and wait on the previously scorched patches where they know they're safe.\n\nThis time the fire was a formidable foe with the intense heat popping burning clods of grass high into the sky. The Zulus call them izinyoni, bird nests, and these sizzling ashes caught in the super-heated vortexes were the dreaded harbingers of the main fire, sparking as they blew ahead and settled in tinder grass, starting new burns every few minutes.\n\nThen incredibly the blaze jumped the river as nimbly as a galloping Derby contender. I stared from my vantage point with mounting despair. We weren't going to make it. This was too big even for professional firemen. With the howling gale rendering the back-burns totally useless, my men armed only with buckets, hand-pumps and fire-beaters had precious little chance of winning the day.\n\nThe inferno then leapt across another break and the chaotic gusts swirling around the hill ripped into it, driving massive black-orange flames up the slope below me.\n\nI froze, despite the intense heat. There was a crew directly in the blaze's path that would be frazzled in seconds if we didn't get them out. I hurriedly sent two rangers into the thick smoke to shout to the men to run for their lives.\n\nTwenty minutes later as the ten-foot wall of flames roared ever closer the two rangers returned \u2013 but without the crew they went to find.\n\n'What happened?' I shouted as they came out of the bush, gagging from the smoke.\n\n'They're not there. We couldn't see them!' one yelled back.\n\nMy mind raced. Not only was the reserve under threat, but we were on the brink of losing people as well. There was no way the men at the bottom of the hill could survive two crackling walls of fire clashing together on top of them.\n\nThere was nothing we could do. Brendan had the only water tanker with him. And he was miles away trying to light the rearguard of back-burns, our last flimsy glimmer of hope in stemming the runaway flank that threatened to torch the rest of the reserve, including the lodge and our homes.\n\nWithout a word David sprang into the Land Rover, flicked the headlights on and drove as fast as he could into the smoke and flames. All I could hear was the vehicle's horn blaring as he drove to let the trapped men know where he was. No one could see anything in the billowing soot.\n\nTen minutes later he broke back through the smoke. There, sitting on the back of the vehicle, was the missing fire crew. Biyela, our gardener, was calmly smoking a cigarette.\n\nAs he jumped off the truck I shouted to him: 'Did you get a light for your bhema in there?'\n\nHe looked at his cigarette. 'Hau!' he laughed with delight.\n\nWe desperately piled onto the Land Rover and David sped off, just yards in front of the flames. There was only one road out of the area, and as long as David kept his foot to the floor, perhaps we could make it.\n\nAs we raced for our lives I scoured the bush below us looking for any sign of the elephants. The fire could not have come at a worse time for Nana and Frankie with their two new babies. I was terrified they would be trapped and as the situation worsened I could think of little else.\n\nThe road took us parallel to the advancing fire which was now a mile wide, flaring and roaring and leaping on our right, drowning us in toxic fumes and swirling tendrils of smouldering ash.\n\n'The elephants came through here!' shouted David above the crackling bellow of the flames. He pointed to the ground. 'Those tracks are as fresh as hell.'\n\nI motioned for David to stop and quickly got out and felt the dung between thumb and forefinger. It was slimy and wet, sure evidence that they were nearby.\n\n'They stopped here!' I shouted back. 'Probably to rest the babies, but more so I think to let Nana assess the situation. I think she is trying to get to Croc Pools.'\n\nI looked back at the barricade of flame and felt my stomach tighten. Trees were being incinerated whole without pause. Nothing in its path could possibly survive.\n\n'God, please make it, Nana,' I said under my breath as I got back into the vehicle.\n\nDavid gunned the engine and we bounced down the track as fast as we could. Suddenly he swerved wildly as a female nyala bolted out of the bush right in front of us. The poor creature, panicked out of her mind and blinded by a deluge of smoke and ash, ran straight into a tree and careered off into another. With a sickening crack that we could hear above the inferno, her leg snapped. Petrified and unable to get up, she lay there staring with stricken eyes as we drove past.\n\nI grabbed the rifle off the seat next to me and David, seeing what had to be done braked hard in a cloud of dust, jerking the men at the back off-balance and then reversed.\n\n'Boss!' he shouted as I got out. 'Quickly! Quickly or we're not going to make it ourselves.'\n\nI lifted the Lee \u2013 Enfield, leaned on the open door, and two rapid shots later the poor creature was out of its pain and we were again hurtling through the bush in a race with the devil; to crest the hill and then turn onto another track that would at least take us out of the path of the raging monster. We didn't even have time to load up the dead buck.\n\nDavid made the top with the flames minutes behind and the men in the back cheered wildly. But I feared their jubilation was premature. The awful reality was that we were still trapped. There was no road out; the towers of flames were rampant on both sides, about to engulf us within minutes and for the first time I felt panic slithering into my thoughts.\n\n'Where to?' yelled David. 'Hurry or else we've had it!'\n\nThen in a flash I realized what we had to do. Nana had shown the way.\n\n'Croc Pools!' I shouted back. 'If Nana thinks it's safe enough for the herd it'll be safe enough for us.'\n\nSomehow amid the acrid blinding smoke David found the turn-off and ten bumpy minutes later we rounded the corner at the pools just as Nana was shepherding the last of her charges into deeper water. She and Frankie were standing at the edge of the dam in the shallows with babies Mvula and Ilanga, making sure the others were safe.\n\nNana looked up at us, and only then did I understand why they were there. It was not just because of the water; the veldt around every game reserve dam is always overgrazed and consequently there was little fuel for the fire to consume in a thirty yard radius.\n\n'Clever, clever girl,' I thought. In our haste even we hadn't thought of Croc Pools, let alone the natural safety barrier.\n\nWe drove to the opposite side, manoeuvred the Land Rover into a bare spot as close to the Pools as we could, splashed water over it to cool it down and then waded kneedeep into the pool. The coolness and relief was exquisite.\n\nThere is a good reason why this particular stretch is called Croc Pools and I looked around hurriedly. There in the reed beds to our left were two huge crocodiles lying still in the shallows, watching through hooded reptilian eyes. Fortunately because of the drama of the fire their major concern was survival, the last thing on their minds was lunch. We would be fine where we were. For good measure, though, I reached down and grabbed Max's collar tightly. He was filthy with ash so I quickly washed him, which would also protect him against the approaching fireball.\n\nAnd there we were, a herd of elephants, two huge crocodiles, a dog and a bedraggled sweaty group of men united by the most basic instinct of all \u2013 survival.\n\nAs Hades itself approached we watched yellow-billed kites soaring and swooping down on seared insects fleeing the flames, while flocks of glossy starlings darted in and out of the smoke doing the same. Two large monitor lizards came hurtling out of the bush and splashed headlong into the water next to us. Then a herd of zebra came galloping out of the fumes and stopped. The stallion sniffed the air before changing direction and speeding off with his family. They knew exactly where they were going \u2013 they would outpace the fire.\n\nThe thick smoke poured from the burning bush over us, obliterating the sun and we stood together in the surreal murk of midday twilight, broken only by the flaming orange and red of the biggest inferno I have ever seen.\n\nThen it was on us, the heat sizzling and hissing across the water. Yet in that intense theatre I became aware of something transcending the din and fury and chaos. I felt Nana's stomach rumblings roll across the water, a dominating, calming presence. There she stood, towering over the dam, shielding the babies with her body and spraying water over herself. I found myself doing the same, scooping water over my head as if I had joined the herd.\n\nAnd then the sizzling abyss swept past and the sun broke bleakly through the murk and mayhem. We stared out at the blackened apocalyptic landscape, gulping air into smoke-seared lungs. We had made it, thanks to Nana. She had saved us all. How she drew us to Croc Pools was something I was to gain more insight into later.\n\nSuddenly the radio came alive. 'David, David, David! Come in! Where the hell are you guys? I've got big problems here, I need men fast.'\n\nIt was Brendan.\n\n'We're on our way!' yelled David as we scrambled for the Land Rover. 'Hold on for fifteen minutes. We'll be there.'\n\n'The fire's jumped our boundary,' shouted a soot-blackened Brendan as we arrived. 'It's gone over into the next farm trapping a troop of baboons. They came out of the bush screaming, burning alive. It was terrible. At least six or seven are dead.'\n\nHe wiped a grimy paw over his bloodshot eyes. 'It's those bloody chromolaena weeds. They burn so hot nothing can stop them and the farm next to us had hundreds of acres of that alien rubbish growing thick and wild on their land between us and their sugar cane. The fire's right in the middle of the cane now. No doubt they'll blame us for it.' Chromolaena odorata is particularly bad in a fire as it has a high oil content and as each bush takes light it burns in a bright fireball destroying trees and bushes close by.\n\nThe ever-shifting gusts at last switched favourably and using that to our advantage Brendan got a last gasp back-burn going and I watched, throat in mouth, as his little fires gobbled up the bush in front of the flaring wall, starving the advancing blaze.\n\nNow we were able to respond to the incessant calls for help on the other side of the reserve where all the remaining staff had gathered in a last-ditch Alamo-style stand to protect the lodge and houses.\n\nExhausted to our bones, there we confronted another wall of fire, and it was then I saw the most amazing sight. Driving along a remote road going straight towards the oncoming fire was a car with a family inside. They were completely lost. The driver pulled up and obviously unaware of the terrible danger they were in started jabbering away in Italian.\n\n'You are the luckiest man alive,' I said laughing at the incongruity of the situation. 'I will give you a tracker to take you out.'\n\nAs they left, the inferno thundered over the hill and then just as it seemed the thatched lodge and our homes were about to be atomized, a phalanx of 4x4s loaded with firefighting equipment came revving though the smoke down the road. Every nearby farmer had heeded our emergency calls and now a wall of water confronted the wall of flames. The cavalry had truly arrived.\n\nThirty minutes later the seemingly unstoppable holocaust had collapsed. It was now just a mopping-up operation. But in its wake, it had destroyed more than a third of the reserve.\n\nFortunately the change of wind, which so nearly wiped us out, also brought the first pre-spring showers. That night a torrent of fresh rain sluiced clean the charred black earth.\n\nThe next morning, elephant, rhino, zebra, impala and other animals were out on the burned areas, eating fresh ash as they always do after a fire, absorbing the salts and minerals their bodies craved.\n\nTwo weeks later the areas that had been so apocalyptically torched were emerald green. Thanks \u2013 unwittingly \u2013 to the poachers, the bush clearing was done perfectly and we now had thousands of new acres of virgin savannah.\n\nNone of us, however, forgot that we had almost lost Thula Thula.\n\nOr that we had an elephant to thank for our lives.\nchapter twenty-three\n\nMost of my interactions with the herd had been from a Land Rover. This was deliberate as I wanted them to get used to vehicles.\n\nIt worked; our guests had great safaris and photo-opportunities as Nana and her family acted as wild elephants do, oblivious of the Land Rovers, provided of course the rangers kept a reasonable distance and respected their privacy.\n\nBut now I wanted to do it on foot, not only as I planned to introduce walking safaris, but I wanted the herd to get generally acclimatized to humans in the bush, or else labourers and rangers would always be at risk.\n\nTaking Max with me I set out to find them for my first experiment. The herd was in an open area, grazing and browsing on the plentiful summer offerings. Nearby there were big trees for me to climb, a somewhat crucial consideration if something went wrong and I had to run for it.\n\nPerfect! I pulled over next to a spreading marula and got out, leaving the Landy's door open for hasty access if necessary. It's vastly different communicating with elephants out in the open on foot compared with doing so from vehicles. If you step away from a vehicle with elephants close by, you wake up quickly.\n\nPurposely going upwind so they could get my scent, I zigzagged toward the herd, ambling along as if on a Sunday stroll, Max by my side. Everything was going well until I was about thirty yards away and Frankie's trunk swivelled near the ground as she got my scent. I immediately stopped as she peered myopically at Max and me, but after a short while she ignored us and continued feasting. So far so good, and I continued my erratic approach in their general direction.\n\nJust five paces closer and Frankie suddenly lifted her head sharply and aggressively spread her ears.\n\nWhoa! I stopped but this time she continued glaring at me until I backed off for five or six paces. That seemed to make her happy and she went back to grazing.\n\nI repeated the process several times over the next hour, a few paces in and then out and always got the same reaction. Studiously ignored, then angrily confronted. That's interesting, I thought, she has created a boundary: outside I am welcome, inside she gets tetchy.\n\nAfter checking the distance and making sure I could reach the Land Rover at a run if things went awry, I pushed through the imaginary boundary and walked closer in.\n\nThat did it! She swung around, took three aggressive steps towards me with trunk held high and I backed off \u2013 pronto.\n\nI then drove to the other side of the spread-out herd, got out and repeated the process with Nana. The same thing happened, except that Nana would let me get much closer than Frankie did, and her reactions were petulant rather than aggressive.\n\nOver the next weeks, through trial and error I learned that the herd set a very real albeit invisible boundary inside of which nothing \u2013 well, no human anyway \u2013 could enter. I also found that individual elephants did the same thing when straying from the herd. The boundaries were flexible but generally the adult's 'space' had a much smaller perimeter than the youngsters'. However, it was trial and error, and you had to be able to gauge it by judging the elephant's demeanour and every elephant's space was different and could be different on different days.\n\nBy repeating the exercise in the neighbouring Umfolozi reserve I discovered that generally a bull would tolerate closer intrusions than females. The reason was simple \u2013 big bulls are extremely confident of their ability to defend themselves and allow you to get closer. The smaller the elephant, the less confident they are and the wider the space they demanded. A mother and newborn baby away from a herd had the widest.\n\nI had long noticed a similar phenomenon with other animals. A 'fright \u2013 flight' distance it is called, but with elephants it was more like an 'attention \u2013 attack' boundary.\n\nSo far so good, but to have walking safaris on Thula Thula I needed a completely settled herd otherwise the risk was not worth it. More research was needed so I did my experiment again, but this time with Vusi, a well-built, fleet-footed young ranger who bravely volunteered to be the guinea pig. All he had to do was repeat my earlier procedure of slowly walking around the herd as I watched their reactions. I dropped him off, estimated the herd's safety boundary, told him where it was, and then told him to walk.\n\nBig mistake. Thankfully Vusi hadn't gone too far when Frankie bristled on full alert and the startled ranger legged it back to the Landy quicker than Carl Lewis.\n\nA bit more experimenting with the brave young man and it became clear that as far as the herd was concerned, the boundary with a stranger was much, much wider.\n\nOK, so how could I get the elephants to draw the boundary in? Not only for me, but for anyone walking on the reserve. I started hanging around the edges of the safety periphery, minding my own business until they got used to me being on foot, and then I slowly tried to move a bit closer. The key to this was patience; it took endless hours of just being there. I also found that ignoring them or facing away attracted less attention.\n\nAlthough tedious, this was an extremely tense procedure and I was constantly ready to dash off at a hair-trigger's notice.\n\nEventually I started to despair. I was making zero progress, even Mnumzane would not come closer while he was with the herd \u2013 until one day Nana ambled over in my direction to access a small tree she fancied and shrank the no-go boundary by half without even looking up at me. A little later Frankie and the others joined her.\n\nThen it dawned. As far as the herd was concerned, the boundary was not set in stone. They will reset it \u2013 but only when they are good and ready. It has to be their decision. You can't do it. Only they can.\n\nFrom this I also gleaned another important rule in associating with wild elephants and that is never to approach them directly, but rather put yourself in their vicinity and if they want to, they will come closer to you. If not, forget it: they take their imperial status most seriously.\n\nDuring this time one elephant charged me repeatedly. Young Mandla, now a healthy two-and-a-half-year-old standing almost four foot. He would put his ears out and run at me for about five or six yards and then bolt back to the safety of his mum \u2013 Nana \u2013 who kept an eye on things but always ignored his 'heroic' antics. It became a great game between us and every day I would call out and talk to him as he put on his show and we would have fun, with him getting braver and braver and closer and closer. I had to be very careful with this as he was big enough to seriously hurt me but there was never anything but fun in his game.\n\nThen one day Nana and Mvula were a little way from the herd grazing when she slowly started walking in my direction. Good God! Has she decided to come across to me? She had approached me before in my vehicle, which she knew, and at the boma and the house, but on those occasions I was safe. This time, unless I bolted before she got any closer, I would be stuck out in the open without any escape route whatsoever. This was an entirely different ballgame.\n\nShe lumbered on in such a friendly way that I steeled myself and decided to stay and see what happened, gambling that the rest of the elephants would stay away.\n\nCloser and closer she came with Mvula scampering at her heels. I glanced nervously down at Max who was watching keenly, dead still. He looked back up at me and suddenly wagged his tail. He hadn't sensed anything dangerous. I hoped his judgement was on track for this was a very big elephant coming at us.\n\nSuddenly some atavistic survival trigger, vehemently at odds with my decision to stand fast, jerked and the compulsion to flee this gargantuan alien shape exploded within me. I could scarcely breathe. It was all I could do to hold my ground. To this day I don't know how I managed not to bolt. But stay I did and then she was there, her huge form towering above me, obliterating the sky.\n\nI think she sensed my trepidation for she purposefully stopped about five yards away and simply started grazing again, oozing tranquillity. When you are standing five yards away from a wild five-ton elephant you are acutely aware of every little thing that goes on around you, especially the elephant's emotional state.\n\nI somehow retained enough presence of mind to reflect on the incongruity of standing out on an open plain with a matriarch and her baby \u2013 the most treacherous of all situations \u2013 but there was such an innocence about our impromptu 'get together' that it helped me maintain both my dignity and my ground.\n\nFive minutes later she was still there and I realized we were actually hanging out together. She was slowly moving around grazing, and I relaxed enough to notice that she had the most graceful table manners. Her trunk would search out and deftly encircle a chosen clod of grass, which she would pluck and delicately tap on her knee to dislodge soil from the roots and gently place in the side of her mouth leaving just the roots protruding. A gentle clamp of the molars and the roots would drift away while she savoured the morsel. I noticed too that she was very fussy about what she ate and the scent of each plant would be carefully sampled before being devoured.\n\nHer browsing was no less fascinating. She would adroitly remove the leaves from a young acacia, place them in her mouth and then snap off a branch. As soon as she had finished chewing the leaves, the stem would go in one side of her mouth like a kebab and a little while later be ejected on the other, stripped white of all bark, the only part she was after.\n\nAll the while Mvula would peek at Max and me from behind his mother's tree-trunk legs, occasionally stepping out to get a better look. Max sat silently, occasionally moving a few yards to smell where Nana had been standing, but otherwise just motionless.\n\nI was intensely focussed on this magnificent creature standing so close to me. All the while Nana kept glancing across or staring at me. Every now and then she would turn her massive body slightly towards me, or move her ears almost imperceptibly in my direction. Her occasional deep rumblings vibrated through my body.\n\nSo this was how she communicated... with her eyes, trunk, stomach rumblings, subtle body movements, and of course her attitude. And then suddenly I got it. She was trying to get through to me \u2013 and like an idiot I hadn't been responding at all!\n\nI looked pointedly at her and said 'Thank you', acknowledging her, testing her reaction. The alien words echoed across the silent veldt. The effect was immediate. She glanced across and held my gaze, drawing me in for several deep seconds, before returning contentedly to her grazing. It was almost as if she was saying, 'Didn't you see me, what took you so long?'\n\nThe final piece of the puzzle clicked perfectly into place. While I had been standing there like a robot, she had been prompting me to accept her presence and give some sign that I recognised her. Yet I had been as stiff and rigid as a plank. When I finally acknowledged her, just with a simple 'thank you', she instantly responded.\n\nI had learned something of this before in dealing with some animals, but that 'Eureka' moment with Nana really drove it home to me. I had at last grasped that the essence of communicating with any animal, from a pet dog to a wild elephant, is not so much the reach as the acknowledgement. It's the acknowledgement that does it. In the animal kingdom communication is a two-way flow, just as it is everywhere else. If you are not signalling to them that their communication has arrived with you then there can be no communication. It's as simple as that.\n\nEye movements are perhaps the most important. A flick of the eye, a look, or the tiniest glance may seem like nothing to humans, but in the animal world it's a very big deal indeed. Attitude, facial expressions (believe me elephants can smile beautifully) and body language can also be significant.\n\nAnd how do you acknowledge them. Well I found that just a look, can be enough. Staring, whilst sometimes appropriate if you have a close relationship with the animal, can be interpreted as a challenge by strangers. Just using words in the tone you would naturally use to convey your feelings can achieve a lot.\n\nThere are other factors of course. Granting respect is as important as it is with humans. Animals have an uncanny ability to pick up on your state of mind, especially if you are antagonistic or hostile. All it takes to make progress is an open-minded attitude, and with a bit of patience and persistence it eventually clicks into place. The best part is you will recognize it when it happens. Believe me anyone can do it, and as many people already know, it is so worthwhile. There are no deep secrets, no special abilities, and definitely no psychic powers necessary.\n\nThe wrong way to go about this is to say: Well, researchers have 'proved' that animals only understand fifty words or something similarly absurd. Or that communication with other species is an illusion. Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.\n\nI looked up to see Frankie leading the bunch across. There was no way I was going to risk that sort of interaction with the entire herd. I immediately took my leave, thanking Nana and telling her I would see her again soon, humbled by the experience.\n\nIt was a superb day, a gentle breeze taking the edge off the sun and I decided to walk back to the house with Max. I gave Vusi the Landy to drive back and we backtracked along the elephant spoor. The Nseleni River gushed and swirled angrily against the rock face far below our path and I was amazed at how close to the cliff the herd had been walking as even the babies' footprints were sometimes just a couple of yards away from the steep precipice. Elephants are seldom orderly when they are on the move. There is plenty of activity as they jostle, play and push one another as they amble along to wherever they are going. Yet they were obviously quite comfortable and surefooted enough to edge along this huge vertical drop. I recalled Kobus Raadt, the vet who had delivered the herd, telling me that an elephant can go where a monkey with a briefcase can't. He was right.\n\nAbout 500 yards further along Max suddenly stopped and came onto full alert, glancing at me and staring. Eye movements are a major means of communication in the animal kingdom and I knew he had sensed something so I paused and followed his line of vision to the only place in the area which could seclude anything at all, a small bush standing proud in the short grass. A few minutes later I was certain there was nothing there and called him, but he refused to move. This had never happened before; in fact Max was one of the most obedient dogs I know. I called quietly and then called again, and he just looked at me briefly and continued staring. I glanced around again but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He must be imagining things.\n\n'Come, boy, there's nothing out there,' I said and was about to go and get him, when suddenly I heard a cough right next to us. A very distinctive cough \u2013 leopard! I seldom carry a rifle, the traditional accessory of every ranger on a bush walk. This time wishing I did, I grabbed for my pistol.\n\nQuite impossibly there was a leopard hiding under that single tiny bush barely ten yards away. Even though I heard it and knew full well it was there, it was so inconspicuous that I still couldn't see it. I grabbed Max's collar and held him tight, and fired a shot into ground. I dislike firing a weapon in the reserve but the big cat was waiting in ambush too close by to do anything else.\n\nIn a lightning blur of dappled gold, a large male leopard came out of the shrub and bolted. If it had come at us from that distance it would have been a nightmare, but going the other way he was poetry in motion, one of nature's most stunningly beautiful creations.\n\nHowever, apart from that little adventure, I was extremely happy with the day's events.\n\nAfter Nana had deliberately let me 'hang out' with her and Mvula, everything changed. It was now easy being around them and even Vusi my guinea-pig ranger could walk to within a reasonable distance without reaction. A little later I got four rangers to stroll past the herd a few times as if on a game walk and \u2013 voil\u00e0 \u2013 we had done it. Even Frankie didn't raise an eyebrow.\n\nNana had obviously taken her decision and communicated it to the rest of the herd. And from that I learned another important lesson. Previously traumatized wild elephants appeared to regain a degree of faith in new humans once the matriarch has established trust with just one new human. But it must be the matriarch. My close relationship with Mnumzane hadn't altered the herd's attitude towards me one iota, despite the fact that they obviously communicate all the time.\n\nNow, thanks to Nana, guests could walk in the wild near these magnificent creatures, an experience to be savoured for a lifetime. Yet barely two years ago Frankie had tried to kill Peter Hartley the manager of the Umfolozi reserve while he was tracking them during the breakout.\n\nThat put it all in perspective. We were moving along well.\n\nHowever, it wasn't just us 'tracking' them. One evening when the lodge was full and a candlelit dinner was being served on the verandah to animated guests gushing about the day's bush experiences, Nana suddenly appeared on the lawn right in front of the lodge, herd in tow.\n\n'Wow, she is a bit close,' I thought, watching her movements carefully. And with that the cry went up.\n\n'Elephant, elephant!' shouted two first-timers who, immediately shushed by more seasoned bush lovers, continued pointing excitedly, while others grabbed for cameras as the whole herd came into view between the lodge and the waterhole. It was a great game-viewing experience but the problem, as I quickly realized, was that they were not going to the waterhole, they were coming up towards the lodge.\n\nElephants operate on the steadfast principle that all other life forms must give way to them and as far as they were concerned foreign tourists at a sit-down dinner round a swimming pool were no different from a troop of baboons at a waterhole.\n\nNana came towards us without breaking step. I waited until I knew that she was definitely not going to stop or alter course, and whispered loudly to the guests. 'Let's go! Go, go!'\n\nThis prompted a rush for the cover of the lodge.\n\nBut there are always some people who know better. They're always men, usually in a group, and without fail choose to pick the most ludicrous occasions to 'prove' their manhood. As the guests hurried off to safety, one particular 'big city' group stayed exactly where they were, lounging exaggeratedly over the dining chairs and feigning indifference as the herd drew nearer.\n\nFrankie looked up and flicked her ears at the unmoving group, who, unable to recognize the customary warning, stayed put. Not getting the appropriate response, she then took a few quick steps towards them, ears flared like a cape and trunk held high.\n\n'Bloody hell!' shouted one. 'She's charging!' Chaos erupted and chairs flew everywhere as the 'macho' men blindly ran into each other in a most unedifying every-man-for-himself stampede.\n\nSatisfied that she had got the respect she deserved from this errant group of primates, Frankie dropped her ears and fell back in behind Nana as they all ambled across the lawn up onto the lodge's tiled game-viewing patio. They stood huge and imposingly out of place, surveying their alien surroundings.\n\nThe coast was clear, and attracted by the strange paraphernalia of the fully decorated dining table they moved over to explore. The investigation of the delicate fare with their heavy trunks led me to believe that whoever coined the phrase 'a bull in a china shop' had never actually seen an elephant in a china shop. Glasses and plates were swept aside by careless trunks and smashed all over the place. Similarly candles and holders were tossed on the floor and then the tablecloth was violently yanked from below the remaining crockery and cutlery, completing the debacle.\n\nDiscovering that some of the mess was in fact edible, they delicately picked up and ate every bread roll and salad remnants off the floor, walking over glass shards as if they were paper. The table was roughly shoved aside, cracking open as it did so, and I watched in amazement as first one chair then another went airborne. Tiring of the dinner they focused on the now obvious purpose of their visit \u2013 the swimming pool.\n\n'That's what they're here for,' I thought. 'They know about the pool. They've been here before, probably late at night.'\n\nThe swimming pool was their new waterhole. All Nana was doing was simply clearing the guests away as she would do to any other animals so they could drink in peace.\n\nShe dropped her huge trunk into the pool and sucked gallons of the sparkling clear water up her elongated prehensile nose. Throwing her head back she delivered it messily to her gaping wrinkled mouth and gave the rumbling goahead to the others.\n\nAnd they had an absolute ball. Mvula, Ilanga and Mandla to the delight of the now peeking guests cavorted around slipping on the tiles while the larger animals drank their fill and bathed themselves in huge squirts and sprays.\n\nAll was sort of going well until suddenly Nana picked up my scent. She slowly swung around and lumbered towards where I was standing next to a thatch pole just inside the lodge patio. I held my ground as she lifted the tip of her dripping-wet trunk across to my chest. The show of affection was understandably misinterpreted by several of the hidden guests, who, by now certain of my impending death, bolted silently for the safety of the bathroom.\n\n'Clever girl! You found the cleanest water on the reserve \u2013 and managed to scare the hell out of everyone in the process,' I added, with just a touch of discipline in my voice.\n\nI took a step forward and raised my hand to the body of her trunk and caressed her. 'But you really are frightening the hell out of the guests and you really do need to leave now.'\n\nNana decided otherwise, and five minutes later she was still standing there peacefully, while in the background Frankie stared and flicked her ears at any guest who so much as moved from their hiding places.\n\nNana really needed to go; the lodge certainly wasn't the place for her and her family to visit, so I took my leave of her and backed off three or four paces under the thatch, clapping my hands lightly and encouraging her to move off.\n\nWell, she didn't like that at all. Moving forward she leaned her head on the support pole in front of me, and gave a heave. With that the lodge's whole roof shifted and controlling my urge to shout I quickly moved forward again and resumed stroking her trunk speaking soothingly to her. Incredibly, she leaned forward again, this time with more force, and judging by the melancholic groaning of the timber supports it seemed that the whole structure was on the verge of collapsing.\n\nI instinctively did the only thing I could and putting both hands high on her trunk pushed back on her with all my strength pleading with her not to destroy our livelihood.\n\nAnd there we stayed, her leaning on the pole and me pushing back on her for an eternal thirty seconds before she stepped back, shook her head at me and walked away, taking a huge dump on the patio to show her disgust.\n\nIt was a game of course. Nana could have collapsed the pole easily and my puny effort at pushing her off was but a feather in the wind. She was just making a point.\n\nThe rest of the herd followed as she walked down onto the lawn and eventually moseyed off back into the bush.\n\n'Now I know you are completely mad!' shouted an astounded and angry Fran\u00e7oise coming out from behind the bar and ignoring the emerging guests. 'What the hell are you doing? Do you want to die? Oh-la-la, you are crazy non, pushing an elephant!' And with several loud shouts of 'Merde' she stormed off to the kitchen to try to resurrect the dinner.\n\nThe next morning we put up a single electric strand around the lodge grounds at adult elephant head height. To keep Nana happy, we also set up a water pipe from an underground well to a new drinking trough just outside the wire.\n\nThe arrangement works well and even if the wire is down, they never try to come back to the lodge.\nchapter twenty-four\n\nA week later I got the sad news that my good friend Nkosi Nkanyiso Biyela had died. He was no longer a young man and had been unwell for some time. Despite expert medical attention from my own doctor, he succumbed. It was not unexpected. A fortnight earlier we were sitting outside together and despite the sub-tropical heat he shivered uncontrollably even with a blanket around his shoulders.\n\nThe tribe was in deep mourning and wailing echoed across the hills. Nobody came to work at Thula and we knew we would be operating with skeleton staff until well after the traditional funeral proceedings reserved for royalty, which would last weeks. All Zulu chiefs are kings for life, though colonialism degraded the title.\n\nNkosi Biyela was a man of his times, a powerful traditional leader with a foot in both worlds. He had grasped both the value of tested tradition as well as the necessity of modernity. Using tact and wisdom, he had begun the absolutely thankless task of merging the proven 'old' with the prophetic 'new'.\n\nHe was succeeded by his son Phiwayinkosi Biyela from his first wife, whom I only knew slightly. I attended the colourful induction ceremony bearing gifts.\n\nThe family members promised to arrange a meeting with him, which never materialized despite frequent requests.\n\nThe new Nkosi's authority was soon tested. Shortly after he took power a simmering tribal dispute boiled over into violence and from the reserve we could hear sporadic gunfire crackling about a mile away near the village of Buchanana. I placed guards on the boundaries to make sure nothing could possibly affect Thula Thula.\n\nAfter a day of trying I eventually managed to get the local police on the phone.\n\n'What's going on?' I asked the captain, an amiable Afrikaner who had just taken over the station.\n\nHe sighed wearily. 'Faction fight.'\n\nJust what I had expected. Faction fights \u2013 as tangled and eternal as Appalachian feuds \u2013 are internecine tribal disputes. They are as messy and bloody and old and brutal as the ancient land itself. They can continue forever, from generation to generation, as a brother seethes over a sibling's murder or a son remembers a dead father.\n\nAs is often the case, this feud was over land. Buchanana village, my immediate neighbour, was created in the late 1960s when Zulu tribes surrounding the town of Richards Bay were evicted to make way for the harbour development, the biggest in Africa. These unfortunates were simply dumped onto traditional Biyela land without Nkosi Biyela's permission, such was the arrogance of the apartheid government of the day.\n\nThe displaced people's leader's name at the time was Maxwell Mthembu and they eventually became known as the Maxwell people. Faction fights between the Maxwells and the Biyelas predictably erupted and went on for years until Maxwell, whose clan was on the run against the numerically superior Biyelas, finally acquiesced and paid allegiance to Nkosi Nkanyiso Biyela. In turn, Maxwell was appointed a Biyela induna, a headman, and his people continued to live where they were on Biyela land and were integrated into the Biyela clan.\n\nThus Nkosi Biyela got his tribe's traditional land back with minimum bloodshed. But tribal loyalties are rooted far deeper than treaties of convenience forged in a fireside chat. The people of Buchanana were still very much 'Maxwells'.\n\nNow with the death of Nkanyiso Biyela, the Maxwells revoked their pledge to be loyal to the Biyela clan. That alone was serious business, but the Maxwells also wanted to keep the land that historically belonged to the Biyelas. The Biyela clan was incensed. Groups from both sides took up arms.\n\nThe initial clash was short and sharp. Then the skirmishes went underground, taking the form of isolated attacks and ambushes at night. This was all happening right on my doorstep. My problem was that nearly all of our employees were Maxwells and came from Buchanana. So while Nkanyiso Biyela was my good friend and my relationship with the Biyelas sound, I also knew the Maxwell leader Wilson Mthembu, who had taken over when Maxwell died in the early 1990s. Mthembu had a tiger by the tail and I knew there was no way his people could win the war, but to openly support the Biyelas with the Maxwells as my immediate neighbours would be juggling with live coals. This was a lose \u2013 lose situation and I decided to try remaining neutral. I sat it out with fingers crossed, hoping that the new Nkosi Biyela could sort it all out soon.\n\nTo a Westerner, even someone as close to it all as me, Zulu tribal politics is mind-bogglingly complicated. I soon discovered to my dismay that instead of being an impartial observer, I was overnight a central issue in this imbroglio. Still lurking in the background of all this unrest was that powerful cattle-owning cabal who hankered deeply for the Royal Zulu land and wanted to torpedo the game-reserve project. I knew who they were from the hostile questioning I'd faced at tribal meetings while promoting the project, but I knew nothing of their background. Whenever I asked, my informers would just shrug and say 'they're the cattle owners'.\n\nJust as the Maxwells saw the death of Nkanyiso Biyela as a convenient moment to declare independence, the cattle cabal saw the death of the highly esteemed Nkosi and the hostilities with the Maxwells as an opportunity to wreck my relationship with the late Nkanyiso Biyela's family \u2013 and especially with his son, the new chief.\n\nZulu society is prone to rumour and gossip. It's the national pastime, and the cabal had been planting a host of 'hearsay' stories about me, claiming I was secretly supporting the breakaway Maxwell faction.\n\nThis was blatantly false. However, they had somehow discovered that, without my knowledge, members of the Maxwells had been using remote bush in Thula Thula as a hideaway at night during the fighting. The cabal then spread the word that I was harbouring the rebels. The story caught like wildfire.\n\nBut even worse, the malicious whispering campaign claimed that I was also supplying the rebels with guns and ammunition. Such rumour-mongering can have potentially fatal consequences. In a blink, my hard-earned reputation in the area was tenuous. I had been completely outmanoeuvred.\n\nIf Nkanyiso Biyela was alive, he would have guffawed at this nonsense. But he wasn't. His successor, his son Phiwayinkosi, was a good man of iron integrity but he didn't know me well and he was being force-fed false information by the bucketload.\n\nI needed serious help to quash this rumour quickly. I phoned my old friend, the highly esteemed Prince Gideon Zulu, uncle of the Zulu king and head of the royal household and explained the situation. He was aghast and warned me of the potential danger I was in \u2013 as if I didn't know. Thankfully he agreed to use his considerable influence, stressing that the first thing I had to do was contact the new Nkosi directly and tell him what was going on, while he used his contacts to find out the source of the rumours.\n\nI phoned the young chief and assured him that if some of his enemies had indeed been on my land, it had been done so illegally. There had been no consent from me whatsoever.\n\nHe listened politely. I knew about the misinformation swamping him, and the fact that he was giving me time to defend myself over the phone showed unequivocally that he was a fair leader. I felt infinitely better.\n\n'It's good you phoned,' he said. 'There's a meeting this weekend in Buchanana on this exact matter. Come and address us.'\n\nI would far rather have had a private session with him where we could sort matters out face to face. Instead, I was going to have to confront the issue head-on. Being the only Westerner at a highly charged tribal gathering in the midst of a bitter fight was challenging enough \u2013 but to be accused of gun-running while people were dying was not good. Not good at all.\n\nBut I recognized the wisdom in his choice. He was giving me a platform to state my case. How I handled it was up to me. I thanked him, said I would be there, and then let Prince Gideon know of the meeting.\n\nHe tried to reassure me. 'I will have some of my people there and they will do some work in the background, but they cannot speak for you or defend you. You must speak for yourself and you must speak strongly.'\n\nThen, if the situation could possibly have got worse, it did. I got wind that Thula Thula itself was also under threat. In post-apartheid South Africa, tribes were encouraged to claim back traditional lands that had been unfairly annexed by the apartheid government. The Biyelas had years before lodged land claims against Thula Thula and surrounding farms. The claims had failed legally and the matter had been amicably resolved on a social level with Nkanyiso Biyela. However, the cattle cabal, not content with just spreading lies against me, was also attempting to reactivate these discarded claims. Not only did they covet the Royal Zulu \u2013 they wanted Thula Thula as well.\n\nI went to my office and began working on the most crucial address I would ever give. The future of Thula Thula depended on it. For if the cabal succeeded and moved into Thula Thula with families and cattle, our indigenous animals would be exterminated: including the herd. Nana and her family had at last found a place where they were happy. But because of the danger they presented to intruders, they would be the first to be shot if I failed at the meeting.\n\nThat thought sobered my fevered mind considerably and a plan started to take root. I knew the cabal was going to accuse me of harbouring combatants, thus I had to prove it was physically impossible to police every square inch in a reserve as vast as Thula Thula. I was certain that they had witnesses claiming combatants had been on my land. How could I know? If I knew everything that happened on Thula Thula, poaching would be eradicated overnight.\n\nThis meeting would be no clinical court of law and I had to provide graphic and practical proof to ordinary folk that would get me off the hook. My speech would not be dry legalese, but an appeal to reason.\n\nAlthough the accusations could not be more serious, my good standing in the area would not be ignored by local leaders. It was well known that I abhorred apartheid and had worked closely with the national Zulu leaders in the years preceding the run-up to the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.\n\nI decided that the first thing to do was get a translator. Although my Zulu was adequate, the fact that each question had to be laboriously translated from Zulu to English would give me more time to formulate answers. However, the translator needed to be acceptable to both sides otherwise I would face accusations that I wasn't answering the questions properly.\n\nNgwenya, my security induna, gave me the name of a local priest, whom he said was an esteemed member of the community, to translate for me. The priest, a kindly old man agreed and suggested that I come to his church for a ritual blessing.\n\nThere are a host of ministers in Buchanana, but most are not what you would call traditional men of the cloth. They mix Christianity with ancestral worship and animism. In short, this is a truly hybrid spirituality, uniquely African and drawing inspiration from every source imaginable.\n\nI arrived at his church the next day. It was a simple shack with walls and roof of corrugated iron. Inside were a few rickety wooden chairs. One had been placed in the centre of the room where he asked me to sit down. A simple white cross hand-painted on the tin wall was the only decoration.\n\nHe then put a large zinc tub of what looked like river water by my feet, sprinkled some powders in it and began circling around me, chanting in Zulu, imploring both God and the ancestors to hear his calls. While he did so he tore pages out of a newspaper, set them alight, waved them around and then threw them into the water. The pages were thickly wedged together and continued burning while floating.\n\nAfter several minutes he stopped and stirred the smoky water. It wasn't clean water to start with, and the liquid soon became a soggy mess of burnt-paper flotsam. Still chanting, he decanted the stuff into an old plastic water bottle.\n\n'This is good muthi,' he said afterwards. 'When you go into the meeting, you must drink from the bottle, and the people must see you do that. This meeting will then go well for you because you have been blessed.'\n\nI thanked him, took the bottle and said I'd see him later in the week.\n\nFive days later I arrived at the Buchanana village hall with David. The sun was not even midway in the sky but the air inside was like an oven and the simple brick and corrugated-iron building squatting on the top of a barren hill was bursting at the seams with people. There was no way the tiny windows could ventilate the seething room and the air inside was fetid and rank with sweat. Hostility hung just as thickly.\n\nOutside many armed tribesmen who could not find a seat milled about. Men pointed at us as I drove up. One shook his fist; another brandished an iklwa \u2013 a traditional Zulu stabbing spear, named after the sucking sound made as the blade is yanked from a victim. I didn't feel too good about my chances.\n\nThere was a heavy police presence and I deliberately parked my Land Rover near their vehicles.\n\nThe cop in charge, a Zulu woman in a bright-blue uniform came across. 'Why are you here?' she asked, intrigued at seeing whites at a strictly tribal meeting.\n\n'I'm speaking today.'\n\n'Oh.' She stared at me with interest. 'Then you are Anthony.'\n\nI nodded. 'How is it inside?'\n\n'Hot,' she replied. Unfortunately, she wasn't referring to the weather. She was using the colloquial Zulu word for dangerous. In other words, Code Red.\n\nShe clicked her tongue, unhappy that my presence could spark more problems. 'Are you sure you still want to speak?' I followed her gaze as she watched a crowd of men arrive, one waving a dilapidated shotgun. 'I've already had to radio for reinforcements.'\n\nThe phalanx of police was due primarily to the smouldering faction fight and not because of me personally. Nevertheless it was disconcerting to know that even they thought this meeting could turn nasty at any moment.\n\n'Yes, I will speak,' I replied with a bravado I certainly didn't feel. I knew I had been cleverly framed. Convincing hundreds of angry tribesmen in a state of virtual civil war of my innocence would not be easy, even with behind-the-scenes help from Prince Gideon.\n\nWe were interrupted by a messenger sent to fetch me. I followed him into the sardine can and sat in the front row just as an induna garbed in full warrior regalia finished off an extremely animated address. Suffice it to say, the gist of his message was that their enemies had spies in this room. The crowd growled, searching around for suspects.\n\nThe speaker, a senior chief, introduced me and asked the crowd that I be accorded a fair chance to put my case. Given the explosive mood of the meeting, this was no idle request.\n\nI took a deep breath and, holding the priest's bottled muthi, stood and thanked the speaker whom I knew well. I could count on him if the going got rough. I then pointedly thanked the Nkosi for inviting me, as well as other councillors and headmen or anyone else I recognized, naming them one by one. In other words, I was shamelessly name-dropping. The priest translated.\n\nI then put the muthi bottle on the floor next to my chair. There was no immediate reaction, but I could see that it certainly had got some of the crowd's attention. Perhaps they knew what it signified, and I was glad I had decided to bring it along. I needed all the help I could get.\n\nDespite my apprehension, my voice came out strong, following Prince Gideon's instructions to the letter. This gave me some confidence and I pulled myself upright. Speaking as calmly as I could, I stressed that Zulu culture honourably entitled everyone to a fair hearing. I spoke in English as I wanted any questions to be translated, giving me precious extra moments to mull before I answered.\n\nJust as I thought everything was going swimmingly, all hell exploded. 'Apologize!' screamed a loud voice, ignoring what I had just said. 'Apologize for what you have done.'\n\nOther agitators took up the chant, trying to provoke the crowd. 'Apologize! Apologize!'\n\nFor a moment I was shocked, like a hare in a spotlight. Then instantly it all became clear; I knew what I had to do. Any apology would be a fatal acknowledgement of guilt and that's exactly what the cabal wanted. If I fell into that trap, giving in to a lame plea bargain, I would be finished. So I ignored the goading and waited for the speaker to restore order, which he eventually did. When it was quiet, he nodded at me to continue.\n\n'I cannot apologize...' I said, which immediately incited more jeers from one section of the crowd. My eyes shot across. They had made the mistake of sitting together and now I knew exactly who they all were.\n\n'I cannot apologize,' I repeated, 'because I have done nothing to apologize for.'\n\nMore jeers.\n\n'A man \u2013 if he is a man,' I accentuated, 'will only apologize if he has done wrong and then he must apologize. Do you want me to lie to you? Do you want me to lie to the Nkosi? Do you want me to lie to this meeting? Are you asking me to give up my manhood and lie like a coward just because I am being threatened?'\n\nThese arguments may sound medieval in an airconditioned First World courtroom, but in rural Zululand your integrity is central to your masculinity. That's the way it is. You may lie to outsiders, but not to your clan.\n\nA wiry man with a wispy moustache jumped to his feet. 'But you are lying! You're lying as your words come out! I myself saw you giving guns to our enemies! It was dark but I saw you with my own eyes meeting secretly with our enemies. I saw you giving them many weapons.'\n\nI knew him. He was a layabout and a poacher, and not a good one at that. And, wow! he was their key witness. I breathed a faint sigh of relief. Their prime source against me was a well-known petty thug with no standing in the community whatsoever. I knew the Nkosi and his advisers wouldn't miss that.\n\nUnable to contain himself in the headiness of his newly acquired status, the impimpi \u2013 informer \u2013 had blown his cover by jumping up too soon. Now the crowd knew that the chief witness was basically unreliable.\n\nThen the leader of the cattle cabal stood up and the hall went silent. A beefy man with a distinguished lantern jaw grizzled over by a peppercorn beard, he was a senior community member whose standing was rooted in cattle wealth. He spoke with authority, trying to undo the damage brought about by his impimpi's premature accusation.\n\n'Mr Anthony, I thank you for coming here to clear up some important matters. I know you are a man who does not lie' \u2013 he paused, clearing his throat for effect \u2013 'and as you do not lie, do you deny that people were living with you on Thula Thula while they attacked our people and threatened our chief?'\n\nIn effect, the cabal head was saying he had eye-witnesses that combatants had been on my land \u2013 and daring me to dispute it.\n\n'We all want to hear the answer to that question,' I replied slowly. 'That is why we are here.' I saw the leaders on the podium lean forward. 'But, I ask that I be allowed to finish what I have to say \u2013 everything \u2013 before anyone makes a judgement. Is this agreed?'\n\nI needed those assurances desperately.\n\n'It is so,' said a senior chief. 'Anthony will finish.'\n\n'Good,' I said, then raised my voice. 'Then I deny that they were living with me. I deny it emphatically.'\n\nThe room erupted, so sure were they of my guilt. The cabal leaders were grinning wildly. I had been caught out. I was a liar.\n\nIt took a few minutes for the izindunas, headmen, to restore some semblance of order. Then, as promised, I was able to continue.\n\n'However, I do not deny that men have been hiding on Thula Thula,' I said. 'I emphatically deny that I know them, or that they were living with me.'\n\nThe cabal leader again stood, shaking his head and grinning.\n\n'This man says he does not know who is in his home, on his own land.' He turned to the crowd. 'Which man does not know his visitors?'\n\nLaughter. The Nkosi raised his hand for silence. He nodded at me to carry on.\n\n'As you all know, Thula Thula is a very big place. It takes many hours to walk fast from one side to the other. Anyone can easily hide there.'\n\n'But you have workers patrolling on your land!' shouted the cabal leader, pointing a finger. 'And you still say you don't know your visitors?'\n\n'I don't know,' I replied. 'But do you? Do you know who lives on Biyela land?'\n\n'Of course we know! No man will dare stay on our land if the induna of the area does not know his name.' He laughed again, playing to the crowd, confident of victory.\n\nI then signalled to David at the back of the room. A few moments later he came forward with Ngwenya who, impressed by the occasion raised both his hands head-high in traditional greeting.\n\nI introduced him. 'This is Ngwenya, my senior ranger. We all know his family is well respected in this area.' I was pleased to notice several of the senior indunas nodding in assent.\n\nI turned to one of the indunas who controlled the Ntambanana area, west of us. 'Biyela land in Ntambanana is off limits to anyone. No one can stay there. Is that correct?'\n\n'It is,' he agreed. 'No one is there, no one may stay there.'\n\n'Ngwenya and I have just been there and I can tell you now there are several people living deep inside the land. We found them and spoke with them, they have been there for weeks. The bush has hidden them. Just as it hid the men you said were on my land.'\n\nNgwenya nodded as I spoke.\n\n'Is this true, Ngwenya?' asked the induna, suddenly standing up. 'Were you there? Are there people living there?'\n\nNgwenya nodded. 'Yebo, it is as Anthony has said.'\n\n'Hau!' The induna's traditional exclamation of surprise echoed across the now silent room. 'Then they are trespassers. '\n\nThe cabal leader shrugged dismissively, but my argument had found traction and the tribal leaders were now looking at me expectantly.\n\n'I repeat, I did not know anyone was hiding in the bush on Thula Thula. The same way the honourable induna did not know men were hiding on his property. Trespassers are trespassers; they are not visitors. They are not welcome.'\n\nThere was a murmur of assent from the crowd. Not huge, but still reassuring.\n\n'What about the guns?' someone shouted from the back.\n\nNow that was what the meeting was all about.\n\n'Yes, we have guns,' I said. 'We have guns to protect ourselves from wild animals \u2013 you all know that. Why would we give away our guns and put our lives in danger walking in the bush with no protection?'\n\nI was about to answer my own question but a tribal elder stood up first to defend me. This was a sure sign that the tables were turning.\n\n'Mkhulu speaks the truth,' he said. 'I have spoken to his rangers and they all still have their guns. Their guns never leave their hands because they need them for their work. They wouldn't give them away to endanger their own lives.'\n\n'Anthony lies!' shouted another cabal member in desperation. 'Everyone knows he is the one supplying guns to be used against Nkosi.'\n\nOK, this was now getting personal and anger crept into my voice.\n\n'No. Not everybody knows. This has got nothing to do with everybody. It's not \"everybody\" who's accusing me. It is just a few saying these terrible things and they say it recklessly without proof. All that's happening here is someone is trying to drive a wedge between me and the Nkosi; someone with another agenda altogether.'\n\n'We don't believe you!' shouted the same man. 'Our people are dying because of you. We don't want you here living with us. You are white, and we do not trust you. You must take your family and go.'\n\nI could hear the sudden intake of breath. Every head in the crowd swivelled, first to the Nkosi, and then towards me.\n\nI suddenly felt tired. This is what it had all come to; in South Africa, when logic shrivels, the same dreary dinosaurs rear their vicious heads. But thanks to the racial slur, I now had the crowd's absolute attention.\n\n'Several of the leaders here today knew my name long before I came to Thula Thula. They know that I worked with Zulu leaders during apartheid, even before some of you were born,' I added, invoking the deep Zulu respect for age.\n\n'I had believed, and hoped with all my heart, that apartheid was dead. Yet this man wants to start it again here in our village.'\n\nI turned to him, 'You will bring shame on all of us.'\n\nAt that moment the young Nkosi stood up. He stood straight as a spear, and at that instant I knew that he was a true leader.\n\n'This has gone too far. We are not holding a trial here,' he said. 'Anthony's not on trial. This gun-running is a matter for the police. If anybody has proof, then take it to the police \u2013 not just make wild claims, which is what is happening here in this hall. I will speak to the police myself after the meeting. Anthony was a good friend to my father. This matter is dismissed.'\n\nIt was done and I breathed a sigh of relief.\n\nThat was the last thing the cabal wanted to hear. They had no proof of anything other than some rebels had been trespassing in the virtually inaccessible corners of Thula Thula. They knew the gun-running claims were complete hogwash; they knew how much I revered the Nkosi's family. They knew that the only way to get at me was to incite the crowd into open revolt. They had failed and been publicly humiliated in the process.\n\nIndeed, their bluff had been called by the Nkosi himself. The victory was sweet for me, and after the meeting many villagers, some carrying fighting sticks, shook my hand or waved, as if welcoming me back to the fold. Addressing this hostile meeting had in itself proved my innocence. Under Zulu tradition the matter could not be opened again. Thula Thula was safe.\n\nBack at Thula Thula later, with Max comfortingly at my side, I looked out over the reserve and on the horizon caught a glimpse of the herd. They were on the move, safe and free to go where they pleased. The victory was sweet indeed, but that didn't mean the struggle was over. I had made some serious enemies, as I was soon to find out.\nchapter twenty-five\n\nEarly next morning Marion Garai of the Elephant Managers and Owners Association phoned. As usual, she had unusual news.\n\n'Can you take another elephant? I've got a fourteen-year-old female that desperately needs a home.'\n\n'What's the problem?'\n\n'It's a real shocker. To give the short version, her entire family have been shot or sold and she's completely alone on a big five reserve.'\n\nBig five reserves are so named due to their quarry's reputation as the most dangerous animals to hunt \u2013 elephant, black rhino, buffalo, leopard, and of course lion. An elephant may be a big fiver \u2013 in fact number one on the list \u2013 but a juvenile could not survive for long without the protection of its herd if lions are about. No lion would dare attack an adult tusker, but an adolescent would be relatively easy prey for a pride.\n\nThen Marion added fuel to the fire. 'Even worse, she's been sold to a trophy hunter.'\n\nShe delivered that snippet almost as an aside, but she knew it would get me going like nothing else. It was something I simply couldn't fathom... what type of person would shoot a terrified teenage elephant, and a female at that? For a tawdry fireside trophy? For the pleasure of the kill? And what kind of reserve owner would hawk a vulnerable young animal for such a reason?\n\nI have never had a problem with hunting for the pot. Every living thing on this planet hunts for sustenance one way or the other, from the mighty microbe upwards. Survival of the fittest is, like it or not, the way of this world. But hunting for pleasure, killing only for the thrill of it, is to me an anathema. I have met plenty of trophy hunters. They are, of course, all naturalists; they all know and love the bush; and they all justify their action in conservation speak, peppered with all the right buzz words.\n\nThe truth is, though, that they harbour a hidden impulse to kill, which can only be satisfied by the violent death of another life form by their hand. And they will go to inordinate lengths to satisfy, and above all justify, this apparently irresistible urge.\n\nBesides, adding to the absurdity of their claims, there is not an animal alive that is even vaguely a match for today's weaponry. The modern high-powered hunting rifle with telescopic sights puts paid to any argument about sportsmanship.\n\nI had to consider the implications of introducing a new elephant into the herd. On the credit side, Nana and her clan were settled and I was pretty confident she would accept another young female into her family. Only stable herds will do that; a maladjusted group of elephants will chase any newcomer off \u2013 or worse.\n\nNo matter the risks, the thought of a solitary elephant \u2013 still a teenager \u2013 terrified out of her wits, surrounded by lions and soon to be hunted grated deeply.\n\n'I'll take her.'\n\n'Great. I have a donor who'll pay capture and translocation costs.'\n\nPredictably the hunter refused to relinquish his trophy. However, in a stroke of genius, Brendan decided to check the man's big game permit. You can say it was serendipity; you can say it was an act of God \u2013 whatever \u2013 but unbelievably the permit was due to expire that exact day. Even more wondrously, one of Brendan's ex-university friends worked in the permit office and we managed to block the reissue. At the eleventh hour, we saved the life of this orphan elephant.\n\nThe hunter was upset as he technically still owned the animal. He wanted his cash back. Thankfully Marion's donor again came to the rescue and paid him his blood money. A week later the juvenile was on her way to Thula Thula.\n\nWe hurriedly repaired the boma and David, Brendan and I prepared for another stint in the bush while our new arrival acclimatized. We even parked the Land Rover in the same position as when the original herd was in quarantine, wondering if Wilma our industrious bark spider was still around to weave her silky web on the aerial.\n\nMax did a perfunctory check of the area and settled himself down. He knew we would be here for a while.\n\nThe transport truck arrived in mid-afternoon and backed into the loading trench. This time we had the levels right and the loading bay opened smoothly. We all craned forward for a good look. It was a good thing I didn't blink, for as the door opened the youngster sprinted straight into the thickest part of the boma's bush. And there she hid for the next few days, coming out only in the dead of night to eat the food we were tossing over the fence. Whenever we crept around trying to get closer, she bolted to the far side as soon as she sensed us. I have never witnessed such terror in an animal. There was no doubt she thought we were going to kill her, just as humans had killed the rest of her family.\n\nUsing the techniques I had developed with the herd, I started to talk to her gently, walking around singing and whistling, trying to get her used to me as a benevolent presence. But no matter what I did she remained petrified, rooted to the spot in the densest part of the thicket.\n\nFor almost a week there was no change in her emotional tone or attitude so eventually I decided I needed to interrupt the process. Instead of trying to communicate with her, albeit in a roundabout way, I came up to the fence, picked a spot and just stayed there, saying nothing, doing nothing, just studiously ignoring her. Just being there.\n\nEach morning and each afternoon I chose a different spot; always shifting fractionally closer to her hiding place and repeating the procedure.\n\nThe third day I did this prompted a reaction \u2013 but not quite what I wished. Instead of being soothed, which was the whole idea, she came out of the bush furiously, charging like a whirlwind at me.\n\nI watched her come, amazed. I had thought such a lost soul would respond to warmth. The boma's electric fence was between us and as there was no real danger I had three choices: I could stand firm and show her who was boss; I could ignore her; or I could back off.\n\nHer charge, as ferocious as it seemed, didn't gel. I could sense that this poor creature, a couple of tons of tusk and flesh that could kill me with a single swipe, had the self-confidence of a mouse. She needed to believe in herself; to know she deserved respect and was a master of the wilderness. She needed to believe she had won the encounter. So I decided to back off with some major theatrics. I decided, counter-intuitively in an environment where the strongest survive, to let her know that in this instance she was the boss. It wasn't that hard to fake; if there hadn't been a fence I would've been running for real.\n\nShe pulled up at the fence in a cloud of dust and stared, dumbfounded \u2013 she had probably never seen humans run before. Any charge had probably been followed by the thunderclap of a rifle.\n\nShe watched, or rather smelt my retreat and then swivelled and ran back into the thicket with her trunk held high in victory \u2013 the first time I had seen her do that. She had seen off an enemy. More importantly, she had turned fear into action which, for the moment at least, was a huge improvement.\n\nIt worked well, almost too well. She now started charging whenever I came close. Each time I played the game, feigning fright and backing right off. I wanted to show her how powerful she was... that she was queen of the bush. Elephants are majestic; they are not bullies or cowards. I had to let her rediscover herself.\n\nShe slowly starting getting her nerve back and even began coming out into the open during the day, wandering around the boma.\n\nWhenever she emerged from the thicket, I tried to ensure I was around and she watched with beady eyes as I once more started talking to her and singing at random, alternating that with just being there quietly. During these encounters she never uttered a sound, whether she was intrigued, angry or frightened. To me this was uniquely sad. A trumpeting elephant is bush music. Yet this distraught creature was as silent as the air, even when coming at us full tilt.\n\nThen one day she charged while we were pushing food over the fence. For the first time her hunger overrode her fear and she wanted to shoo us away. And for the first time she was trumpeting for all her worth. But instead of a clear, clean call she was honking like a strangled goose.\n\nDavid and I looked at each other. Now we knew why she had been silent. The poor creature had destroyed her vocal cords, screaming herself hoarse for help, calling for her mother and aunts, lost and pitifully alone in the wilderness while lions circled. She really was a special case.\n\nTo try and lighten the mood we affectionately named her ET, short for enfant terrible \u2013 terrible child.\n\nEven though she started tolerating me marginally more, she was still profoundly unhappy. Her fear and loneliness gloomed the entire boma. Sitting around the campfire at night, usually a time for talk, we too could feel it. Often we just crept into our sleeping bags and lay on our backs, staring at the stars.\n\nJust as we thought we were winning, she had slid hopelessly back into an abyss of abject despair that not even shouting or the banging of cans could penetrate. Then she slipped further away and began walking endlessly in large figures of eight, oblivious to her surroundings. This sadness bordered on a grief too embedded to penetrate. She was so depressed I feared she might die of a broken heart, so I changed tactics.\n\nI went looking for the herd. They were the only solution.\n\n'Coooome, Nana, coooome, babbas!' I called out once I saw them. Three hundred yards away Nana looked up, trunk reaching into the air. A few calls later she sourced the direction of my voice and they all started ambling through the bush towards me, pushing easily through wicked thornveld that would rip human skin to shreds. As they advanced I marvelled at this magnificent herd, these beautiful creatures, fat, grey and glowing, and how content they were with new youngsters.\n\nNow I needed their help. But first I was going to try something in the wilderness I had never done before: get them to follow me.\n\nAs they approached I gently footed the accelerator and eased ahead for about fifty yards and Nana stopped, perplexed at why I was moving off. Then I called them and, after milling about for a bit, she came on. As she got near I drove off again; again she stopped, confused.\n\nAgain I called 'Coooome, Nana!' willing her forward, calling out, telling her it was important, that I needed her. The words meant nothing, but would she get the emotion, the urgency?\n\nAmazingly she started following, and eventually just kept on coming without me even calling, her family following fractionally behind. I looked in my rear-view mirror. There were nine elephants following me; I was for a fleeting instant the pachyderm Pied Piper. Nana loomed in the rectangular reflection, the others behind her, obliterating all else. Deep in the African bush I had a herd of wild elephant actually following me because I wanted and needed them to. It was all so implausible \u2013 and yet it was happening. God I loved them.\n\nThree miles later we were at the boma. Unbelievably, the herd had stayed the course.\n\nI stopped thirty yards from the fence and Nana came towards me, paused for a moment, and then saw the youngster. She looked back at me, as if, perhaps, to acknowledge why I had called her, then went to the fence and emitted a long set of stomach rumbles.\n\nET was as still as a tree, peering at the herd through the dense foliage, lifting her trunk to get their scent. For some moments this continued. Then suddenly, excited as a teenager at a funfair, she came out and ran to where Nana was standing at the fence. These were the first of her own kind she had seen in a year.\n\nNana lifted her python-thick trunk over the electric fence, reaching out to ET who responded by raising her own trunk. I watched entranced as Nana touched the troubled youngster who demurely acknowledged the matriarch's authority. By now the rest of the inquisitive herd had come forward and Frankie, who was also tall enough to get her trunk over the electric strand, did so as well. There they all stood, their stomachs rumbling and grumbling in elephant talk.\n\nThis went on for an animated twenty minutes as scents and smells were exchanged and introductions made. What happened next though left me in no doubt that ET's predicament was over. A solution found.\n\nNana turned and moved off, deliberately walking past the gate where she had originally pushed over the poles to get out. I had no doubt she was showing ET the exit and simultaneously letting me know to open the gate. I had asked for her help and she had taken her decision: 'Let her out!'\n\nBut with all the elephants around we could not get anywhere near the gate and could do no more than watch as ET moved along with them on the inside of the boma fence until she reached the far end and could go no further. She backtracked up and down the fence, desperately trying to find a way to join them and 'honking' in despair. It was heartbreaking to watch.\n\nBut would she allow us? No chance. Every time we approached the gate she thundered across, enraged at our presence, as if we were preventing her from joining the others.\n\nEventually she stopped, exhausted by her continuous stampedes, and we were able to move in and quickly remove the horizontal gate poles and electric strands.\n\nNana, who had been waiting nearby in thick cover watching all this, then came back out of the bush around the other side of the boma with her family following in single file. Deliberately and slowly, she once more walked past the now-open gate. ET rushed out of the thicket but again missed the exit and followed them on the inside of the fence until she could go no further. Her despair was wrenching but there was nothing we could do until she learnt that the gate was her sole exit point.\n\nThis time Nana didn't wait. She kept going towards the river and just as I thought we would have to close the boma for the night, ET backtracked to the gate and was gone, her trunk twitching just inches off the ground as she chased after the herd's scent in a gaiting run.\n\nWe switched off power to the boma fences and packed up. Half an hour later as we were driving home we saw them moving away across the open savannah. They were still in single file but already the pecking order had been established. ET was second-last, holding the tail of the elephant in front with Mnumzane behind her. He was resting his trunk on her back as they moved along. Comforting her.\n\nWalt Disney himself could not have scripted a better ending.\nchapter twenty-six\n\nFran\u00e7oise named our new boutique hotel the Elephant Safari Lodge and threw herself into making a success of it. To keep the bush atmosphere she limited accommodation to just eight luxury rooms spread out around a large thatched lodge on the banks of the Nseleni River. Most courageously she refused to bring in professional help, preferring instead to train Zulus from the next-door village for all positions. The Franco \u2013 Zulu communication challenges that ensued provided daily entertainment for David, Brendan and me.\n\n'No TV, no newspapers, no cellphones,' she insisted, 'this must be a natural wilderness experience, an antidote to city life.' And it was, complimented by the fine food which she produced and presented with all her inherent flair. I balanced this against the knowledge that if I hadn't met Fran\u00e7oise, the guests would probably be sitting on log stumps around a fire with a sausage on a stick and using a bush toilet.\n\nThe lodge changed everything for both of us. It was a long day, starting with the early morning game drive and ending only when the last guest went to bed. I quickly learned that in today's world, if you want to survive as a conservationist, you had better learn all about wines and how to mix a good Martini.\n\nAll the while I knew the cattle cabal was still lurking in the background trying to disrupt the Royal Zulu game-reserve project, but being busy with the introduction of ET into the herd, I couldn't give it much thought.\n\nThen my mother phoned from her office in Empangeni, her voice scratchy with worry. The Security Police had contacted her, trying to get hold of me, and the news they gave her was enough to terrify any mum. Police informers had infiltrated the homestead of a powerful local induna of an adjoining tribe who controlled an area to the east of Thula Thula and had learnt that assassins had been hired to kill me.\n\nIt had to be the cabal. In fact, according to police information, the rogue induna had openly said that if I was bumped off, he and his followers would be able to seize the tribal trust land. Even though it legally belonged to five different clans and I was just the coordinator of the project, they believed that without me involved they could then stake their own claim and torpedo the project. The scenario was reminiscent of the circumstances which led to the murder of conservationist George Adamson of Born Free fame in Kenya many years ago. He was killed by tribesmen who wanted the Kora reserve, where he worked with lions, to be cattle land.\n\nThe police even had the names of the assassins, but said they could not act as their information was only hearsay. However, it came from sufficiently reliable sources to be credible, hence the warning.\n\nI know, and love, Zulu culture. It's part of my daily life. But I also know that if a person does not confront a problem instantly, it can balloon out of all proportion. Fierce blood feuds still flourish today for reasons no one remembers. There was no way around it; this threat had to be confronted head-on, and quickly. I had to pay the induna an early visit.\n\nA good friend and extremely courageous old man, Obie Mthethwa, deemed it was too dangerous for me to go to the headman's kraal alone and volunteered to accompany me. Obie was a senior councillor to the Mthethwa clan, one of the most powerful Zulu tribes and well respected in the area. He and I had become good friends over the years and his presence would be invaluable.\n\nI told Obie the names of the assassins fingered by the police. He knew them by reputation. 'Tsotsis,' he said spitting on the ground, using the Zulu pejorative for thugs. That afternoon we drove over rutted tracks deep into rural Zululand to the headman's home.\n\nIt was a picturesque village with traditional round thatched huts neatly set out on top of a hill. People were finishing their daily chores, herd boys bringing in cattle, mothers calling in children, everyone preparing for the night. The smell of the evening meals wafted across the village.\n\nWe were made to wait almost an hour and it was dark before being summoned into the kraal. This was an ominous sign and I took much comfort from the fact that Obie was with me. Then we were escorted to the isishayamteto, the largest thatch and clay hut, traditionally used for important business.\n\nShadows pulsed on the walls from a single candle flame which illuminated the room's simple furnishings, a table and a few flimsy wooden chairs. I noticed immediately the induna was alone. This was extremely unusual as advisers or councillors always accompanied him. We had seen some of them outside while we waited.\n\nWhere were they now? What was it he didn't want them to hear?\n\nThen, as is Zulu protocol, we began asking about each other's health, the health of immediate families, and the weather. While all this was going on, I manoeuvred the back of my chair against the wall so no one could sneak behind me. I wanted to face whatever danger came at me head-first.\n\nEventually the induna asked the nature of our visit. Speaking in Zulu, I explained that the police had told me there was a contract out on my life and the hitmen hired to do the killing came from the induna's tribe.\n\n'Hau!' he exclaimed. 'It cannot be my people. They hold you in esteem, Mkhulu. You are the man who is going to bring them jobs with the new game reserve. Why would my people want to kill you?'\n\n'I know that is true. But the police say their information is also true. They say it is not all of your people that want to kill me \u2013 just a gang of tsotsis. They believe that if they kill me, they can grab the land for themselves.' I paused for an instant and stared directly at him. 'But we both know that it is not my land. It belongs to other tribes as well, and killing me will not make it someone else's land.'\n\nAgain the headman appeared astonished and I was starting to wonder if perhaps the police information was off-target. He was either innocent or a virtuoso liar.\n\nAt that moment we heard a car pull up outside, followed by the traditional shout of identification. About ten minutes later four men walked in. They had come to report to their induna. He told them to sit and they squatted on the floor on their haunches, keeping their heads lower than their boss's as a token of respect.\n\nAs they settled down Obie grabbed my arm and whispered in English: 'These are the killers \u2013 these are the tsotsis whose names the police gave us.'\n\nAt first they did not recognize Obie and me in the dim light. But as their eyes grew accustomed to the shadows the sudden startled looks on their faces betrayed them.\n\nI was wearing a bulky bush jacket and in my pocket was a cocked 9-mm pistol. My hand slid around the butt. I gently thumbed off the safety catch and pointed it through the jacket straight at the closest man's belly.\n\nObie leaned forward, grabbed my arm hard again and whispered, 'This is very dangerous. We have to get out. Now!'\n\nBut there was no way out. I looked directly at the induna, hand tight on my gun.\n\n'The police have given me the names of the men out to kill me. Those names are the same as these four men.' I pointed at them with my free hand. 'Does that mean you know what the police are speaking about?'\n\nThe contract killers sprang up and started shouting at me. 'You lie \u2013 you have no business here!'\n\nI jumped up to face them, keeping a firm grip on the pistol. Obie also stood up, squared his shoulders and glared at the assassins.\n\n'Thula msindu \u2013 stop this noise!' he commanded with iron authority. 'This is the induna's house. He must speak \u2013 not you. You must show respect.'\n\nThe induna gestured at us all to sit down.\n\n'Mhkulu, I do not know where you get these stories from. I do not know why the police are lying about me. I do not know anything of what you say. All I know is that there is no killing list with your name on. Anyone who says so is a liar.'\n\nThe words were smooth, but there was no doubt his attitude had radically changed. He was now in full retreat, indirectly accusing me of calling him a liar \u2013 a heinous slur in Zulu culture.\n\n'Then why is it that these men walk so easily into your house?' I persisted. 'Does this not seem suspicious?'\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n'And what's more,' I added, 'the police know I have come to talk to you. My visit here has been fully reported to them and they await our return. If Obie Mthethwa or I do not get back home this night, they will know what happened here. They will find you and you will suffer the full consequences of your actions.'\n\nAgain, the induna did not reply.\n\nI knew it was unlikely I would be able to shoot my way out, but I certainly would take a couple of these cut-throats with me in the attempt. Perhaps that would also give Obie a chance to make a break for it.\n\nI focused on the candle, just a stride away on the floor. If anything started I planned to kick it over and plunge the room into darkness. The induna was also looking at the candle, no doubt harbouring the exact same thoughts. He then looked at me.\n\nWe both knew why.\n\nThe induna broke his stare first. I could see he was now unnerved \u2013 particularly as he now believed that the police knew we were at his kraal. He had been completely caught out by the arrival of the assassins and the fact that we knew who they were. All his earlier denials were now obvious lies.\n\nThe contract killers looked at their boss, unsure of what to do. The four of them could easily overpower us, but as experienced gunmen, they also could tell I had a primed pistol underneath my jacket. If they went for their guns, I would get the first shot off, straight at the nearest man. It was now up to their boss what he wanted to do.\n\nThe stand-off was tense and silent. Nobody moved.\n\nI finally provided the induna with a way out.\n\n'I am not calling you a liar. Maybe the police are, but that is a matter between you and them. All I want is your word of honour that I am in no danger from any man of your tribe \u2013 any man who answers to you.'\n\nHe quickly agreed, grabbing the escape line with both hands. He gave his assurance that I would not be harmed by any of his people, stressing again that there was no hit list.\n\nThat was all I needed. The main aim of the meeting had been achieved. The induna would be a fool to go back on his word of honour. He also knew he would be the prime suspect if anything happened to me \u2013 whether he was guilty or not.\n\nAs a parting shot I said our discussion would also be reported to Nkosi at the next council meeting. We then left. When we got in the car, Obie let out a large 'whoosh' of breath. We had just stared death in the face, and I looked at the old man with gratitude and respect. He had the courage of a lion and had put his life on the line for the purest motive of all \u2013 friendship.\n\nDriving home through the dark, Obie \u2013 a natural raconteur \u2013 recounted the story over and again in the minutest detail, mimicking accents and actions with deadly accuracy. I laughed delightedly, adrenalin still fizzing with the manic relief of survival. I knew Obie would memorize the story and it would be told and retold around the night fires of his kraal, woven into the rich fabric of his tribe's folklore: of how we had called the bluff of one of the most powerful headmen and his tsotsis in the area \u2013 and lived to tell the tale.\n\nWith that, the cabal was now in full retreat. They knew the police had infiltrated them; that there was an informer in their midst. I also had assurance from one of their leaders that I would not be harmed. It remained to see whether he would keep his word.\nchapter twenty-seven\n\nI was keen to see how ET was settling in with her new family and spent as much time as I could out in the bush near them.\n\nHowever, it didn't take long to experience the consequence of her inclusion. While Nana and Frankie were as content as always with me in the vicinity, ET went ballistic if I came near, especially if I climbed out of the Land Rover. She just couldn't believe that her matriarch was permitting a human \u2013 evil incarnate in her mind \u2013 to get close and she quivered on full alert, ready to charge at a moment's notice. This meant that I had to be as unobtrusive as possible. She may be a youngster, but she still weighed a couple of tons and was more powerful than a human could imagine, and I wasn't sure what Nana or Frankie's reaction would be if she attacked. This was uncharted territory for me, so there was nothing to do except be patient and let ET's malevolence dissipate.\n\nOn the plus side, she may have been mad as a snake at me, but she was absolutely ecstatic with her new family. And to see this previously depressed creature joyously bonding with the other youngsters, pushing, pulling and playing with all the physicality that elephants so enjoy, was simply phenomenal.\n\nMnumzane was still on the periphery, being shooed off if he got too close, and somewhat bemusedly watching the newcomer being accepted. I reckon I was his best friend \u2013 albeit by default \u2013 and whenever I drove past he would trumpet and chase after me. I always stopped, and he would then block the road, trapping me for as long as possible as he browsed around the Land Rover. I loved our 'chats' together but this didn't disguise his loneliness or unease. His newfound relationship with me, however expedient, was not natural and concerned me a little. Elephant bulls are always pushed out of the herd at puberty, and eventually they get over the rejection and join a loose affiliation with other bachelors.\n\nHowever, we didn't have other bachelors, and to bring in a dominant bull to provide Mnumzane with a father figure was not something KZN Wildlife would consider. New rules set by KZN Wildlife demanded a larger reserve for elephant bulls, and it would have to wait for the Royal Zulu project to come to fruition. Mnumzane was thus stuck in no man's land living partly on his own and partly on the fringes of the herd.\n\nOne day, he was grazing a few yards off when I got an ominous radio call from the lodge. Penny our bull terrier was missing. She loved hanging out at the lodge where she was spoiled rotten by guests and we brought her down from the house most days. She relished swimming in the water-hole on the riverbank just in front of the lodge and would leap in regularly to cool off. As I have said before, her devotion to us and Fran\u00e7oise in particular was absolute. She was short for her breed but had the courage and character of a Titan.\n\nI have always loved bull and Staffordshire terriers. They are the most tolerant, loving, friendly dogs imaginable, and you get a power keg of protection thrown in as a bonus. Unfortunately they don't like other dogs much and you have to watch that, but they can be taught and are more than worth the effort.\n\nWith Max at my heels I searched around the lodge, periodically yelling Penny's name. She normally reacted to my whistle, bursting out of the bush with a tail doing windmill facsimiles. But today there was only silence and I feared the worst. A dog AWOL on a game reserve usually meant one of two things: a leopard or a poacher's snare, where the poor animal would die a horrible, lingering death if not found in time. I forced the images out of my mind and walked through the bush in ever-widening circles carefully searching for her spoor. Nothing at all.\n\nI eventually gave up, turned around and made my way down to the waterhole where suddenly I saw fresh spoor. I followed her tracks down into the riverbed and then some way upstream past some deep green pools. I shuddered, goosebumps on my arm.\n\nThe Afrikaners have a saying ''n hond se gedgate', which literally translated means 'a dog's thought' or gut feeling, that innate sense of premonition that all humans have in greater or lesser degrees. Looking at those sinister pools I felt something was wrong and I involuntarily reached down for Max's collar.\n\nThen I saw it. With its knobby grey-green armour-plating barely detectable in the wind-rustled reeds, lay an absolute monster of crocodile. A flash of white caught my eye and just a few yards from it, lying motionless in a still backwater, was Penny. My heart sank into my boots. She had been snatched and drowned.\n\nThe crocodile was resting, about to submerge the corpse into its lair where it would decay. Despite its fearsome fangs, a crocodile cannot chew and unless there are two to tear a kill apart, a lone crocodile has to let its prey decompose into soft-rotted chunks before it can ingest it.\n\nThere was no way I was going to leave my loyal dog there. I edged closer. Crocodiles don't like loud noises; they like being surprised even less. I crept forward and when I was barely fifteen yards away, I jumped up, screamed and clapped my hands. With a whoosh of its huge tail it was gone.\n\nI waited until it resurfaced some way downriver and then waded into the pool to retrieve Penny's body. Shocked and saddened, I carried her back up to the lodge and laid her gently on the lawn. Max, who had followed closely, pushed forward and sat silently next to her lifeless body.\n\nBiyela and I buried her under a beautiful spreading buffalo thorn, the legendary umphafa tree which Zulus associate with the spirit world. It was just the two us. Brendan, who loved Penny, was on the other side of the reserve. Fran\u00e7oise was too tearful to come down.\n\n'She liked to swim too much,' said Biyela as he laid his spade down. 'The crocodile was waiting for her.'\n\nKnowing Penny, I wasn't so sure Biyela was right. Penny may have been domesticated, but she was still savvy to the bush. I couldn't see any croc stalking her. She was quick, smart and possessed survival senses long distilled out of desk-bound humans. Her death niggled at me; I really wanted to know what had happened.\n\nThe next day I went down to where we suspected she had been snatched and started unravelling the tracks, trying to fathom what actually took place. Reading signs of the wild is a dying art which few today have mastered. But I had learned something of it over the years, so I decided I'd stay at the river and turn over every piece of bush testimonial until the mystery was solved.\n\nFirst checking that the monster crocodile wasn't around, I settled down on a rock and studied the evidence with silent stoicism, trying to get the bush to talk to me. Penny's tracks showed she had been pacing the riverbank. By the length of her stride, the scuff marks of her paws and the short turns executed indicated she was moving quickly and obviously excited. But the tracks were not at the water's edge; she was a few yards up the bank, relatively safe with her turn of speed from any hungry crocodile. There was only one place where she actually went down to the water, possibly to take a drink.\n\nThen I left the rock and walking carefully so as not to disturb the signs, picked up the crocodile's four-footed tracks from where it emerged on the bank, moving up towards the lodge to where it turned and slithered back into the water. Interestingly, Penny's tracks were a couple of yards above. She had seen it come out and had been stalking it, probably worrying it as it lumbered along the bank. This ruled out any surprise attack on her.\n\nSo I went back and carefully studied Penny's tracks at the only place where they led to the water's edge \u2013 initially where I thought she had gone in for a drink. Something didn't gel.\n\nThere were no signs of a struggle. And even more crucially there were no signs of the croc beaching itself in an attack, and no drag marks, not even in the mud under the water. Once a croc's jaws snap shut it's an inexorable slide to the water, an awful one-way ticket to hell which had to leave stark tracks of the victim's frantic struggle. Especially in this still pool.\n\nYet Penny's tracks indicated the exact opposite. Her footprints clearly showed that the sand had been scuffed backwards; that she had been charging into the river. It didn't make any sense at all.\n\nAnd then it came to me. She hadn't gone to the river for a drink and been attacked by the crocodile. In fact, the exact opposite: the attack had happened the other way round. The croc hadn't gone for Penny at all. My mad, insane, beautiful dog had instead attacked the crocodile. She had deliberately rushed into the water and taken on a killing machine twenty times her size. Bush signs do not lie.\n\nThere are those who will say Penny was little more than a dumb dog. I strongly disagree. I believe Penny saw a crocodile, recognized a threat and in her mind she was guarding our territory. With the limitless, impossible courage of her breed, she willingly gave her life to protect all that was important to her, all that she loved. In the same way that Max would soundlessly attack a spitting cobra, Penny went to her death doing what she considered her duty. Penny had perished in her own version of the Alamo or Thermopylae.\n\nShe was one of the finest and bravest creatures I have known.\n\nThings, good or bad, never seem to happen singularly for me. They always come in triplicate.\n\nSoon after losing Penny, Max was at the lodge dozing on the patio when he sat up sharply, sniffing the air. His nose followed the drift of the unfamiliar scent and quickly found its source. It was a bushpig, a hulking boar making his way rapidly across the lawn towards the lodge.\n\nA bushpig is about two- to three-feet high, roughly the same size as a warthog and to the untrained eye the two are easily confused. But that's where the similarities end. A warthog has semicircular tusks and frightens easily. A bushpig is feral to its core and should be avoided at all costs in the wild. It's a real fighter, weighing up to 140 pounds and uses its lower incisor teeth with devastating effect on any creature that underestimates it.\n\nMax didn't know about that. There was an intruder in his territory and the wiry hair on his back sprung up. Characteristically, he did not bark and at a sprint he cut the boar off, forcing it to confront this unusual threat. I say unusual because even a couple of hungry hyenas will avoid taking on a healthy adult bushpig.\n\nIn the wild there is no such thing as an idle threat, and stand-offs usually end with one animal tactically retreating so that 'face' is saved all round. There is no medical care in the bush and animals instinctively know that even a scratch can prove fatal if infected. Thus unlike humans who square up over something as flimsy as road rage, animals fight only as an absolute last resort. In this case there was no need for combat as neither could nor wanted to eat the other, and the bushpig was only a temporary trespasser. There was no need to take it further.\n\nBut they did. The big boar held his ground, refusing to back off and Max took up the challenge and began circling, looking for an opening. Then the boar did a little mock charge, and that was that. The fighting genes of Max's terrier forebears kicked in and he smashed into the big pig in a silent full-blooded charge. I was at the main house at the time, but fortunately David was nearby. Realizing the terrible danger Max was in, forgot his own safety and ran at them screaming.\n\nToo late. The boar swivelled and rammed his shovel-shaped head under Max's gut, hoisting him high into the air. As Max toppled over the boar was on him, slashing with dagger-like incisors at his soft underbelly.\n\nMax scrambled up and came at him again, fast and furious, but the boar, using his superior bulk bowled him over once more, hacking with lethal accuracy as Max rolled, desperately trying to regain his footing.\n\nThey parted briefly, the pig standing firm with Max, his pelt now slick with blood, circling warily, again looking for an opening. Both were completely oblivious to David's yelling.\n\nOnce again Max propelled himself forward and after another vicious melee the bushpig, unaccustomed to such determination from an obviously smaller opponent, retreated into the bush.\n\nSeconds later Max proudly trotted back to David, ignoring the fact that his stomach had been gutted and his entrails were hanging out in ropes.\n\n'Max, you're a complete bloody mess,' said David, shocked rigid. He picked the dog up, making sure the slithering intestines followed, and sprinted to the Land Rover. He didn't ease his foot once in the twenty miles to Empangeni, slamming on the brakes only at the surgery. The vet said it was touch-and-go when he began operating.\n\nI visited Max regularly and a few days later he was back at Thula Thula, tail thumping away. Except for a fence of stitches in his stomach, he looked no worse for wear.\n\nIncredibly, a few days later the third incident with our dogs occurred. This time it was Bijou, Fran\u00e7oise's little princess, who got herself into trouble. As I said earlier, Bijou defines the word 'pampered'. She prefers carpets to grass, and will not \u2013 or cannot \u2013 sleep on the floor. At Fran\u00e7oise's insistence, she only drinks bottled water ('still or sparkling?' the rangers mock when getting her a drink).\n\nI say this only to emphasize how absurd it was for this cosseted mutt to decided to 'attack' a full-grown nyala bull grazing on the lawn close to the lodge's front door. Bijou, who stands an impressive six inches at the shoulder, rushed at the massive buck, yapping for all she was worth. David watched, laughing.\n\nHe suddenly choked on his guffaw... in an instant the tiny Maltese was too close; in fact, fatally close. Before David could intervene the bull lifted his head and in a blur rammed its long horns down on her.\n\nBijou lay still on the ground, little bigger than a crumpled white handkerchief and David's heart stopped. He knew his life was worth peanuts if he had to tell Fran\u00e7oise that Bijou had been killed on his watch.\n\nFrantically chasing the bull away, David rushed over and picked the poodle up, checking for wounds. There were none, not even a splotch of blood. She's had a heart attack, he thought... then slowly she wriggled back to life. Bijou had simply fainted from fright as the horns pierced the ground on either side, missing by fractions. Today, Bijou still struts imperiously indoors but doesn't go outside much any more.\n\nHowever, the numerous nyala grazing literally outside our bedrooms reminded me that we had a surplus of these magnificent antelope on the reserve and I decided we should sell about thirty off to other reserves for breeding purposes.\n\nA phone call later and a game-capture specialist was on Thula Thula darting the animals, which we placed in a boma with plenty of fresh water and alfalfa until we had reached the sell-off quota. We would then load them into the customized van and he would deliver them to the buyer.\n\nBrendan was overseeing the capture and radioed to say we had our quota and the van would be leaving the next morning. It had been a long day. I was tired and looking forward to an early night. Thus I was surprised to be woken by a radio call from Brendan at 11 p.m. 'You'd better come down. The most amazing thing has just happened.'\n\nI cursed, pulled on some clothes and drove down to where Brendan and the team were waiting. The first thing I noticed was that the door to the boma was open.\n\n'Where're the nyala? Surely you didn't load at night!'\n\nI turned to the game-capture man who was standing with his staff staring at the open door. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.\n\n'You're not going to believe what happened,' he said.\n\n'Try me!' My patience was somewhat aggravated by lack of sleep.\n\n'We were sitting by the boma, just chatting,' he said, 'when we heard the elephants come. A couple of minutes later Nana led the herd into the clearing and so we moved right off \u2013 some quicker than others,' he grinned, looking at Brendan. 'We thought she had smelled the alfalfa. We had twelve buck inside and we were worried what would happen to them if the boma was flattened by the herd going crazy for the food.\n\n'Then the herd stopped, as if on instruction. Nana walked alone to the boma. Just as we thought she would smash through the fence, she stopped at the gate. It wasn't locked because the clasps were folded and were secure enough. She started fiddling with the clasps and got one open, then the other, and then pulled open the door. We couldn't believe it, she actually opened the damn door!'\n\nHe looked around as the others nodded.\n\n'Then instead of going for the alfalfa, which we thought was her whole mission, she stood back and waited. After a few seconds a nyala came out, then another, and before we knew it they had all found the gap and were gone.\n\n'The weirdest thing is that as the last one fled, Nana just walked off and the others followed. They didn't even go for the alfalfa \u2013 a pile of prime chow and they just ignored it.'\n\nI looked at him, smiling. 'Okaaaay. So what you're saying is that the elephants felt sorry for the poor old nyala. They came across the reserve just to release them out of the goodness of their hearts. Because they had nothing better to do. Good try. Now... what really happened?'\n\n'I swear to God that's exactly what happened. Ask the others.' And with that they all started jabbering away simultaneously, backing up him and outdoing one another in verifying the story.\n\nIt took me a bit of time to digest it but there was no doubt they were telling the truth. There were elephant tracks all around the boma and Nana had thoughtfully dumped a steaming pile at the gate as a smoking gun. The lock clasps were also all smothered in trunk slime.\n\nHow or why this occurred remains a mystery for some, but it's a mystery only if you grant elephants' limited intelligence. Once you grasp that these ancient giants who have roamed the planet since time immemorial are sentient beings it all becomes clear. Nana, once a prisoner of the boma herself, had decided to let the nyala go free. It is as simple \u2013 or complicated, if you like \u2013 as that. There can be no other explanation.\n\nThe story was told and retold in the bush. Eventually the local media got hold of it and it spread to the international press: how a herd of wild elephants had freed a group of captured antelope. The significance of one species rescuing another for no ulterior motive seemed to interest even the most jaded journalist.\n\nOf course, the next day we had to start all over again, capturing fresh nyala and this time we strung an electric wire powered by a mobile energizer around the Nyala boma to prevent another rescue mission. To me the trouble was worth it. I had never before felt prouder of my elephants.\nchapter twenty-eight\n\nMistakes in the bush have a nasty habit of being irrevocable. As I have no desire to be a dead hero, I usually err on the side of caution by a healthy margin. Whenever I park the Land Rover near the herd, I always make sure I have a clear escape route. Or when I approach them on foot, I never venture too far from the vehicle.\n\nBut this time I was caught unawares. By the time I saw her coming, it was too late. ET was hurtling out of the bush like a missile and there was no way I could scramble to the safety of my vehicle in time. I was in big trouble and had no option but to defy every screaming instinct in my body and force myself to hold my ground and face the charge. Despite my mounting panic, some small voice kept reminding me that any attempt to flee would be a deadly mistake.\n\nAll of a sudden, Nana, who was about twenty yards off, moved across at surprising speed for her bulk and blocked the charge with the broadside of her body. The youngster stumbled, knocked off course. Clumsily regaining her balance, she meekly swung around and lumbered to the back of the herd while Nana resumed grazing as if nothing had happened.\n\nI stared, barely breathing, pulling body, soul and nerves back together. That was certainly a first for me. In fact I had never heard of it before; a wild elephant blocking the charge of another to protect a human. Nana was radically changing the way I perceived her species. Over the past few weeks I had been wondering how to handle ET's constant aggression and here Nana was doing it for me, disciplining and teaching her not to hurt me.\n\nBefore ET's arrival I had planned to start cutting back on my visits to the herd. My sole purpose was to rehabilitate them in the bush so that they remained truly wild elephants, supremely at peace in their environment. That was why I was adamant that none of my staff ever interacted with them \u2013 in fact if they did, they were liable for instant dismissal. It was crucial that the herd learned to trust a human, but only one, which would stop them from attacking people but still keep them feral. Wild elephants that become accustomed to people generally can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable at times and almost always end up getting shot. For this reason I never interacted with the herd for guests.\n\nMy idea was that once the herd was settled I would gradually withdraw until there was no more contact. I believed I was almost there.\n\nBut ET was still a major problem. While the herd comfortably tolerated Land Rovers cruising past, ignoring them as they should, ET was doing the exact opposite. She regularly made threatening moves and gestures at the vehicles, which was alarming guests and upsetting the rangers. Wilderness bush walks, a favourite with our visitors, had become too dangerous to continue.\n\nConsequently, I needed to spend more time with her. So instead of cutting back contact as planned, I was now forced to increase visits \u2013 with some alarming consequences, as I'd just experienced. I would have to be more careful in future.\n\nI started working with her from my vehicle, approaching slowly head-on and watching her reaction. Invariably she would have a go at me, whether it was just two or three aggressive steps or a headlong run, angrily flaring her ears and lifting her tail. In the boma I had purposefully backed off whenever she did this, feigning fear to shore up her depleted confidence. That had worked at the time, but maybe a bit too well. Now I had to reverse tactics. She had to learn to respect me, and then all vehicles and humans.\n\nThrough trial and error I had learned several techniques on how to approach an aggressive elephant. One was to ignore it, which always worked wonders as it piqued curiosity and usually prompted a benign acknowledgement of my presence. But that would come later. In ET's case, I decided she needed to be challenged directly. Mind games would probably not work here. I had to confront her head-on.\n\nObviously I couldn't start on foot. Instead I would approach in the Land Rover, stop in front of her and wait, engine idling. Then as she started charging and got close I would jerk the Landy forward at her once or twice in rapid succession, just a yard or so, but usually that was all that was needed to make her stop and think again. To an elephant this is in effect saying, 'I'm not messing about here; I'm ready to fight \u2013 so back off.'\n\nThis move always broke her aggression. Then I would lean out of the window and say in a firm but comforting voice, 'ET, if you don't mess with me we can be friends.' I was in effect demonstrating my position of seniority in the herd's hierarchy.\n\nI swear Nana and Frankie knew exactly what I was doing with their unruly adopted child. If not, how do you explain the one instance when ET came at me out of the blue from a thicket, once again catching me on foot without an escape route? On this occasion I hadn't seen her as I had approached cautiously thinking she was with the herd in the thick bush ahead when, unusually, she was on her own on the flank.\n\nThis time it was Frankie who reacted. She sprinted up alongside the galloping youngster and placed her tusks on ET's rump, forcing her hindquarters sideways and down onto the ground. As ET sprawled in a cloud of dust, Frankie stood over her until ET clambered up in that ungainly way that fallen elephants do and sulked off to join the others. To have Frankie, who was once the definition of aggression, protect me was little short of phenomenal.\n\nThe third full-blooded charge was broken by Nana in a somewhat bizarre way. I was about thirty yards away from the herd just sitting and watching when ET started stampeding towards me. But to do so she had to run right past Nana, who was grazing a little way ahead. She heard the youngster coming and tilted her head. As ET began building up a head of steam Nana lifted her trunk and held a pose, waiting. When ET drew level she reached out and touched her ever so gently right in the middle of her forehead with the tip of her trunk.\n\nET stopped dead, as if she had been whacked on the skull with a sledgehammer. Yet all Nana had done was almost caress her. I had never seen that before.\n\nAll this activity would attract the attention of other animals and on this occasion it was a bachelor herd of kudu, with their spiralled horns so beloved by trophy hunters, who watched with interest. They stood stock still except for their twitching oval ears, taking it all in.\n\nThe kudu bulls were a reminder to me to be constantly alert. Wildlife is perpetually aware, always ready to flee or fight in an instant. It's a life thrumming with eternal vigilance, absorbing every minuscule detail of one's surroundings, continually assessing degrees of safety and danger. It's knowing where or where not to be, perpetually analysing instinctual information so crucial for survival.\n\nEvery wild thing is in tune with its surroundings, awake to its fate and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focused totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable.\n\nI believed ET was making progress, and it appeared that working day after day with her was making a difference.\n\nI was wrong; it was only effective when she was actually with the herd. She had developed another tactic to give vent to her overpowering instinct to kill me. Two junior rangers and I were following the herd on foot from a safe distance. I knew now that Nana and Frankie were implicitly on my side in disciplining the youngster, so I felt relatively safe.\n\nBut ET knew otherwise. She stood no chance against me with the matriarch and her deputy around, so she decided to become clandestine. So she broke away from the herd, surreptitiously moving off to the side as the rest moved on and waited in ambush. Before I knew it, I heard that awful sound as the bush came alive with snapping branches and she galloped into the clearing, dipping her head in the awesome way that elephants do when they start a charge \u2013 her prize at last within grasp without Nana or Frankie to stop her.\n\nI looked at the out-of-reach Land Rover behind me, and shouted at the two young rangers, 'She's coming! Don't move! It's OK... it's OK! Just don't move.'\n\nRunning away can all too easily convert a bluff into something lethal and even though it's possibly the most frightening thing to do, a mock charge must be confronted at all costs.\n\n'No! No!' I yelled at ET as she came on at us. 'No!' I raised my arms above my head screaming at her as she thundered on.\n\nAt the last moment she broke off, swinging away at a lumbering gait, trunk high.\n\nThen despairingly I watched her turn a wide circle and turn back at us. 'She's coming again! Stand still... don't move. Don't move!'\n\nBut I was talking to myself. The two young rangers, having just witnessed their first-ever up close and personal elephant charge decided that to stand still for another was the most insane notion ever conceived. They disappeared so fast I thought they had been 'beamed up' to the top of the giant fig tree next to us.\n\nThat was fine for them, but it left me confronting a charging ET alone. Emboldened after seeing the rangers ignominiously bolting and clambering up the tree \u2013 the very scenario I was trying to prevent \u2013 she was now more determined to press home her advantage.\n\nThe moment I know when a situation gets hairy with elephants is when pandemonium switches into slow motion and the shrieking, mind-numbing fear leaches out of my body and is replaced by a blissful calmness. And so it was this time. I watched abstractly as I screamed at her until she was virtually on top of me. Then at the last moment she went swinging past. I can tell you that she very nearly didn't pull out of that one.\n\nShe kept running, joining the herd who were ambling across to see what all the fuss was about. Personally, I thought that Nana could have reacted a little quicker.\n\nI looked up at the two tree-hugging rangers. 'Jeez! That was unbelievable!' shouted one from the top of the tree, giving me a thumbs-up. 'I can't believe you made it. I thought you were a goner. Well done.'\n\nYeah, thanks.\n\nThe herd was getting closer. The still agitated ET was with them, so I hurried over to the Land Rover and drove under the giant fig, deliberately calling Nana and Frankie to me. I smiled coldly at the arboreal rangers who were watching the elephants milling beneath them and gave a return thumbs-up. I was going to teach these two runners a bush lesson, all right. By fleeing, they had put all of our lives at risk.\n\nI talked to the elephants for a short while, jokingly chiding Nana for not being there for me and sternly chastising ET for what had happened. Then I drove off, leaving the rangers hanging on to branches with the herd right beneath them.\n\nOn my way home I had a treat which more than made up for the trauma of the charge: a pair of foraging honey badgers jaunted past, just yards from the vehicle. I don't see them often, but they are among my favourite animals.\n\nBodies slung low to the ground, their thick fur is deep black except for the back which boasts a silver-white frost. The rich pelt is loose-fitting, allowing the badger to swivel its sinewy body almost 180 degrees out of a predator's grip and counter-attack with its pickaxe teeth and bear-trap death grip. No predator in its right mind would ever be brave or dumb enough to try and grab one.\n\nBluntly courageous, the honey badger, or ratel as the Afrikaners call it, fears nothing; not humans, not lions, not anything. They are absolute dreadnoughts and you mess with them at your peril. I once heard from a fellow ranger of a pair foraging among logs and hidey-holes that concealed food and walked right into a resting pride of lions. The badgers didn't even look up as they sauntered along while the scampering lions rapidly decided that ratel wasn't on the menu. It was bizarre to see the kings of the jungle jumping up wide-eyed with alarm as these ferocious little warriors buzzed past.\n\nAbout three hours later I was relaxing on the front lawn with a beer when the rangers got back, sweaty and bedraggled. I didn't have to say anything.\n\nNor did they. They had learned their lesson.\nchapter twenty-nine\n\nIt was spring again and the landscape sparkled in emerald and jade hues animated by the radiant colours of birds, flowers and trees. New life was everywhere, and everything seemed as it should be. Trees blossomed and the herds of buck, wildebeest and zebra were starting to put on weight, glowing with health as the pregnant females prepared to foal. But spring also brings the inevitable storms.\n\nI felt the wind suddenly shift with a vicious gust and looked up to the sky. High above the eastern horizon bundles of cumulo nimbus towered into the stratosphere. A storm was gathering, a big one. I radioed Brendan and the rangers to warn them.\n\n'It looks like a number. Let's get everyone in before it explodes.'\n\nAn hour later and we knew we were in for it. The wind had come up and it was as if a purple-grey blanket was being yanked across the heavens. It had been as hot as hell for the last two weeks and the rain gods were going to fix it their way.\n\nThe first peals of thunder rumbled in the distance and Max collapsed. He really hated thunder so I carried him inside where he sat staring forlornly at the wall. I made a mental note that if I ever had to burgle a home that had Staffordshire terriers, I would do so during a storm. Bijou was safely ensconced on her feathered pillow and I hoped her usual late-afternoon pre-snooze nap would not be disturbed too much.\n\nOutside it was still darkening by the second when a jagged white bolt of lightning seared through the sky followed by an almighty clap of thunder overhead. I walked to the bottom of the garden and looked out over the reserve which was quickly disappearing behind the grey sheets of water rolling in over the hills. Watching a spectacular Zululand thunderstorm advance is an unforgettable experience.\n\nThe first drops splattered on the earth, exploding like little bombs kicking up dust. Then the full storm hit us; within seconds foliage that usually stood firm gave up and the wilderness sagged under the soggy onslaught.\n\nThe pelting rain formed into puddles and then streams swept across the ground taking the colour of the rich soil with them. These hundreds of rivulets fiddled along: moving, stopping, starting and merging with others, flowing, swelling then, raging down to the lowest point \u2013 the Nseleni River, which bisects the reserve.\n\nI watched, happy, as it continued to bucket down. The dams would be full again and millions of little clefts, dips, fissures and depressions would trap the moisture that sustained life. We could never get enough rain. Despite its picture-postcard beauty, much of South Africa in reality is a land of long droughts punctuated by rain.\n\nThe house lights behind me flickered and then went out which was par for the course with a storm, and meant the phones were gone as well. Through the windows I could see Fran\u00e7oise lighting candles, even though it was still mid-afternoon.\n\nI went inside and wrapped my two-way radio in plastic. I knew from experience that it would be our only outside link for the night.\n\nAn hour and a half later and my contentment was beginning to be tempered by a touch of concern. If anything, it was raining harder than before and there were now brown streams surging across all the roads.\n\n'Brendan, come in, Brendan,' I called on my radio.\n\n'Standing by,' he replied.\n\n'How's the river looking?'\n\n'Not bad. It's coming up slowly but nothing serious.'\n\nBrendan was at an outpost near the lodge keeping an eye on the Nseleni River. I have always longed for a gently flowing European-type river with steady banks, but this was Africa and our rivers are as volatile as nitroglycerine. One moment they're barely moving, the next they're a violent, muddy torrent that will sweep you twenty miles to the ocean in a heartbeat if you're careless enough to get caught.\n\nThe sections of fence where the river entered and exited the reserve were particularly vulnerable to flooding. Here we had built sacrificial barriers designed to break away in a deluge, but until they were replaced they left huge gaps through which the elephants could escape. This meant we would have to move fast as soon as the storm was over.\n\nTwo hours later it was almost pitch-black, the rain was still bulleting down and everything had changed. Brendan's voice staccatoed on the radio: 'You'd better come down and have a look. The river is getting seriously out of control.'\n\n'How're the sacrificial fences?'\n\n'Long gone.'\n\nFran\u00e7oise was sitting next to me. 'I'm going down to the river to Brendan,' I told her. 'It's come right up. I'll go past the lodge and do a check while I'm there.'\n\n'I'll come with you,' she said, moving Bijou, who was now having her pre-nocturnal sleep, off her lap. 'I'm worried about the guests with no electricity. Some of them are real city people and I should be there with them.'\n\nWe grabbed raincoats and made a dash for the Land Rover, pulling out onto the road, which was now just a sloppy stream, causing the Land Rover to skid and slide all over the place. Above us almost continuous lightning illuminated in silver our savannah plains completely inundated with water.\n\nAs we rounded the last corner I got my first glimpse of the river. My heart jumped at the view of the seething torrent and I pulled over. 'Good God! Look at that \u2013 it's a monster!'\n\nI reversed back and turned down the track to the river crossing, just above where we had been charged on the quad bike by Frankie, and played the headlights on the liquid mayhem roaring past.\n\nA dead cow swept past in the gurgling waves, then another. 'This is unbelievable,' I said. Fran\u00e7oise just stared.\n\nI slammed the Land Rover into reverse, but instead of going backwards the wheels spun loosely in the slimy mud and to my horror we started inexorably sliding forward, slipping down the slope into the hurtling river.\n\nJust as I thought all was lost and we were going into the torrent, I instinctively swung the wheel and jammed the Landy hard against the right bank, wedging it into the soft soil.\n\n'Get out quickly,' I told a wide-eyed Fran\u00e7oise. 'The Landy could slip away again. Let's go!'\n\nShe opened her door and disappeared from view as she fell into the mud. I clambered over to her side and helped her up. Then we slithered up the crossing back to the main track in the darkness, slipping and grabbing onto each other for support in the frictionless mud. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to bring the radio and a torch was clipped onto my belt. I called Brendan.\n\n'Standing by. Where're you?' he asked.\n\n'At the lodge crossing. The Landy's stuck at the water's edge. Can you get the tractor down as fast as possible? Or we're going to lose it.'\n\n'Shit, what you doing there?'\n\n'What do you think? I was about to go for a swim but changed my mind when I saw the dead cows.'\n\n'Yeah, I saw them bobbing like corks. Even worse, I think I've also seen a body or two as well. Not sure, though, with the dark. Sorry but I can't get to you \u2013 our vehicles are up to the axles in mud. I'll try and work out how to get Gunda Gunda down.'\n\n'Fran\u00e7oise is with me. We can't stay here, we're going to walk to the lodge.'\n\n'OK...' He paused. 'Just remember the ngwenyas.'\n\nKnowing Fran\u00e7oise was listening he had purposefully used the Zulu word for crocodiles. I silently thanked him.\n\nThe entrance to the lodge grounds was only about a hundred yards away, with the lodge itself another hundred after that. But between us and the entrance were two deep pools, one on each side of the road. Just yesterday Brendan and I had noticed that two huge crocs had taken up residence, one in each pool. Unusually, I hadn't brought a gun and now I really wished I had. Not to shoot the reptiles, but to frighten them off.\n\nI surveyed the way ahead. The pools had overflowed onto the road between them and merged into a small lake. I knew exactly where the road went but it was swamped, about a foot and a half deep \u2013 easily enough to hide a crocodile in the dark.\n\nWe stopped at the edge and I played my torch over the water and found one almost immediately, its red eyes reflecting back at us. Then I saw the other. They were together and had left the deluge and moved away about thirty yards to a ledge on much higher ground. They were far enough away and, praying that the duo hadn't been joined by a third mate since we last saw them, I took Fran\u00e7oise's hand and we waded through the flow.\n\nEmerging on the other side, it suddenly dawned on me that even the crocodiles were instinctively seeking higher ground. How much bigger was this river going to get?\n\nA few minutes later we were at the lodge which was in complete darkness. Fran\u00e7oise cleaned herself up and went to some of the guests who had left their rooms and were in the bar area putting on brave faces. I grabbed the security ranger and we walked down the expansive lawn towards the Nseleni valley. We were barely able to hear each other speak, such was the roar of the river, and then I felt water sloshing through my boots. These were no mere rain puddles.\n\nA flash of lightning showed me the truth. The river, about a hundred yards away, was so swollen it had overflowed its banks and was starting to surge across the lawns. I immediately turned and ran back past the lodge down to near where we had passed the crocodiles in the pools.\n\nAs I suspected both pools were now completely submerged by a new river that had broken away and surged around the rear of the lodge grounds. And then I realized that we were completely cut off; the rampaging Nseleni River in front, and a flash flood at the back. This was why the crocs were seeking higher ground. The lodge was in danger of being engulfed.\n\nI vaguely heard the radio cackle. It was Brendan: 'Come in, come in...' he was calling repeatedly.\n\nI thumbed the button. 'Standing by. Sorry, I didn't hear the radio with the river noise.'\n\n'We got the Landy out, but only just. I'm afraid we can't get to you. The river's jumped its banks.'\n\n'I know. There's not much we can do, we're trapped at the lodge. We'll have to sit it out here. Stay in touch and let's conserve batteries.'\n\n'Roger and out,' said Brendan and a few minutes later I saw his vehicle lights piercing the gloom a mile or two away as they headed back to the house.\n\nI returned to the lodge where for three nerve-wracking hours I watched as the overflowing river inched closer and closer to the buildings. Thankfully the rain had stopped and just as I thought we would have to start getting my guests onto the lodge roof, the water stopped rising. We were safe. Fran\u00e7oise had found us an empty room. I had a warm shower, then told the night ranger to wake me if the river rose higher.\n\nThe next morning I was woken at dawn by Brendan on the radio issuing instructions to staff. The storm was over. Looking out of my window there wasn't a cloud in the sky... after all that drama last night. The sun was beaming and the river was dropping, but we were still cut off.\n\n'Hi, Brendan, what's the damage?'\n\n'Well, we measured six inches of rain and then the gauge overflowed. The Nseleni broke its banks for five solid miles. Our problem is, it didn't only take out the sacrificial fence, but another 500 yards on the eastern boundary as well. It's gone, like it was never there.'\n\n'Where's the herd?'\n\n'No idea. But if I know Nana, she's taken them to the top of the hills.'\n\n'I hope so. That fence's going to take all day to repair and you still have to cross the river somehow to get to it.'\n\n'Don't tell me. We're going to try and string a cable across, as it's still too wild to swim. I'll let you know how it goes.'\n\n'OK, but put some guys on the lookout for the elephants. We need to know where they are.'\n\n'Will do, out.'\n\nLuckily when the herd was eventually sighted they were on the opposite side of the river to where Brendan was working, unable to access the gap in the fence even if they wanted to. I told Ngwenya to find a high spot and keep an eye on them.\n\nThe flash torrent behind the lodge had now dropped and a ranger drove my Land Rover down to rescue us \u2013 and not a moment too soon as I got the call I had always dreaded. It was Ngwenya.\n\n'Mkhulu, Mkhulu! Come in! Come in quickly, the elephants are out. They are outside.'\n\nI grabbed my radio and answered in a flat spin, 'Where? What's happened?'\n\n'On the northern boundary. They're walking along the fence, but on the wrong side.'\n\nThe northern boundary was not too far away and thankfully on high ground. I jumped into the Land Rover and called Musa the fence ranger, instructing him to follow me on the quad bike and we sped off, skidding on the barely passable roads.\n\nWe arrived twenty minutes later and I saw Nana right away. But she and the others were inside the fence; what was Ngwenya on about?\n\nSuch was my relief that it took me a moment to realize that something was indeed seriously amiss. Both Nana and Frankie were pacing back and forth as agitated as all hell. Every few seconds they would stop and stretch their trunks over the top electric wires and shake the fence poles, the only part they could reach without shocking themselves.\n\nI counted the herd as I always do. There was one missing, but which one? It had to be Mnumzane? No, there he was too, so I counted again.\n\nThen I saw a movement on the other side of the fence that was attracting the herd's attention. There stood little Mandla, Nana's firstborn son. He was alone, and from his forlorn demeanour it seemed he had gone from panic into apathy and given up trying to get back to his agitated mother. The fence would hold, for the time being at least, but how were we going to get Mandla back in? The nearest gate was miles away, but a gate would be of little use because it was just as likely that Nana would go out as Mandla come in.\n\nI drove closer and called out to Nana to let her know I was there. She looked over at me, staring hard. My mind sped, trying to find solutions. If we didn't get Mandla inside soon, the herd would break through the fence. There was no question about that; an elephant mother will do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of her babies.\n\nPerhaps we could cut the fence, but then we would have the same problem as with a gate. I got out of the Landy, lit a cigarette and pondered the problem. How could we get Mandla in without letting the herd out? I looked at the electric wires and an idea started to form. If we cut the fence itself and then also the middle and bottom electric wires, Mandla could get in, leaving the top live wire intact to prevent the adults from going out. The question was, would the top electric wire alone be enough to keep Nana and Frankie at bay?\n\nNana shook the fence violently again. Suddenly I heard the sound of dogs barking... hunting dogs. Zulus traditionally hunt with indigenous hounds and there was a hunting party somewhere out beyond Mandla. Nana heard them too and she stopped rattling the fence, spreading her ears to absorb every sound.\n\nThe hunters were on their own land and in themselves not a problem. What concerned me was that if the dogs got the scent of Mandla and started harassing him, Nana would tear through the fence like a bulldozer.\n\nWe took the wire cutters out of the toolbox. The question now was how do we open the fence and cut the electric wires in front of Mandla with a herd of agitated elephants breathing down our necks?\n\nI answered my own question: we cut the hole fifty yards away. I then call Nana, she comes, Mandla follows on the other side of the fence, finds the hole, realizes he can get through and the drama is over.\n\nEasy... right?\n\nWe moved away, cut the hole, folded back the fence and dropped the bottom two electric wires. The first part of the plan worked fine. Not so the second part: Nana refused to move away from Mandla and I spent a fruitless ten minutes trying to call her. It was a stalemate.\n\nWith the yapping of the dogs in the background getting louder I turned to Musa and asked him to go through the hole, backtrack behind Mandla and then make a noise to frighten him forwards toward the hole.\n\n'He's just a youngster,' I said. 'Stay a good distance away and clap your hands to make him run to the hole. There is no danger.'\n\n'Yebo, Mkhulu,' he said without enthusiasm.\n\n'Good. We will speak on the radio and I will tell you exactly what to do.'\n\nMusa was a good man but could be a bit of a show-off and often regaled other staff with fantastical stories of his courageous encounters with wild animals \u2013 including the elephants. 'I am not scared of them,' he would say, imitating Frankie's gait, using his arm as a trunk. 'They are scared of me.'\n\nWell, now we would see.\n\nHe climbed through the fence and after giving him five minutes to get into position I called: 'Where are you?'\n\n'I am here,' he replied, and I wanted to pull my hair out. Musa thought I could 'see' him through the radio. One can laugh at this, but it is just as easy for rural Zulus to laugh at how ignorant many technologically competent Westerners are in the wild.\n\n'Okaaay. Where is here?'\n\n'It is here,' he replied confidently. 'Here where I am.'\n\nI promised myself I would strangle him later.\n\n'Good, can you see the young elephant?' I asked.\n\n'Yebo, Mkhulu. I can.'\n\n'How far are you?'\n\n'Close.'\n\n'Good. Now clap your hands and I will call the mother at the same time.'\n\nSilence.\n\n'Musa why are you waiting? Clap your hands.'\n\nNothing.\n\n'Musa! Clap your flipping hands!'\n\nThen I heard clapping... well, barely. Painfully slow and methodical and so gentle it would not startle a flea. Worst of all it was happening right next to me, just on the other side of the fence. I looked around and there he was sitting on the ground in the middle of some shrubs slowly clapping his hands. He had gone through the hole in the fence and then hidden in the bush a few yards away rather than approach baby Mandla. So much for him not being afraid of the elephants.\n\n'Musa?'\n\n'Yebo?'\n\n'I see you, come out from where you are.'\n\nThis made him doubly certain that I could see through the radio and he slowly emerged staring at me, then at the transmitter.\n\nThere was nothing left to do but continue trying to call Nana to come to where we had cut the hole and get Mandla to follow her. After forty minutes or so with me going hoarse calling, asking, begging and pleading, she ambled over. Mandla followed dutifully, found the hole, scampered into the reserve and it was over.\n\nAs he got back, every one of the elephants crowded around him, touching him with their trunks, fussing over him and rumbling their stomachs. It was humbling to watch the care and affection being showered on him after his ordeal.\n\nI found out later that a flooded stream had taken out a small piece of the fence but left one electric strand still standing that was just high enough for Mandla to walk under \u2013 but too low for the rest of the herd. Once out, he panicked and couldn't get back.\n\nI was so relieved to get Mandla back that I forgot to compliment Musa on his 'bravery' \u2013 about how scared the elephants, particularly Frankie, were of him. But I'm sure the yarns he told around the village campfire that night more than made up for that.\nchapter thirty\n\nMost rural Zulus believe that spirits, in countless forms and guises, are very busily involved in the destiny of man, that they take form in the plant and animal kingdoms, and that the rivers, skies and mountains are inhabited by supernatural beings.\n\nThey believe that after death there is no heavenly reward or hellish retribution, only a reassumption of the personality of an ancestor, from where one continues a never-ending role in the eternal symbiosis between the spiritual and material worlds. These deep-seated beliefs are poorly understood and too easily ridiculed by many Westerners who think they know best.\n\nThat is of course, until you turn out the lights. For there is nothing like darkness, nothing like experiencing night in the African bush with rural Africans who know strange stories to lead your spirit down the same roads. For surely it was not 'civilization' that eroded the spirit world, it was electric light at night, the light that took away the dark, blinded us to ghosts, angels and demons, and vanquished our ancestors.\n\nIt was nearly midnight and I was taking the lodge's night staff back up to their houses. There was a tree lying across the road. Mnumzane had come through the area earlier and he had a habit of doing that. Sometimes I used to think he was purposely closing roads. I mean, how come the trees were never pushed over away from the road?\n\nI couldn't squeeze past the tree so I turned to go along the river road, a good alternative route, when one of the staff girls said to me, 'Mkhulu, why are you going this way?'\n\n'Why not?' I replied. 'It's much shorter.'\n\n'You cannot,' she replied quietly. 'Not this way, not now.'\n\n'Why not?' I repeated.\n\n'Do you not know of the tagati that lives here?\n\n'No, I don't. Where?'\n\n'In the big rock in the cliff at the river, it lives there, we cannot go near, please turn around.'\n\nA tagati is a proactive evil spirit and the cast-iron rule for Zulus is that you don't have anything to do with them, ever. So, respecting the staff's wishes, I reversed and we took the longer road home. Later, I did some research and went back to find out what they were talking about.\n\nThe village sangoma, or diviner (often mistakenly called a witchdoctor), explained it to me: 'That tagati has been there for as long as anyone can remember,' he said. 'Long before Thula Thula, long before the white man came, and he will be there long after we are all gone. It is his place; do not go there.'\n\n'Why not?' I asked.\n\nHe looked at me in a strange way. 'Why would anyone want to go to a tagati?' he asked querulously. 'You do not know tagati, be very careful.'\n\nWell, of course I went there. A few times, in fact, and try as I might I didn't see or feel anything. I think. Well maybe, if I stretch my imagination far enough, and add a dollop of fantasy. On one occasion when I was there for a while studying the rock I could have sworn I picked up a little something, a little uneasiness, but it was inconsequential and I forgot about it.\n\nIn deference to my staff who had all been talking disapprovingly about my visits to the place, I started to pay respect to the superstition and only went past if I had to. It was near one of our roads after all.\n\nThen one evening at dusk I was slowly driving along the river road, looking for foreign plants of all things, when I got an uncomfortable sensation of sorts, and unconsciously looking up, found myself below the same concave rock I had been warned about.\n\nSurprised by this illogical intrusion into my practical contemplations, I stopped, and as I did so a strange feeling came over me and I experienced a dim awareness that all was not right. The feeling slowly grew as I sat there spellbound. Suddenly I became aware of a presence I can only describe as one of absolute malevolence. An involuntary alarm seized me and I went into goosebumps all over. Then slowly the sensation dissipated, almost as if it was taken up by the rock itself.\n\nNot being superstitious at all I was shocked at my reaction and looked back at the rock, still drawn to it. I swear there was still a little something there, a tiny residue of what I had just experienced. And that's when I recognized it. The residue was what I had picked up on my previous visits, when I thought I felt a little something but wasn't sure. I recovered myself and left very perplexed, too embarrassed to tell anyone about it, and eventually put it out of my mind.\n\nA few weeks later I decided I had to go back. I wanted another's opinion. Not from a Zulu for I already knew what they would say, if I could even get them to go. I wanted a Westerner's opinion. David would be the one. So I waited for dusk and then said to him, 'Come with me, I want you to see something.'\n\nWe drove down the river road just as it was getting dark and I stopped below the rock and turned the motor off.\n\n'What are we doing here?' David asked.\n\n'This place...' I said, 'that rock, what do you think of it? Take your time.'\n\nDavid knew we were here for a reason and looked around unhurriedly, and then I watched as his gaze slowly went up to the concave edifice as if drawn there. My skin started to prickle as he did so, and after a while he turned to me. David, who is as tough as they come, smiled strangely and said to me quietly, 'Let's get the hell out of here \u2013 now.'\n\nWe stayed silent until we were almost back at the lodge and then he laughed and said to me, 'What the hell was that?'\n\n'A tagati,' I said, laughing back, 'a bloody tagati, that's what it was.'\n\nSangomas rule the roost in rural Zulu society, not overtly, but behind the scenes, where they are very influential and highly respected. Many are charlatans who manipulate superstition for their own ends, but there are those who are legitimate, practising an ageless art which is as far removed from Western science as you can possibly get. Any interview with a good sangoma is a more than interesting experience.\n\nA sangoma is born, not made. One cannot just decide to be a sangoma, you have to be chosen or otherwise accepted under unusual circumstances, and historically this takes place at a very early age. Sometimes the sangomas will even arrive at a home and announce to the parents that their child is a sangoma, perhaps the incarnation of a deceased sangoma and tell them who. This is a great honour for the family and not so long ago they would even give up the child who then goes away to live with these spirit doctors for indoctrination, taking on the mantle of sangoma for the rest of their life.\n\nSangomas, unlike inyangas who are herb doctors or medicine men, deal exclusively with the spirit world. Typically an interview will have the sangoma go into a trance, communicating with the ancestors, principally your own ancestors; your long-dead family members. Messages will be passed to you from one ancestor or another, advice given and sometimes the future foretold.\n\nIf you have an ailment it must be divined by the sangoma. This is the opposite of Western medicine where one must tell the doctor the symptoms. With a sangoma you may not say what is wrong with you. It is the sangoma who must make the diagnosis entirely without your help. Their reputations depend on it.\n\nI once gave a sangoma a lift and in return he offered me a session which I accepted out of interest. I happened to have a back pain which he diagnosed. It is uncanny to sit there with an ailment and have it identified and be given the cure via an ancestral-induced trance.\n\nSince then I have attended several such trances and the results can sometimes be absolutely remarkable, though it is not for the faint-hearted since sangomas tell it like it is.\n\nFran\u00e7oise had an idea that overseas guests would be interested in this, so we made an arrangement with a local sangoma to receive lodge guests who wanted to 'have their fortunes told'. He started doing well with the extra fees he was receiving and the guests loved it.\n\nThe next thing we knew he was showing off a brand-new, shiny briefcase which he carried with him wherever he went. We spoke to him, explaining that his image and regalia of skins and beads were important for overseas guests, and that he must always hide his new briefcase when they arrive. He agreed most reluctantly, because, as he explained, it was such a beautiful briefcase and the guests would be most impressed.\n\nAs his income increased his accoutrements grew to include a new cellphone which he strapped to his belt with Zulu beads. We also had to reason with him about that because he had taken to making calls in the middle of his divinations, explaining to his clients that this special phone didn't need wires.\n\nWith Fran\u00e7oise and me it is very much 'when in Rome', so we respect the local beliefs. Periodically when staff get sick too often, or there are unusual mishaps, we will call in a respected sangoma to put muthi or protective spells around the reserve, and it is important for us to be seen to be doing so. For without white magic, they believe tagati will get bold, take human form, and ride through the night on the back of a baboon striking terror and spreading evil.\n\nBut there are many other lighter and sometimes humorous manifestations of the ancestors and other spirit presences at Thula Thula, such as the infamous tokoloshe. A tokoloshe is an evil, mischievous little demon, in character somewhat like Loki, the Norse god of chaos, but much smaller in size. Tokoloshes are the minions of a tagati, and they are sent out all over Zululand every night to create mayhem. Almost every Zulu on Thula Thula has his bed mounted on bricks, two or three under each leg. This is to prevent the tiny tokoloshe from bumping his head while he scampers around the floor, and thus earning the sleeper unwanted attention. It is said that only innocent young children can see a tokoloshe, who also causes bad dreams.\n\nI have always found it interesting that if you take a Zulu to task about the tokoloshe they will often make light of it, laughing at the notion derisively, but go into their room and sure enough, there will be the bricks under his or her bed.\n\nWitchcraft has a more sinister side though. One day I was with Brendan and a ranger called Zungu, watching smoke rising from half-a-dozen places around the village.\n\n'What's going on?' Brendan asked Zungu.\n\n'Today they are burning out the witches and wizards,' he said matter-of-factly, as if it were an annual event. 'Some have even been seen riding baboons at night.'\n\n'Are they killing them?' Brendan asked worriedly.\n\n'No, no, in the old days they would kill them, now they burn their houses and all their belongings, and chase them away from the village. Some may be beaten but they do not kill them. But they must go,' he added with a note of conviction in his voice.\n\n'What do you mean, they are witches, how do they know they are witches or that witches even exist?'\n\n'Everybody knows they are witches,' he replied comfortably.\n\nBrendan decided not to give up and pushed forward with a line of questioning that had way too much Western logic in it.\n\n'But what would happen if they said your mother was a witch and came for her too,' he asked.\n\n'They wouldn't.'\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'Because everybody knows she is not a witch.'\n\n'OK,' said Brendan, nonplussed. 'If they have done such bad things, why aren't they taken to court?'\n\n'Because the court will ask for proof,' said Zungu.\n\n'That's a good thing,' said Brendan. 'Surely there must be proof of wrongdoing before punishment.'\n\n'There is no proof,' said Zungu. 'Of course there is no proof, and there can be no proof with witches, that's why they are witches.'\n\nBrendan walked away shaking his head. What Zungu was saying made some sense though. What judge would ever believe that a man died of a snakebite, or crops had dried up because a witch had put a spell on the household?\n\nThe news of my strange communication with elephants, coupled with my refusal to allow anyone to kill even a deadly snake or scorpion had spread, and many in the village considered me to be somehow mysteriously connected to the animals. I mean, what sort of person would shun normal life and live in the African bush preferring to commune with elephants, rather than his own kind?\n\nNow, if I can just tame a big baboon...\nchapter thirty-one\n\n'Here, Mkhulu, here!' shouted Bheki, leaning over from the back of the Land Rover into the driver's window. 'Left, left!'\n\nI yanked hard on the steering wheel, bumping roughly off the lip of the rutted track, then swerved to keep the wicked overhanging thorns from raking the rangers standing in the Land Rover's back.\n\nMax, who had his head out of the passenger's window, spilled across the cab and onto my lap.\n\n'Straight, straight!' shouted Bheki, thumping on the roof to get my attention. Ducking the barbed branches and navigating from his elevated position he directed me through the tangled bush and a few jarring minutes later we arrived at the carcass.\n\nIt was a wildebeest, albeit barely recognizable as the corpse had been messily butchered. But that was not why we were here. Lying close to the carcass was a dead vulture and further afield I could see another. Both of them had their heads hacked off.\n\nOne of the most accurate indicators of a vibrant game reserve is a healthy vulture population. I remembered when we first arrived at Thula Thula searching vainly for breeding pairs. If you don't have large numbers of game you're not going to have resident vultures. In those early days these great, graceful scavengers used to flock in from the Umfolozi game reserve, tiny specks in the sky surfing the thermals at incredible altitudes as they searched for carrion.\n\nToday, with our healthy game population, we had plenty of breeding pairs ensconced in their nests at the top of the great trees lining the river, raising their chicks seasonally and generally doing well for themselves. But now out of the blue, vultures had become top of the poaching hit list and for bizarre reasons that no conservationist could ever have guessed. The once-belittled vulture had become an extremely potent good luck totem among the sangomas.\n\nThe reason was simple: money. A national lottery had recently been introduced with huge weekly payouts. If you guessed the six winning Lotto numbers you were an instant millionaire. Most of us know that playing a lottery is pure luck. But in Africa, predicting the winning numbers has become a mysterious art verging on the occult. A growing number of South Africans believed that there was only one way to scoop the pools, and that's to consult your ancestors. And who was the vital link between mortals and spirits? Why, the sangomas, of course.\n\nThis is not just primitive rural superstition; ancestral guidance is practised by all kinds of people, from illiterate herd boys to multi-degreed university professors. If you don't understand the power of this belief, you will never truly grasp the rich albeit often incomprehensible spirituality of Africa. According to some unscrupulous sangomas, the most powerful Lotto muthi was dried vulture brain. So as the race to become an instant millionaire heated up, the humble vulture was being poached almost to extinction in some game reserves.\n\nMuthi is a collective Zulu term given both to magic spells and to the foul-tasting potions prepared by sangomas. It can be good muthi, or bad muthi, the latter always associated with witchcraft. Dried vulture brain was considered to be very good muthi indeed. So much so that sangomas told their gullible clients that if they placed a slice of it under their pillows at night, their ancestors would whisper the winning Lotto numbers to them in their dreams.\n\nOne of the most inconceivable aspects of vulture muthi is how someone blindly places so much faith in something so manifestly unreliable. Thousands of desperately poor peasants, totally ignorant of basic gambling odds, were placing all they could afford into a lottery in which there were precious few winners. Each week, millions lost their hard-earned wages, with or without vulture brains under their pillows.\n\nThis translated into big business for sangomas. A tiny sliver of vulture's brain cost about ten US dollars, which is a lot of money in outback Zululand. Yet despite there being only a few winners, visits to sangomas skyrocketed. And no matter how much they lost, villagers continued forking out wads of cash for more vulture brains, which they religiously placed under their pillows, waiting for their ancestors to murmur the magic numbers.\n\nThe end result was distressingly obvious: people squandered lifesavings and vultures continued to die \u2013 so much so that in some game reserves breeding pairs were becoming increasingly rare. In fact, the true Lotto winners were the sangomas.\n\nWe clambered out of the vehicle, dodged a series of tall brown termite mounds which had blocked the Land Rover's passage and closely studied the gory remains of the wildebeest, looking for the cause as we always do with an unnatural death. Other vultures, attracted to the carcass like iron filings to a magnet, either circled above or gathered atop nearby trees, disturbed by our presence.\n\nFor obvious reasons, a contagious disease fatality is our biggest fear as it can spread in a blink to other animals. We first checked for nasal discharges, tick loads, injuries, and what the overall condition of the animal had been prior to its demise. This wildebeest had been fit and healthy and the cause of death, while not immediately obvious from the hacked remains, seemed to be a bullet.\n\nBheki and Ngwenya put down their rifles and were moving in to turn over the body so we could inspect the other side, when something made me stop them.\n\n'Poison,' I said, slowly realizing what had happened. 'I think there is poison here. Don't touch the body until we inspect the vultures.'\n\nThey looked up surprised, but said nothing and stepped back, following me as I walked to the first headless bird.\n\nI kept a close eye on Max, ordering him to 'heel' often enough to let him know he must not leave my side, not even for a sniff of the dead creatures. A noseful of strychnine, insecticide, or whatever it was they were using would certainly do him no good.\n\nI had never been that close to a white-backed vulture before. With a seven-foot wingspan it is a big, impressive bird by any standards, but how undignified and ignominious it looked in death. This superb sultan of the skies lay there headless, sprawled awkwardly with one huge wing jutting into the grass. There was not a mark on it and judging by the distance from the wildebeest carcass it must have died very quickly, perhaps even while trying to take off. It was the same with the other one, which had managed to get a little further away. After a thorough search of the immediate area we found four in all.\n\nThe wildebeest carcass must have been loaded with toxin to cause death that quickly. Any smaller a dose and the bodies would be dropping miles away and the poachers would never find them.\n\nWe walked back and stood leaning against the Landy's hood, surveying the carnage. The rangers also remarked that the wildebeest's tail had been sliced off.\n\n'They have died strangely. There is witchcraft here,' Ngwenya said ominously.\n\nA wildebeest's tail is much prized by sangomas who use it as the Zulu equivalent of a magic wand. Ngwenya was correct in believing witchcraft was behind this killing, but for the wrong reason.\n\n'Yes, there is witchcraft here,' I said, confirming his suspicion, 'although not in the way you think.'\n\nI then told them the story of dreams and vulture brains, of the sangomas and the Lotto, and waited for their reaction.\n\nBheki was first to respond. 'I have heard of this. Far away up in the north near Mozambique, but never here.' He shook his head. 'We do not do this.'\n\n'But it is with us now,' said Ngwenya. 'These people do not think. If the vultures die, who is going to clean up all the dead animals in the bush? Disease will come from the rotting meat left behind. It will be bad.'\n\nNgwenya looked around. I could sense with all the talk of disease what he was thinking. 'The poison is still here, we must burn everything \u2013 the wildebeest, the dead birds, everything, or more will die,' he said, pointing at the vultures circling above. 'And tonight the hyenas and jackals who think they have a feast will also die. We must do it now or...'\n\n'No. Not yet,' interrupted Bheki. 'The thieves can see the birds above us from faraway and they'll come back to check for more. Let us rather hide now and we will catch them later today.'\n\n'Good idea,' I agreed. 'I have also heard that these vulture poachers act as impimpi \u2013 informers \u2013 for other poachers. If we don't catch them this time, the elephants and rhino will be in serious danger as well.'\n\nI looked at my watch; it was already early afternoon, and there was always something else that needed tending to on the reserve.\n\n'I have to go now, but radio me so I know what is going on. But whatever happens, do not let any more birds \u2013 or anything \u2013 eat the meat.'\n\n'Of course, Mkhulu. We will find you here later.'\n\nA couple of hours afterwards I was driving along looking out for either Mnumzane or the herd when a gunshot barked a couple of miles away. I braked hard... then the calm voice of Ngwenya staccatoed over the radio.\n\n'Mkhulu, Mkhulu, come in, Mkhulu.'\n\n'Standing by.'\n\n'We have them,' Ngwenya said, jubilation incongruously creeping into his usual phlegmatic voice. 'Two of them.'\n\n'Already! Well done. OK, stay right there \u2013 I'm on my way.'\n\nAs I passed the housing quarters an idea came to me. Perhaps we could play the sangomas at their own game...\n\nI drove to the storeroom next to the garage and selected several items, placed them in two large hessian bags and loaded everything on the back of the Land Rover. Then I went into the kitchen and took three packs of beef ribs out of the fridge, wrapped them up and shoved them under the driver's seat where Max couldn't get at them.\n\nThen I radioed two other Zulu rangers, one a middle-aged man whose impressive gravitas would ideally serve my purpose, told them to change into civilian clothes and where to meet me.\n\nFinally I called Ngwenya and asked if he had quizzed the poachers about the poisoned carcasses.\n\n'Negative,' came the reply.\n\n'Good,' I said relieved. 'Don't say anything about the vultures or the poison. Just pretend you're arresting them for killing a wildebeest. I'll explain when I arrive.'\n\nI picked up the two other rangers and on the way we stopped at the lodge where I raided the curio store.\n\nAs we drove to where Bheki and Ngwenya were waiting, I explained to the two rangers what had happened and what I wanted them to do. I then showed them what was in the bags. The older man stared and started laughing; he grasped the plan instantly.\n\n'How is your hyena call?' I asked the younger ranger.\n\n'At school I was the best,' he said modestly.\n\nImitating animal sounds with uncanny accuracy is a skill many rural Zulu youngsters acquire and tonight we would put it to good use. A hyena, some believe, has supernatural characteristics. When you observe these magnificent creatures up close, their loose-limbed canter and eerie nocturnal howl, you can see why this myth continues.\n\nZulus are natural actors who enjoy a show and this was going to be fun for them. But it was also serious and their acting had to be both simple and convincing. I left them under a tree to discuss their drama tactics and drove on to join Ngwenya and Bheki.\n\nThe two culprits were squatting on their haunches, hands cuffed behind their backs while Bheki and Ngwenya sat around the carcass, their presence deterring the gathering flock of vultures from descending on the poisoned meat. The surrounding trees were now heavy with their presence.\n\nThe poachers were in their early twenties and both adopted the air of feigned apathy and despondency that I have seen in every poacher we have ever caught. Given half a chance, though, they would be gone like rabbits and if they still had their guns they would be shooting. In fact, where were their guns, I wondered? I didn't see any.\n\nNgwenya greeted me and I gave them some water. It had been a hot thirsty day keeping vigil.\n\n'Yehbo, Mkhulu,' he said before taking a long draught from the canteen. 'It was easy. They walked up and sat down and we came from behind. I fired one shot in the air and they surrendered. There is their gun and a machete.'\n\nI looked at the old but well-maintained Rossi .38 revolver lying on the grass.\n\n'What's going on?' I asked surprised. 'They can't shoot a wildebeest with a revolver.'\n\n'We questioned them and they told us half lies, half truths,' said Ngwenya. 'They are not locals. They work for a Sangoma in the north and say their job was only to collect the tail \u2013 which they don't even have. They say the wildebeest was shot by two professional poachers also hired by the sangoma. The poachers took most of the meat and left them here. The revolver is just for protection. They are very inexperienced these two, but dangerous.'\n\n'So, these are the magician's assistants?' I said out loud. 'Where is their transport?'\n\n'They have none,' said Bheki. 'They will walk and then take a bush taxi home.'\n\n'And the vulture heads?'\n\n'As you said, we didn't ask but they had a sack. We left it in the bush close by. Don't worry, it is safe,' replied Ngwenya.\n\n'Good.'\n\nI then lowered my voice to a whisper. 'It's a waste of time taking this to the police, just a wildebeest and some vulture heads. So today we will teach them a lesson they will never forget. They are a sangoma's lackeys and they will take a message back to their boss that neither they, nor anyone else can ever come here again. We will fight this with our own witchcraft. Here is the plan.'\n\nBheki and Ngwenya listened with big smiles as I outlined some impromptu Thula Thula muthi. Then, according to plan, they strode across to the two poachers, stood them up and marched them into the bush.\n\nI called the two back-up rangers who came in carrying wood and we lit a small fire about twenty yards away to boil the beef ribs in a three-legged cast-iron pot. They then took out the skulls of a crocodile and large baboon from the bags that I had brought from the storeroom, placing one on either side of the wildebeest corpse. The older man pulled a hyena skin over his shoulders and wrapped beads from our curio shop on his arms and legs. To finish off the special effects he stuck guinea-fowl feathers through his hair and swished about the all-important wildebeest tail.\n\nFor my plan to work, it was essential that I be out of sight. This was no place for a white man. I hid the Land Rover in a small copse and then walked back to the clearing with the younger ranger where we secreted ourselves behind a tree with a good view. The twilight was perfect for the surreal atmosphere I wanted so I radioed Ngwenya and told him to bring the poachers back, blindfolded.\n\nAs I put my radio down I heard a sudden crack of a branch behind. I almost leapt out of my skin. The herd! They were here. I was just about to radio Ngwenya to move off at speed when a shadowy silhouette caught my eye. It was a bachelor herd of large kudu bulls, their spiralled horns corkscrewing above thornbush.\n\n'Whew!' Both the young ranger and I exhaled noisily with relief. If that had been Nana and her family, the whole plan would have backfired spectacularly.\n\nWe watched in the gathering murk as the two poachers were led to the wildebeest carcass where their blindfolds were removed. They stood blinking, taking in the new surroundings and as they saw the skulls by the carcass they flinched almost in unison and started backing off. Both crocodile and baboon skulls are malevolent symbols in a sangoma's arsenal. Their spontaneous reaction was good news for it signalled that our charade was working.\n\n'Sit!' ordered Ngwenya, as he pushed them to the ground.\n\n'But why is he here?' one asked, looking across at our ranger sitting fifteen yards away, covered in a hyena skin. I grinned with satisfaction; they definitely believed that they were in the presence of another sangoma.\n\n'This is his place. All of this area around here right up to the mountains is his,' replied Ngwenya with an imperial sweep of his arm. 'He is here because many of his family have died here today. The vultures, they are all his children. Some say he flies with them.'\n\nNgwenya spoke slowly and deliberately with cold anger. He then gazed up at the vultures in the trees, nodding meaningfully. I felt like awarding him an immediate Oscar.\n\n'What does he want from us?' one asked, his voice quavering.\n\n'What do you have that belongs to the impotent man you work for? Or is it a woman who controls you?' Bheki suddenly roared.\n\n'We have muthi to protect us,' said one hurriedly. 'It's here in our pockets. We will return it to him when we go back together with his gun.'\n\nBheki reached over and searching their pockets retrieved two small pink and white river stones wrapped in snakeskin. He walked over to our 'sangoma' and handed him the muthi, along with the revolver.\n\nThen, swift as leopards, he and Ngwenya moved in, held the first man down and using their razor-sharp bush knives sliced off a lock of his hair and a tiny piece of fingernail. They did the same to the second poacher and placing both men's hair and fingernails on a leaf, ceremoniously gave it to our 'sangoma' who was sitting with his back to them. For muthi to be truly effective the sangoma needs either to have some body part of the targeted person or at least one possession. And the poachers knew it.\n\nThey were now petrified. They believed they had trespassed on the turf of a powerful sangoma who now possessed their hair and fingernails as well as their master's possessions \u2013 the stones and gun. This was juju at its most malevolent. They sat staring straight ahead, rocking mindlessly on their heels, just like trapped animals, I realized.\n\nOur 'sangoma' called out in what I thought to be an impressively haunting tone and Ngwenya went over and came back with the semi-cooked ribs which he placed in front of them.\n\nHe untied their hands. 'It is over. Now you will eat meat from the nyamazane. The meat is good and you have a long journey ahead of you.'\n\nHe may as well have hurled a spear at their hearts. The poachers assumed they were about to be poisoned, just as the vultures had been. After all, didn't this strange omnipotent sangoma in a hyena skin who held them captive actually fly with vultures? Weren't they his children?\n\nThey clamped their mouths tight, moaning through their noses in abject horror. They were completely taken in and I felt sorry for them, uneducated and unknowing as they were, but we had to play this out fully if we were to have any chance of protecting our vulture population from obliteration.\n\n'You refuse to eat? You have killed his children, now you refuse his hospitality!' Ngwenya thundered, shoving a chunk of meat towards one of the poacher's mouths.\n\nThe poor man was beside himself with terror, spitting and coughing, twisting his head this way and that. Then he broke, wailing uncontrollably with terror that they had been forced to collect the vulture heads and that they were sorry for what they had done. And above all, how could they know the vultures were the children of the 'sangoma'?\n\nBheki waited a little longer and then instructed them to stay where they were while he and Ngwenya walked back to the 'sangoma', deliberately leaving them alone.\n\nJust as expected, the poachers bolted, running blindly into the darkening bush as fast as they could go. Bheki fired two shots into the ground to speed their journey. They wouldn't stop until they were miles away and I hoped they made it home safely. In fact, I needed them to make it in one piece so they could report back to their sangoma that his stones and gun as well as their hair and nails were now 'owned' by a powerful rival whose ancestors resided in vultures.\n\nAs soon as we were sure the poachers were well out of earshot the young ranger and I came out of hiding, laughingly congratulating our 'sangoma' as well as Bheki and Ngwenya for their superb performance that would have rivalled any of Hollywood's A-listers.\n\n'We didn't even need the hyena call,' I said, slapping the young ranger on the back.\n\nThen I asked the all-important question. 'What do you think? Did they believe it?'\n\n'They will never come back here again,' replied Bheki. 'They believed everything.'\n\nWe gathered the four dead birds with the wildebeest, stacked wood up high and burned them all to cinders. Ngwenya then fetched the poachers' bag of vulture heads. We counted seven, all liberally covered in salt. Some were more than a week old.\n\nAs the vultures' bodies flared in the blazing wood, I began thinking of the huge Lotto winnings that perhaps I was watching go up in smoke. Even if I didn't win the Lotto, the look on Fran\u00e7oise's face would be worth a million bucks were she to find stinking vulture heads under my pillow.\nchapter thirty-two\n\nThe afternoon breeze barely stirred the bush. Mnumzane was browsing languidly at the side of the road and I was about ten yards away, hanging around the Land Rover saying whatever came into my mind, both of us content in each other's company. It was one of those days where you just felt like hanging out with friends, basking in the warmth of sunshine and companionship. As usual, I did all the talking and he did all the eating. But something had changed and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.\n\nMax, who by now was used to having Mnumzane around, and in turn was totally ignored by Mnumzane, was under the Landy making a bed for himself, digging a hole to get to the cooler earth just below the surface.\n\nI had come to see Mnumzane because one of the rangers had told of a huge ruckus among the herd that morning complete with prolonged trumpeting and screaming which could be heard a mile away. I had just checked on the herd, who were grazing a few miles off, and they seemed fine. Mnumzane too seemed calm... but there was something else; his once palpable insecurity seemed to have vanished. He seemed to have a new-found sense of self-assurance.\n\nHe walked over to me and I studied this huge bull elephant now standing not ten feet away. There was no doubt that he seemed more confident, more deliberate. Towering almost five feet above me, I needed every ounce of warmth and reassurance he dished out so liberally when we were together.\n\nHe then lifted his trunk towards me. That was extremely unusual. Mnumzane seldom put out his trunk, and if he did, he didn't really like me to touch it, unlike Nana and Frankie who were quite comfortable with being tactile. He then turned and moved off into the savannah. That too was different, for I was always first to leave our bush sessions with Mnumzane invariably trying to block my way by standing in front of the Land Rover.\n\nLater on, as the setting sun cloaked the hills in reds and gold, the elephants visited the waterhole just in front of the electric strand at the lodge. This was always a treat for the guests, to watch these lords of the wilderness up close, and it was then I saw exactly why Mnumzane was now so selfassured.\n\nThe herd was drinking and splashing around when Mnumzane emerged imperiously out of the bush and with head held high he moved swiftly toward the waterhole. Now that's strange, I thought. Usually he skulks around the periphery. What's going on here?\n\nNana looked up and saw him and \u2013 to my intense surprise \u2013 with a deep rumbling she moved off, calling the herd away.\n\nToo late. Mnumzane, picking up speed, singled out Frankie \u2013 the herd's prizefighter \u2013 and smashed into her so hard that the blow thundered across the bush, smashing her backwards and very nearly tossing her over.\n\nSeeing what had just happened to their champion, the other elephants started scurrying off with indecent haste. I caught my breath as Mnumzane swung to face Nana, ears spread wide, head held high.\n\nShe quickly placed herself between the threat and her precious family and then turned and started reversing towards him, which is not just a sign of subservience, but also bracing herself to best absorb the pending meteoric impact. I winced as she took the colossal charge on her flank; ten tons of combined elephant bulk clashing at speed is like watching two Abrams tanks collide. I felt stunned, winded in sympathy just watching.\n\nSatisfied that he now had the respect he believed he deserved, Mnumzane eased over to the water and drank alone, as was his right as the new alpha elephant. From now on he would always drink first.\n\nMnumzane had come of age.\n\nThings changed on the reserve after that. Mnumzane no longer gave way to vehicles or anything else for that matter. He would stand in the middle of the road and finish whatever he was doing before moving off in his own sweet time. Any attempt to move him along would result in a warning, which was always heeded. Nobody wanted to be charged by the new big boss of the reserve. Everybody quickly learned bull elephant etiquette, namely to stay the hell away from him, or else.\n\nDespite all that, to me he was still the same old Mnumzane and our bush meetings continued, although less frequently as he didn't trumpet or call me any more. I was a lot more careful when I was with him and if I got out of the Land Rover I would try to make sure that at least the hood of the car was between us. That didn't always work, as sometimes he still wanted to stand next to me. I just loved this magnificent creature and was so pleased to see his insecurities and fears gone. He had had a tough time growing up without a mother or any father figure and at last he had a role.\n\n'You are a mamba,' I said to him at our last chance meeting. 'You are surely now a real Mnumzane \u2013 a real boss.' He stood there motionless as I flattered him, gazing with those big brown eyes, as if accepting the compliment.\n\nMnumzane may be the dominant bull, but Nana was still boss of the herd. Not long afterwards there was another clash \u2013 this time between Thula Thula's two indomitable matriarchs.\n\n'Lawrence, Lawrence! Come queekly, look what's happening !'\n\nI dashed out of the house. At one end of the garden was Fran\u00e7oise; at the other was Nana. She had found a weak link in the fence and had broken into Fran\u00e7oise's precious herb and vegetable patch. Along with her children Mandla and Mvula, she was gobbling every shrub in sight.\n\n'Tell her to stop! Take her away!' ordered Fran\u00e7oise.\n\nFarting against thunder would have been a more viable option. Seeing the big grin on my face, she turned to Nana and shouted: 'Nana you stop this, I cannot buy zees herbs anywhere. I need zem for my guests. Stop! Merde!'\n\nIt was a stand-off: Fran\u00e7oise and Bijou weighing perhaps a combined 125 pounds versus Nana, Mandla and Mvula, together topping the scales at perhaps ten tons.\n\nSeeing that I would be of no use whatsoever Fran\u00e7oise rushed into the kitchen and came out with some pots and pans. Before I could stop her, she started banging them together like a demented bell-ringer.\n\nFirst to respond was Bijou, who thought the sky must be falling and bolted for the safety of the house. I had never seen her deign to run before and was impressed at the speed her fluffy little legs could muster. This left Fran\u00e7oise on her own.\n\nNana looked up, startled at the clanging, then shook her head and stamped her drum-sized front foot like a dancing Zulu warrior, glaring at Fran\u00e7oise who glared right back, shouting at her to leave. After a while Nana got accustomed to the sound and simply continued eating.\n\nSeeing her percussion wasn't having any effect, Fran\u00e7oise went off and came back with the garden hosepipe. We have good pressure at the house, so from a safe distance behind a fence she opened the nozzle and started spurting water like a firefighter at Nana who again shook her head and stamped her foot back at her.\n\nEventually Nana got used to the high-pressure fountain and started trying to catch the spray. That was it for Fran\u00e7oise, who heatedly told me and other nearby rangers barely concealing their mirth exactly how useless we all were. She stormed back into the house shouting 'Merde' repeatedly.\n\nOnce things had calmed down I picked up the hose and relaxing the pressure valve gently offered it to Nana and she came across and let me fill her trunk before going back and totally wiping out the garden.\n\nThe next morning Fran\u00e7oise had an electrician over to fortify the fence and the garden from then on was rendered impervious to anything with a trunk.\n\nWhenever the herd comes up past the house, even though they can no longer raid Fran\u00e7oise's garden, they inevitably pass a 100-yard-long dam we call Gwala Gwala, just off the road, where they like to bathe in the shallows. But elephants can break things just by being there, and on more than one occasion the dam overflow wall has had to be repaired. My rangers told me this had happened again and I went down to have a look, Max at my heels.\n\nSure enough, even from a distance I could see they had entered the dam on the overflow wall and their combined weight had collapsed it. It was no big deal, the labour team could fix it in a day and so I decided to park off for a while, enjoy the peace and quiet and see what was going on.\n\nThere is always plenty of life around water and a couple of hours spent at a dam are infinitely worth making time for. The season's first tadpoles were out, schooled together in tight underwater clusters, some as big as soccer balls rolling gently just under the water, while in the reed banks orange dragonflies hovered and darted.\n\nA large shongololo, the impressive six-inch long African millipede with its thick black body and orange legs came out of a crevice in the gabion retaining wall. I put my hand out and it climbed on and kept walking right up my arm as they always do. Eventually I pulled it off and let it down gently \u2013 in fact, very gently, for if you scare them they excrete a foul-smelling substance which even soap and water won't readily remove.\n\nPlenty of insects indicates an abundance of life, and the still surface of the brown water was continually marbled by barbell and tilapia rising to feed.\n\nNearby a bent old acacia robusta leaned over the water, laden with hundreds of weavers' nests hanging like straw-coloured fruit from its branches. These beautiful bright-yellow birds were busy building their seasonal homes, and as usual there was at least one domestic argument going on.\n\nIt's the male's job to construct the nest and he is watched carefully by his mate who takes her role as self-appointed quality control officer very seriously indeed. The poor little guy, who had probably spent three days collecting reeds and slaving away to get the nest just right, was hopping from branch to branch, twittering and complaining. His wife had just been inside for the final inspection and was now pecking at the support knot that tied the nest to the branch. This meant one thing: the nest had been rejected and he was grumbling bitterly as the condemned home came away and fell into the water, joining dozens of other similarly discarded abodes. His new home had failed the test and he was now going to have to start from scratch, or lose his mate.\n\nI took off my cap and, using it as a pillow, stretched out on a nearby grass bank and dozed, surrounded by paradise.\n\nA gut feeling is a strange and advantageous thing. It comes from nowhere and is often illogical. Yet it is very real, and in the bush infinitely valuable. While I was dozing, a distant feeling of latent fright suddenly impinged on my serenity. It took me a few moments to recognize it, and when I did I instantly came awake and frantically looked around.\n\nEverything seemed peaceful. Max was at the water's edge having a drink, and he would have given a warning if there was any danger. But what was it that had caused this worry to engulf me?\n\nI checked and rechecked the calm surroundings repeatedly, but absolutely nothing was awry. I was about to rest my head on my cap again and very nearly missed it. Moving across the dam surface was an almost imperceptible ripple. That's interesting, I thought sitting up again. What is it?\n\nIt seemed so innocent, so slight that it was barely worth worrying about. But something nagged and then my gut feeling kicked in again. I looked harder and went stone cold. For hidden in the murk-brown water under the barely visible ripple was a huge crocodile, its great tail propelling it towards Max. The ripple was generated by the tip of its nose nudging microcosmically out of the water.\n\nI jumped up yelling at Max and rushed towards him. 'Max come here; come here, Max... Maaaaaax!'\n\nHe stopped drinking and looked at me. He had never heard me screaming manically at him before and as he wasn't doing anything wrong he must have concluded that my ravings had nothing to do with him. He put his head down and continued lapping.\n\nI scrambled over the wall, grabbing at a small loose stone to throw at him to regain his attention, then slipped and fell, cutting myself on the sharp rocks and losing my missile. I got up and continued running towards him, but by now the crocodile was almost at the bank's edge. Still Max continued lapping, oblivious to the terrible danger.\n\nThen at the last moment, realizing that I actually was screaming at him, Max turned and sprinted up the bank with me fractionally behind \u2013 both fleeing for our lives; me wittingly, him not. I have seen a croc launch itself out of a river before and it's pretty low on my list of preferred ways to die.\n\nThose awful moments before I reached the top lasted forever. As we made the safety of the ridge I turned and saw the water swirling around the huge shape of the monster surfacing exactly where Max had been drinking. It was probably twelve feet long.\n\nWe were safe and I sunk down on the ground to recover both my sanity and my breath. I reached out and put an arm around Max who gave me a big wet lick, obviously pleased that I wasn't crazy any more. Then facing forward again he suddenly saw the croc, tensed and came on full alert. It was so lucky I had my arm around him for he started towards the monster. I just managed to grab his collar in time. I immediately thought of my brave Penny and how she died. The bush signs were right; she did go for the croc that killed her. Foolhardy or not the courage of the bull and Staffordshire terrier is truly unlimited.\n\nIt was Max's drinking that had done it. Crocodiles are attracted by the sound of an animal's tongue lapping. Their killing technique is simple: stay underwater, get close, then launch a vicious surprise attack from the depths. And they are very, very good at it. You have precious little chance of escaping death in the jaws of hell itself. With crocs there are no prior warnings.\n\nWe were alive due to a gut instinct. Nothing more, nothing less.\n\nFifteen minutes later the reptile surfaced on the far side of the dam, slowly pulling his bulk out of the water and crawling up the bank. That's what I had been waiting for. Now at least I could get a good look at it.\n\nIt's difficult, if not impossible, to sex a crocodile from a distance but I took him for a male, an old one from the dark colouring on his back. And judging by his hunting technique, he certainly was a cunning old fellow. He was a new arrival on the reserve and must have come down the river, perhaps during the recent floods, and walked the two miles to claim Gwala Gwala dam for his home. As such he had joined the extended Thula Thula family and was now entitled to protection and to be left alone to live out his natural life. There were plenty of barbel in the dam to support him between the occasional bigger meals \u2013 though hopefully not Max or me. He would be happy here.\nchapter thirty-three\n\n'Boss! Boss come in, come in!'\n\nIt was David on the two-way radio.\n\n'Standing by. What's up?'\n\n'There's a big mistake here,' said David, using the word 'mistake' in the Zulu context to mean a major problem. 'I'm up from the Kudu River crossing. You better get here quickly.'\n\n'Why?'\n\nHe paused.\n\n'We have another dead rhino.'\n\n'Shit! What the hell happened?'\n\n'Rather come and see for yourself. You're not going to like this at all.'\n\nPuzzled, I picked up my .303 half expecting an encounter with poachers \u2013 as had happened after our first dead rhino \u2013 and ran for the Land Rover with Max at my heels. What was it that David wouldn't tell me over the radio?\n\nThe crossing was about twenty minutes away and driving along my focus was snapped by Mnumzane loping off across the veldt to the left of me. Despite my haste I stopped. Something was wrong; I could sense it from where I was sitting.\n\nI called out, but instead of coming to me he lifted his head, spread his ears and deliberately moved off. Every new elephant reaction intrigues me and normally I would have trailed him to find out what was going on, but David was sitting on a crisis.\n\nTen minutes later I reached David. He was squatting on his haunches in the shade of a young umbrella thorn tree, staring sombrely at the ground. I pulled up next to him and got out.\n\n'What happened?' I asked, looking around. 'Where's the rhino?'\n\nHe stood up slowly. Then without a word he led the way down an old game path and into a clearing. In the middle lay the gray carcass. It was a female. From the look of it, her death was recent.\n\nHer horns were still intact. That surprised me, for I had expected them to be butchered off, the first thing poachers do. I walked up to the immense motionless body, automatically looking for bullet wounds. There were none.\n\nI then scrutinized the corpse for signs of disease or other causes of death, while David stood by silently. Except for some nasty fresh gashes on her armour-plated hide, she had been strong and healthy. In fact, even in death she was so imposing that I half expected her to suddenly rise up.\n\nI was so transfixed by the grim scenario that I hadn't taken in my wider surroundings, and as I looked up I was shocked. A tornado could not have done more damage. Bushes were crushed and trees lay sprawled and splintered all over the place. The earth itself had been gouged up, as if a bulldozer had lost its driver and careered around recklessly flattening everything. Nothing made sense; no rhino could cause such havoc. What the hell was going on?\n\nI instinctively looked to the ground for answers. Rhino spoor was everywhere, heavy and mobile in its tread, yet unnatural in its twisting and turning patterns. Then elephant tracks jumped out at me; big heavy pachyderm spoor, the aggressive earth-wrenching footprints of an enraged bull in full cry.\n\nMnumzane!\n\nI tried to suppress the dawning realization, hoping against hope I was wrong.\n\n'He killed her, boss.' David's words whispered into my thoughts. 'She put up a helluva fight but she was no match for him \u2013 never could be.'\n\nI nodded, not wanting to believe it. But the tracks told the story as clearly as if they were on celluloid.\n\n'I once saw an elephant kill a black rhino at a waterhole in Namibia,' David continued, almost as if speaking to himself. 'He hammered the rhino so hard it shot back thirty feet and went down and died right there, its ribs smashed in, collapsed over the heart. And then the elephant put his front foot on the body and stood over it rolling it over back and forth as if it was a plaything. The power was just unbelievable.'\n\nHe stared at the corpse in front of us. 'I know she is a white, and nearly twice the size of a black rhino. But still, she stood no chance.'\n\nA slight flicker in the bush to my left caught my eye. Max had also seen it and following his gaze through the foliage I caught sight of a camouflaged rhino calf silently watching from a nearby thicket. It was Heidi, the dead animal's two-year-old daughter. A rhino will fight to the death under most circumstances \u2013 but with a youngster, that's an absolute given.\n\n'What a mess up!' I fumed, my words echoing harshly through the bush. 'What the hell did he do that for? The bloody idiot!'\n\n'We... we're not going to shoot him, are we?' said David and for the first time I realized why he had been so downcast.\n\nShoot Mnumzane? The words shocked me rigid.\n\nIn most South African reserves, aggressive young male elephants, orphaned by earlier culls and reared without sage supervision of adult bulls, have gratuitously killed rhino before. And when they did, retribution by reserve owners was swift and harsh. Rhinos in South Africa are rare and very expensive. Elephants, on the other hand, are more plentiful and comparatively cheap. Past records indicated that elephants which killed rhino before would do so again. Thus to protect valuable rhino, an elephant that kills one effectively sentences itself to death.\n\nThrough one senseless violent act, Mnumzane had made himself an outcast... an untouchable. I now couldn't keep him; nor could I give him away for love or money. Who would want an elephant that killed rhino just for the hell of it? On most game reserves an owner in my position would immediately set up a hunt and end the problem there and then.\n\n'No,' I said trying to reassure myself. 'We're not going to shoot him. But we really have a bloody big problem on our hands.'\n\nI paused, trying to get my head around it all. 'Let's unpick this slowly. Firstly Heidi will be fine, she's big enough to survive without a mother and she will herd with the other rhinos.'\n\n'Secondly we have to retrieve the horns,' interrupted David. 'The word will get out and they're too much of a temptation for poachers. I'll get the men and we'll cut them out, clean them and put them in the safe.'\n\nI nodded. 'Good thinking. I'll phone Wildlife and let them know what happened. They're not going to be too happy with the way she died but I'll speak to them about that as well. The carcass will stay here and there'll be plenty of hyena and vulture activity for guests.'\n\nDavid started to say something, then paused. 'Boss...' again almost whispering, 'you're sure we're not going to shoot Mnumzane?'\n\nThe million-dollar question. One I didn't have an answer for, so I decided to wing it. 'I'll go and find him and see what I can do. I need to spend time with him and try to work something out.'\n\nDavid looked at me, unconvinced, but it was the best I could come up with. We both stood and took a long hard look at the hulking grey carcass and then left in different directions. He was going to get the team to dehorn the once-magnificent creature. I was going to have a serious chat with Mnumzane.\n\nAs we left I saw the calf trot out of the thicket she had been hiding in and stand vigil over her valiant dead mother. Mnumzane had really messed things up big time.\n\nIt was another hour and a half before I found him browsing near the Gwala Gwala dam. I approached slowly, pulled up about thirty-five yards away, got out and leaned on the Land Rover's hood unsheathing my binoculars. I didn't call him, but he knew full well I was there. Instead he chose to ignore me and continue grazing which is exactly what I wanted. A swift scan of his body with the binoculars showed the scars of battle.\n\nCongealed blood revealed he had been gored in the chest and there were deep grazes and scrapes on both his flanks. This had not been a brief encounter; the battle had been fierce and long, probably only because he was not used to fighting. A veteran brawler of his size would have ended it with one thundering charge.\n\nThere also must have been plenty of opportunities for the rhino to escape, but with a calf, that word was absent from her dictionary. She held her ground as her gallant species always do and paid the highest price for her stubbornness.\n\nEventually he finished eating and looked at me.\n\n'Mnumzane!' I called out sharply, focusing on connotation and intonation rather than volume. 'Have you any idea of what you have done, you bloody fool?'\n\nI had never used that furious tone with him before. I needed him to understand I was extremely angry about the death of the rhino.\n\n'This is a big problem, for you, for me, and for everyone. What the hell got into you?'\n\nHe stood motionless as I berated him, his stare static and it was only after I drove off that I saw him move away.\n\nFrom then on I tracked him daily, staying near him as much as possible, but if he approached I deliberately drove off. I could see that bugged him.\n\nThen through extreme good fortune I found him near the scene of the crime. I immediately drove to the rotting remains of the rhino still festering on the ground and making sure I was upwind of the intolerable smell and in a good getaway position, I gently called him.\n\nObviously pleased to hear my usual genial tone of voice again, he ambled over towards me. I let him keep coming until he was right at the kill, and then leaned out the window and lambasted him in a firm and steady voice, stopping only when he uncharacteristically turned and walked off in the opposite direction.\n\nThere are those who will say that all of this is nonsense; that of course elephants don't understand... that I was wasting my time. But I believe Mnumzane got the message. He never hassled another rhino again, let alone killed one. Our relationship returned to normal and Mnumzane would again emerge for a chat in the bush again, like in the old days.\n\nHe even, on occasion, came up to the house to say hello and there was no one more relieved than David.\n\nShortly afterwards David knocked on my door, looking a little doleful.\n\n'Can I come in, boss?'\n\n'Sure. What's up?'\n\n'My mum and dad are leaving the country. They're going to England. Emigrating.'\n\nYou could've knocked me over with a twig. David's family came from pioneer Zululand stock and were well respected throughout the area. This must have been a big decision for them.\n\nDavid noticed my astonishment and smiled, almost embarrassedly.\n\n'That's not all. I'm going with them.'\n\nThis time I nearly did fall over. If I couldn't visualize David's family in England, I could do so even less with him. He was a man of the bush \u2013 something of which there is precious short supply in England. The wild was his element.\n\n'You're sure it's not khaki fever again?' I asked smiling, remembering the last time he had left us was for a pretty English tourist who fancied hunky game rangers. That only lasted a month or so before he came charging back, asking for his old job.\n\nHe laughed. 'Not this time. It's going to be hard for my mum and dad to adjust in a foreign country. I'm going along to help out.'\n\nI nodded, knowing how close he was to his family.\n\n'Anything we can do to make you stay?'\n\n'Afraid not, boss. It's been a terribly difficult decision and as much as I'm going to miss Thula Thula and you guys, I have to go with my folks.'\n\n'We're going to miss you too.'\n\nHe left later that month. It was a melancholic day as I shook his hand for the last time as his 'boss'.\n\nBeing David, with his inextinguishable cheerfulness, he soon landed on his feet in Britain and joined the British Army. He was selected for an officer's course at the world-famous Sandhurst Military Academy and did a tour of combat duty in Afghanistan as an officer \u2013 where I believe his outdoor skills and natural leadership skills helped make him a superb officer.\nchapter thirty-four\n\nThere hadn't been a snakebite on Thula Thula for nearly sixty years. The previous owners had been here for fifty years without incident and we had been bite free for the eight years we had been here.\n\nThis is not surprising, for although Thula Thula, like every African game reserve slithers with serpents of all types and sizes, these intriguing reptiles avoid man for three very good reasons. Firstly, they don't want to get stomped on and will move away long before you get near them; secondly, humans are not their prey; and thirdly, they have long since learned that we will kill them for no other reason than that they exist.\n\nThe only exception to the first proviso is the puff adder. It relies on its dull yellow-brown and black colouring as camouflage, and will not budge however close you come. It has a thick body, averaging about three feet in length, and because it is so aggressive it is responsible for more deaths in African than any other snake. Every veteran ranger has at some time stood on \u2013 or almost on \u2013 an immobile puffy, only noticing afterwards that he or she has just missed a deadly injection of venom. They just don't move, sometimes even if you stand on them. But they do bite, faster than you can jump.\n\nDispelling myths about snakes opens the minds of visitors to appreciating and perhaps even befriending these fascinating creatures that are so vital to the environment, particularly in keeping down rodent populations.\n\nThere is, however, one snake that is a law unto itself.\n\n'We've just lost two zebra,' said John Tinley, the veteran ranger from KZN Wildlife's Fundimvelo reserve next door who had stopped in for a cup of tea one day. 'Both dead, right next to the waterhole, fat and healthy, no sign of disease and not a mark on them.'\n\nHe looked at me waiting for comment, testing me.\n\n'OK, what happened?' I said, taking the game out of it.\n\n'Black mamba,' he replied, blowing on his hot tea. 'Killed both of them. Stone dead.'\n\n'You're having me on,' I said sitting up. 'A mamba killed two adult zebra?'\n\nHe clicked his fingers. 'Just like that. They were history when we got there. They must have frightened the damn thing, or stood on it... or something.'\n\n'You're sure?' I asked, amazed at what I was hearing. A zebra can weigh 600 pounds. 'Two of them?'\n\n'The spoor doesn't lie. There isn't another snake that leaves marks like that. You may have seen the fire. I burned the bodies. Don't want anybody or anything eating that meat, not even hyena.'\n\nAs soon as he was gone I got on the phone and after a couple of calls I sank back in my chair. He was right, a mamba can easily kill a zebra; in fact it can kill almost anything \u2013 lion, towering kudu bulls... even giraffe have been dropped. As for humans, one mamba packs enough venom to kill up to forty adults.\n\nIt grows up to fifteen feet long and is as thick as a man's arm. It's also the fastest snake around, sometimes hurtling along with its head three or four feet above the ground. To complete the picture, it's not actually black; more of a metal grey. However, the inside of its mouth is pitch-black, hence its name. The sight of a mamba almost gliding with its coffin-shaped head raised several feet above a grassy plain is the ultimate game-viewing experience.\n\nSeveral days afterwards, I was in my office when I heard Biyela shouting at the top of his voice.\n\n'Mkhulu, come quick! Mamba!' The word galvanized me and I grabbed my shotgun, locked up Max, and bolted outside to find Biyela standing at the rear of the house, backed up against a storeroom wall, pointing.\n\n'Mamba!' he shouted again.\n\nI put my finger to my lips to get him to lower his voice. He nodded, thankful for the presence of the shotgun and pointed to a small fenced-off courtyard which housed general bric-a-brac.\n\n'It went in there.'\n\n'You sure it was a mamba?' I asked, aware that for Biyela all snakes are automatically mambas.\n\n'Ngempela \u2013 absolutely.'\n\nAs a rule we never kill snakes. Even with a black mamba we try for a catch and release into the bush. But if something so lethal looked like it was going to escape into the house, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot it. The last thing I wanted was several slithering yards of venom surfacing in one of the bedrooms or settling down behind some sofa cushions.\n\nWe edged closer and suddenly Biyela grabbed my sleeve and we watched the tail disappearing \u2013 of all places into our open bedroom window.\n\n'Damn!' I exclaimed as I started running back around to the front door with Biyela hot on my heels.\n\nWe rounded the still-open front door at a dash and bolted through into the bedroom and stopped dead. Edging in, we cautiously scanned the area immediately around us, then the floor of the room, and then the poles spanning the thatched roof above us. Nothing, nothing at all. It had gone. We searched everywhere, under the bed, in the cupboards, behind the curtains. Everywhere. It had completely, but completely disappeared.\n\n'This is unbelievable. A mamba in our bedroom and we can't find it? A bloody mamba for Pete's sake! Where the hell is it?'\n\n'They are like ghosts,' Biyela replied.\n\nDismayed, I suddenly I heard Fran\u00e7oise chatting outside with some of the staff. 'What do you mean there's a mamba in my bedroom? Where's Lawrence?'\n\n'Hi. I'm here in the lounge!' I called out, trying to sound unconcerned.\n\nShe walked in with Bijou scampering at her heels. 'What's all this nonsense about a mamba in our bedroom?'\n\n'Well... maybe. I think there was one but now... well, maybe it's gone.' I nodded sternly as if I was in total control of the situation.\n\n'You're not sure if there is a mamba in our room?' She stood on tiptoes peering over my shoulder through the bedroom door. 'Well, OK oh great white hunter. I'm sleeping at the lodge tonight and if you are so sure it's gone you can stay here. Just make sure your will is up to date.'\n\nThen Bijou, who had somehow slipped past us, started growling from the bedroom and I instinctively knew she had found it. Or worse, maybe the deadly snake had found her.\n\nI hurtled back into the bedroom. In the middle of the floor was the poodle... and rearing itself directly in front of her was... not a mamba but a full-grown Mozambican spitting cobra. A mfezi \u2013 Max's favourite adversary. But unlike Max, who would quickly circle a reptile before striking, Bijou was no snake fighter.\n\nThe snake was in the classic attack position: head raised and hood flared, hypnotically focused on this bite-sized ball of fluff before it. Luckily, emboldened by our arrival, Bijou started prancing about and yapping for all she was worth, denying the lethal serpent a fixed target.\n\nNow while an mfezi has enough venom to kill a man, it plummets way below a mamba on the snake Richter scale. Relief poured out of my system.\n\nA black mamba, as mentioned earlier, is actually grey, almost the exact same top colour as a mfezi. From the tail slithering into the window Biyela and I had somehow mistaken one for the other. But my relief that it was 'only' a deadly Mozambican spitting cobra was soon tempered by the fact that if anything happened to Bijou, Fran\u00e7oise's wrath would ensure I'd be on my way to the North Pole without a sleigh.\n\n'Lawrence! Do something!'\n\nAdjusting my glasses closer to my face for protection against venom spray, then shutting my mouth (recently opened for a retort) for the same reason, I edged around the poised snake, scooped up the excited poodle and delivered her still yapping to Fran\u00e7oise.\n\nBiyela then handed me my trusty snake-catching broom and I moved in cautiously, not wishing to antagonize Mr Mfezi any more than absolutely necessary. I manoeuvred the broom painfully slowly towards the erect serpent, which \u2013 as they usually do \u2013 allowed the bristle-head to be eased under its body. For some reason the reptile is not threatened by the broom. However, the momentum of the broom moving forward gently 'trips' the upright snake \u2013 which is only balancing on the bottom half of its body \u2013 onto the broom's head. Once it collapses onto the broom head, it's a simple matter of lifting the broom up by the handle with the snake still coiled on the far end and carrying it outside. I then released it a good distance from the house.\n\nHallelujah! Bijou was saved and I was accorded mega domestic hero status with Fran\u00e7oise. I was also pleased that a couple of trainee rangers had witnessed the capture and afterwards I went over the broom technique again with them, stressing that it only worked with cobras and they had to be upright in the attack position before you could edge the broom underneath the lower part of their body.\n\nUnfortunately a few days later the impromptu lesson had serious unintended consequences.\n\n'Code Red! Snakebite at the main house!' the rapid-fire call cranked out of the Land Rover's radio as Brendan and I were parked out in the bush with the herd, watching Mandla playfully wrestling with the much larger Mabula.\n\nBrendan's reply was cool and calculated, just what was needed to calm the panic. 'Who was bitten, where, and what type of snake?'\n\n'It's the new trainee Brett. We think it may be a black mamba. We're trying to find it so we can do the identification. '\n\nAs the voice trailed off I felt sick to my stomach. Black mamba! Flooring the Land Rover's accelerator I rushed back to the house in a blur, unable to get a word in among the frenetic radioactivity.\n\nThe drive from Thula Thula to the hospital in Empangeni was about forty minutes, way too long in case of a full-dose mamba bite, which can kill in half that time. Also, we didn't keep mamba serum on the reserve. In fact nobody keeps it on hand, for the simple reason that it goes rotten after a short time. Sometimes the serum could kill you as surely as a bite.\n\n'God, I hope it's not a mamba,' I prayed. 'And if it is, then not a big one.'\n\nBut I knew that didn't matter, for even a day-old hatchling mamba packs enough venom to kill a full-grown man.\n\nI pulled into the parking area behind our house in a billow of dust, leapt out and ran over to where the rangers were gathered around a large dead snake, hoping against hope that it wasn't a mamba.\n\nIt was.\n\n'Who took Brett to hospital?' I asked.\n\n'Nobody. He wanted to pack a suitcase, but we're going to take him now,' came the absurd reply from another trainee.\n\n'What! Does he know it was a bloody mamba?'\n\n'Yes, but it was only a small bite on the finger.'\n\n'Only on the finger! For Pete's sake \u2013 it's a mamba! It doesn't matter where it bit!'\n\nI couldn't believe what I was hearing and yelled at Brett, who had just appeared from his room carrying a suitcase as if he was going on holiday, to hurry.\n\nI then took a deep breath, the last thing I wanted to do was panic the kid. 'Brett,' I said quietly. 'Please don't run as it will only increase your heart rate and spread the venom. This is a mamba. OK? Show me the bite.'\n\nHe gave me his hand and there on the finger was the fang wound. I exhaled with relief. Just one puncture.\n\n'Did it hook into you?' I asked.\n\n'No. It just struck at me and moved off, but my finger is getting as sore as hell.'\n\nWith no purchase to inject venom and only one fang in one finger Brett might \u2013 maybe just \u2013 have a chance.\n\n'Are your hands tingling?'\n\n'Yes, strange you should say that. So are my toes.'\n\nTingling in the extremities are the first symptoms of a mamba bite, a sure sign that venom was in his system.\n\n'That's from the bite. You must go right now. Just slow everything down \u2013 your breathing \u2013 everything down.'\n\nI then turned to the driver. 'Go like hell,' I hissed, making sure Brett couldn't hear me. He nodded and sped off.\n\nI looked at my watch, six precious minutes had passed since the bite and we had no way of knowing how much venom was in his body. If it was anything more than just a scratch we had to accept that he would be dead before they got halfway to town. I put the horrible thought of the phone call I'd have to make to his family out of my mind.\n\n'What happened?' I asked Bheki.\n\n'Ayish, that young man doesn't listen. We were here when we saw the mamba in there.' He pointed to the small courtyard behind our bedroom window.\n\nI stared at the courtyard, the same one where Biyela had seen a snake earlier that week and it suddenly dawned what had happened. There were two snakes that day. Biyela had been absolutely right. It was indeed a mamba he had seen going in to the courtyard. It must have came face to face with the mfezi, which then bolted out of the courtyard and climbed into our window to get away, straight into the growls of 'brave' Bijou. The mamba had been operating from the courtyard ever since.\n\n'Yehbo,' said Biyela who was standing next to Bheki, as if reading my thoughts. 'It was a mamba I saw, not an mfezi. We became confused.'\n\n'And then?'\n\n'Brett took a broom to the mamba. I told him this snake was too dangerous and that you only use the broom for mfezi but he did not listen. I tried to stop him but it was too late and the mamba bit him. Now maybe he will die.'\n\n'Who shot the mamba?'\n\n'I did. It was very angry and moving everywhere.'\n\n'Well done.'\n\nTen minutes later I picked up my cellphone and dialled the driver.\n\n'How's Brett?'\n\n'Sweating and salivating. But he's still coherent and it's not far to the hospital. I'm just about flying at this speed.'\n\n'OK, let us know when the doctor is with him.'\n\nAs bad as it sounded, I knew from that rudimentary diagnosis that Brett had a slim chance. He was in for a rough ride, but if the bite had been lethal he would have already started vomiting and losing muscle control, the final fatal symptoms.\n\nTen minutes later we heard from the driver that they had arrived at the hospital. Brett was rushed into intensive care and stayed there for two days fighting for his life. And it wasn't even a bite, just a fang fractionally nicking a finger.\n\nWe have often seen mambas since that incident, all of them just carrying on with their lives but that bite will go down as our only snake crisis in over half a century. And it's a story the trainees will never forget.\nchapter thirty-five\n\nNana's oldest daughter Nandi's swollen stomach was attracting a lot of finger-pointing.\n\nNamed after King Shaka's influential mother, Nandi \u2013 which means 'good and nice' \u2013 had stamped her own definitive temperament on the herd: dignified, confident and alert. As a teenager, she had been with the herd in the famous breakout the day after they arrived at Thula Thula, and had now blossomed into a twenty-two-year-old adult. She was inheriting from Nana the hallmarks of a potential matriarch. And she was very pregnant.\n\nThe father, of course, was Mnumzane and with Nandi ballooning like a keg we were expecting a big healthy baby. The whole of Thula Thula was waiting for the good news.\n\nJohnny, a likeable new ranger, was first on the scene when it happened. Blonde, good-looking in a boyish way, he had recently joined us and his easy smile made him popular with the staff. He radioed me and, surprisingly, didn't sound that happy. 'We've just found Nandi down near the river but we can't see the baby properly. The herd's gathered around and won't let us anywhere near her. They're acting most peculiarly.'\n\n'Where are you exactly?' I asked, heading for the door and taking the portable radio with me.\n\n'Just before the first river crossing on the lodge road. Take the back route otherwise you won't get past the elephants.'\n\nIt was mid-morning and the sun was already blistering down. The mercury was topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit and soaring as I leaned over and groped for my cap on the Land Rover's floor. Being fair-skinned, I had learned the hard way to watch myself in the merciless African sun. Max sat in the passenger's seat, head out the window, tongue out lapping at the passing scents.\n\nI found Johnny and Brendan easily enough. Just as Johnny had said, fifty yards away stood the herd gathered in an unusually tightly knit group.\n\n'What's going on?'\n\n'We don't know,' said Johnny. 'We can't get close enough to see anything. But they've been there for a while now.'\n\nI walked off into the bush, keeping my distance, trying to find a spot from where I could get a peek through the obviously flustered herd. At last I got a glimpse of the brand-new baby on the ground in the middle.\n\nThe fact it was lying down sent alarms jangling. The infant should already be on its feet. All wildlife in Africa stands, albeit tottering, almost instantly after birth, and for a good reason. A vulnerable baby on the ground is asking for trouble, an easy snack for predators. Even elephants, with their formidable bulk, move away as soon as possible from a birth spot where the smell of the placenta will attract lurking carnivores.\n\nI needed to find out what was going on so I started approaching on a slow zigzag path, carefully watching to see how close they would let me come. I got to about twenty yards away when Frankie caught a glimpse of me and rose to her full height, taking two or three menacing steps forward until she recognized who it was and dropped her ears. But she held her position and from her demeanour I could tell she didn't want me any nearer. Once she was sure I had got the message, she turned back to the baby lying in front of her.\n\nI could now at least see what was going on, and my heart sank. The little one, invigorated by the elemental energy that surges in new life, was desperately attempting to stand up. Time and time again it tried, patiently lifted by the trunks of its mother Nandi, its grandmother and matriarch Nana and its aunt Frankie. But, heartbreakingly, each time as it rose half up it fell back, only to start trying to get up again. This had obviously been going on for a while and my heart went out to the baby and the desperate family.\n\nIt was blazing hot and with absolute rotten luck the baby was lying in the middle of the only open space among the trees, right out in the blazing sun. To compound matters, it was also off the grass, lying on hot sand.\n\nThere was nothing to do but wait, watch and hope, so I sent the rangers off on other duties, got myself a bottle of water from the Land Rover and found a shady spot as close as I could to the elephants. I called out so they all knew I was with them, and Max and I settled in for the duration.\n\nI took out my binoculars and managed to focus in on the baby. She was a girl and the problem was starkly evident. Her front feet were deformed; they had folded over themselves in the womb and each time she tried to stand, she was doing so on her 'ankles'.\n\nAn hour later and the little one was exhausted and her attempts to stand were becoming weaker and less frequent. This did not deter her mum and aunts who, if anything, renewed their efforts with each failure. By worming their trunks under the little body, they lifted the baby up and held her on her feet for minutes at a time, then gently let her down, only for her to crumple to the ground again.\n\nElephants always find deep shade on hot days and stay there. Their humungous bodies generate a lot of heat so keeping cool is a priority. Looking up at the sun I cursed; it was firing full-strength and these poor animals were in its direct blast. Yet none shied off for the shade of the trees, barely twenty yards away. There they stood in the midday solar furnace guarding the baby, even the younger elephants, which were doing little more than watching. Nor did any leave for a long draught of cool water at the river less than half a mile away. Their sail-like ears, their natural radiators were flapping overtime, fanning as much air as they could, attempting to regulate their overheated bodies.\n\nIt was only then I noticed that the baby was permanently in the shade of its mother's and aunt's shadows. Not just because they happened to be standing around her, but because they were taking conscious care to do so. While the sun arced through the sky I watched amazed as they all took turns to act as an umbrella, slowly shifting their positions to ensure the struggling infant was always out of direct heat.\n\nThree hours later and the baby started to succumb. She didn't want to be moved any more and trumpeted pitifully when family trunks lifted her yet one more time. She was fatigued beyond measure.\n\nEventually Nana stopped and they all just stood there, waiting with the baby lying motionless in front of them. I homed in with the binoculars and could see she was still breathing but fast asleep.\n\nWildlife can absorb adversity that would destroy a human without a blink. This little elephant had gone through the trauma of birth and spent half a day in a blazing new alien environment and hadn't even had her first drink. Yet she was still alive, still fighting.\n\nBut she must be nearing the end and somehow I had to get her away from the herd. They were doing the best they could, but this little creature needed sophisticated medical care. With the best will in the world, Nandi and Nana could not fix the baby's feet. Her only chance was with us \u2013 and even that was tenuous. But how could we get her away from the herd? An elephant's maternal instinct is extremely powerful. We could not remove a baby from its mother simply by driving up and snatching it. The retribution would be cataclysmic.\n\nSo what could we do? Short of opening fire and trying to scare them off with bullets, which would destroy my relationship with them forever, there was no other way. Perhaps if it was just Nandi... but certainly not with Nana and Frankie around as well.\n\nSo there we sat, Max and I, pondering the great mysteries of the elephant world. In the late afternoon, when the day cooled fractionally, the elephants started again worming their trunks in tandem underneath the baby, trying to lift her onto her feet. They kept it up until nightfall, agonizingly failing each time.\n\nI drove the Land Rover in closer and beamed the headlights onto the scene to help them, watching in awe as the elephants never gave up. They had been trying for nearly twelve hours now. Their persistence was absolutely phenomenal. The Marines may have a saying 'leave no one behind', but these elephants could even have taught them a thing or two.\n\nTowards midnight the baby was pitifully weakened and I resigned myself to the fact that not only was she not going to make it, but there was nothing I could do. I called out a goodbye, saying I would be back, then drove back up to the house and went to bed, expecting the worst when I woke.\n\nWhen I returned the next morning as dawn broke, incredibly the herd was still there, still trying to get the now almost completely limp body to stand. I couldn't believe it; the dedication of these magnificent creatures was beyond comprehension. My respect for them and what they were doing was infinite.\n\nThe sun started climbing and by 10 a.m. I knew we were in for another steamer. And still they continued. But what more could they do? I knew the baby was finished.\n\nA few minutes later, Nana backed off a few paces for the first time and stood alone, as if assessing the situation. She then turned and walked off without stopping. Her trunk dragged, her shoulders stooped, a portrait of dejection. The decision had been made. Nana knew that they had done what they could. She knew it was all over. Despite their best efforts, the baby was unable to stand and thus wouldn't survive.\n\nThe rest of the herd followed and were soon out of sight on their way to the river to slake their arid gullets. They had been on wilderness ER for more than twenty-four hours without drink or rest. Few humans could match that.\n\nYet Nandi stayed behind. As the mother, she would be there to the end, protecting her baby from hyenas or other predators. She manoeuvred her crippled daughter in her shadow and stood still, head down, exhausted, resigned to her firstborn's fate, but determined to protect the infant to its last breath.\n\nI studied the baby through the binoculars, certain she was now dead. Then almost imperceptibly, I saw her head move. My heart pounded with excitement. She's still alive, barely, but still alive! And with the herd gone, another crazy plan came into my head.\n\nI sped to the house and loaded a large open container on the back of the Landy, filled it with water, and threw in a bag of fresh-hewn alfalfa. Brendan summoned the rangers.\n\n'OK, guys,' I said, 'this is what's going to happen. I'm going to try and reverse right up to Nandi, give her a sniff of the water and alfalfa, and then slowly move off to try and draw her away from the baby. She hasn't had a drink or anything to eat for twenty-four hours and she's been baking in the sun solidly. She's starving and thirsty, so she may just follow me. There's a sharp corner in the road about thirty yards off, and if she follows me there she won't be able to see the baby. That's when I want you guys to sneak in from the other side, get in as fast as possible, load up the baby and then speed off.'\n\nI paused for a moment, scanning their eager faces. 'But if Nandi sees you taking her baby, there won't be enough of you left for me to bury. So if you're not comfortable with this, don't come with me. It's bloody dangerous. I really mean that.'\n\nThere wasn't a moment's hesitation. 'We're in,' was the unanimous reply.\n\nI nodded my thanks. 'OK. I've phoned the vet and he's on his way with a drip as the baby will be dangerously dehydrated. I have also put a mattress in the back of the truck for her.'\n\nWe quickly drove down, got into position, went over every aspect of the plan once again and then tested our radios. 'We've only got one chance,' I reminded them. 'As I said earlier, if Nandi catches you near the baby you're in big trouble. Reverse in so you can drive out of there forward if she sees you. One driver, two in the back to load the baby.'\n\nI at least had some protection as Nandi knew me and I was carrying food and water, but how she would react with her lame baby right there was anybody's guess. However, for the rangers, it was a different story entirely. Nandi didn't know them and on top of that they were stealing her baby. They could expect no mercy.\n\nI got in the Land Rover and started reversing towards Nandi, calling out to her as I got closer to let her know it was me. Her first reaction was uncharacteristic. She moved between the baby and the approaching Landy and then charged, trumpeting loudly to scare me away, kicking up a cloud of dust. She had never come at me before so I stopped and leaning out of my window started talking to her soothingly. As she walked back, I gently started reversing again, only to prompt another noisy stampede. I kept talking and the third time I reversed, her charge had no steam at all and as she turned away I saw her physically jolt as she got the unbearably intoxicating scent of fresh water and food. She stopped and turned.\n\n'Come, baba,' I called gently, 'come, beautiful girl, come on. You're hot; you haven't had anything to eat and drink for twenty-four hours. Come to me.'\n\nShe paused and then tentatively took a few steps forward, ears straight out, hesitantly checking everything, and then walked up and dipped her trunk into the trough and sucked in a yard of water which she squirted messily into her mouth, spilling it everywhere in her haste. Then her screaming thirst kicked in and she started drinking insatiably off the back of the vehicle and I moved forward very, very slowly. Without hesitation she followed, slugging bucketfuls as we moved along. She still hadn't stopped when we were around the corner, out of sight of her baby. I couldn't believe how thirsty she was.\n\n'Go, go, go!' I whispered into the radio. 'I can't see you so neither can she. Let me know as soon as you've done it.'\n\nI continued talking to Nandi, calming her with my voice, keeping her distracted, and then for what it was worth I told her what we were doing. 'Unless I take your baby, she's going to die. You know that and I know that. So when you get back she won't be there, but if we save her, I will bring her back to you. That I promise.'\n\nI have no idea if she understood anything, but intonation and intention can communicate far more than mere words. At least I felt better that I had told her what we were doing.\n\nA few minutes later, a breathless call came through. 'We've got her. She's alive \u2013 just \u2013 we're moving off.'\n\n'Great! Well done, get her up to the house. I'm going to stay with Nandi for a while.'\n\nNandi drank every drop of water and then tucked into the alfalfa. When she finished, she looked at me in acknowledgement and walked back to where she had left the baby. I reversed, following her and watched as she started nosing the ground. With her superb sense of smell she would have immediately caught the scent of the rangers. After sniffing around for a few long minutes, she stopped for a while and turned and slowly moved off in the direction of the herd.\n\nI know that if she had smelt hyena or jackal there was no way she would have reacted so calmly or left the scene so quickly. She would have followed the scent with a vengeance, never letting up.\n\nI waited until she was out of sight and radioed the rangers. 'How's it going?'\n\n'She's still alive. She's on the lawn and we've been spraying water to cool her down. The vet is putting in the drip now.'\n\n'I'll be there shortly. Well done, guys.'\n\nMy hands were still shaking. I couldn't believe we had done it. Thanks to my intrepid rangers, we had taken a baby elephant from her mother.\n\nNow all we had to do was save its life.\nchapter thirty-six\n\nWhen I arrived back at the house the baby was lying motionless in the shade on the grass and the vet was connecting the second drip sachet into a bulging vein behind her ear.\n\n'She's barely alive and very dehydrated,' he said. 'The next few hours will tell if she makes it.'\n\nI walked off and made a few phone calls querying what milk substitute a wild orphaned baby elephant would take. We needed the exact mixture, and having got the formula from Daphne Sheldrick's famous animal orphanage in Kenya I sent a ranger into town to buy the ingredients as well as some jumbo-sized bottles and the largest teats on the market.\n\nWhile I did that, Fran\u00e7oise started converting the spare bedroom, right next to ours, into an elephant nursery, scattering straw in bales on the floor and putting down a firm mattress for her to sleep on.\n\n'She'll be comfortable here,' she said with more confidence than I felt. 'We will name her Thula.'\n\nI nodded. It was a good name.\n\nI went back to the baby and inspected her front feet crumpled in on themselves.\n\n'She's huge,' said the vet. 'In fact, too big. That's why her feet were squashed back, folded over in the womb. She was simply too big for the womb and her feet had nowhere further to grow. But the bones aren't broken and the muscles are intact and loose enough to manipulate into the correct position. Hopefully they'll straighten out with some exercise. '\n\nHe walked around her. 'Her ears are also worrying me a touch. They've been burned raw by the sun and sand and she may lose the fringes. I'll prescribe some ointment.'\n\nJust then Thula lifted her head quite strongly. A drip is a wonderful thing with wildlife. Sometimes it works so powerfully it's like watching a resurrection and so it was with Thula who was suddenly springing back from the dead.\n\n'She's certainly feeling better,' said the vet. 'Let's move her to her room and hopefully she'll get some sleep. When she wakes, give her a bottle.'\n\nHolding the drip we carried her to her new room. She instantly fell asleep on the mattress.\n\n'I'll tell you what is amazing,' said Johnny, coming over to Fran\u00e7oise and me. 'It only took two of us to lift her on to the pickup. We were so scared of the mother coming back that we loaded her in seconds. But when we got back here she was so heavy we couldn't get her off the truck at all. It eventually took four of us. That's adrenalin for you.'\n\nJohnny our new ranger stayed with her and would do so around the clock until she was healed. Orphaned elephant babies need the constant companionship of a surrogate mother otherwise they rapidly decline, both physically and emotionally. Johnny, who had only joined us a few months back, was going to be just that \u2013 a chore he accepted with relish.\n\nThe next morning Thula took her first giant-sized bottle from him and drank the lot.\n\nThe following day she was much stronger so Johnny fashioned a canvas sling and hung it from the towering marula tree on the lawn. We gently carried Thula out and she protested vigorously as we slipped the sling under her stomach, lifting her up while Johnny eased her deformed limbs forward. We then lowered her with her feet in the correct position.\n\nOur plan was simple: we had to strengthen her front feet or else she would die. And there she stood, wobbling like a wino at first, but gradually gaining some balance. We repeated this procedure several times between meals and by evening she was standing steadily with the aid of the sling.\n\nI whistled softly. Perhaps we could save her after all \u2013 perhaps I would be able to keep my pledge to the herd. The progress this tough little infant had made in one day alone was inspirational.\n\nThe next morning she started taking uncertain steps supported by the sling and by the third day she was walking unaccompanied, albeit slowly with plenty of fall-downs. Yet she never complained; she always seemed cheerful, almost laughing in an elephantine way as she struggled to get up. Her courage was absolute. Her cheerfulness amid constant pain was simply unbelievable.\n\nWithin a week, although limping badly, this gallant little creature was hobbling around the lawn with Biyela following behind carrying a large golf umbrella to protect her from the sun. She had captured our gardener's heart; from now on it seemed his mission in life was to keep the sun off her frazzled skin.\n\nAs the days went on she got stronger and was regularly taking the bottle, a vital part of hand-rearing a wild elephant. Unlike baby rhinos which will trample over you to drink from a bottle, orphaned elephants can be extremely difficult to feed. They subliminally want to suckle from their mother, so you have to persuade them that they are doing just that. The trick is to hang a chunk of sacking from the ceiling to simulate the mother and then stand the baby next to it and introduce the teat from underneath, just as if she was suckling.\n\nBut if that didn't work, it was back to muscular force-feeding, and feeding times sometimes redefined the word chaos in our house. Johnny would back Thula into a wall, put his arm around her neck and ram the bottle into her mouth, squirting the vitamin-enriched milk into her system while she fought him every inch of the way. And at 270 pounds she could fight all right. Johnny often came off worst, landing flat on his bum spraying milk all over the place while Thula bolted for the door to seek consolation from her new best friend Biyela and his omnipresent umbrella. Biyela would then follow her around the lawn, glaring at us as if we were serial elephant-abusers.\n\nBut the fact that she took the bottle regularly was a huge plus. This, I believe, was due to her essentially being a happy creature and the caring environment we had created around her. Fran\u00e7oise in particular lavished constant attention on her and Thula adored her in return, following her around the house like a giant love-struck puppy. The only problem was that she broke everything she could reach; a coffee mug on the table was instant history and we soon learned that anything not nailed down would be trashed. If she didn't pull it onto the floor with her trunk, she bumped it off its perch with her bulk.\n\nAs she got stronger, the limp receded and apart from having some trouble lying down, she was healing beautifully. Indeed, her biggest problem in life was now trying to unravel what that strange appendage flapping in front of her face was all about. An elephant's trunk pulses with about 50,000 muscles. Thula was endlessly fascinated by hers; she flapped it about as a human baby would do with a doll.\n\nAlthough I instructed everyone that she should never be alone I could have saved my breath. Johnny was always there and off-duty staff members regularly came up to the house to make a fuss of her. Everyone loved her indomitable spirit and Thula flourished under this utter devotion from her new family. Despite constant pain as her feet slowly straightened out, she always seemed to be smiling. Even Max, who would fight any creature for no reason other than that it was there, followed her around the lawn on her daily walks, his tail wagging like a feather in a gale.\n\nOne late afternoon, a sunset in paradise, I was walking her through the bush outside the garden, acclimatizing her to the longer grasses, thorns and trees that would be her future home, when suddenly I saw the herd appear at the top of the road. They had decided to come to the house for one of their periodic visits.\n\nThe timing could not have been worse. I was well outside the electric wire and to be caught with Thula in the open by her mother could be calamitous. I might even be regarded as a kidnapper. If I abandoned Thula and made a run for it there was no doubt they would whisk her off, and she would die. Her little \u2013 by elephant standards \u2013 feet were totally ill-equipped for life in the bush. A stroll around the garden as opposed to what she would be expected to do with her family was like comparing climbing a hill to Everest. It would be a slow death sentence even if Nandi lagged behind with her.\n\nThe only thing going for me was that the herd didn't know Thula was alive. They had come for a social visit \u2013 not to find their baby. I had to move fast.\n\n'Come, Thula! Come, my girl!' I called anxiously, looking over my shoulder and made for the gate about a hundred yards away as fast as I could urge her. Luckily I was downwind and the herd didn't scent us while Thula stumbled along behind. If the wind had been blowing the other way, it could have provoked a stampede from the herd. Ahead Biyela was frantically pointing at the oncoming elephants with his umbrella, desperately calling Thula to hurry.\n\nWe made it to the gate \u2013 just \u2013 and I passed Thula on to Biyela, and then turned to watch the herd coming up.\n\nThey drew level a few minutes later and Nana's trunk shot up like a periscope, the tip switching until she fixated on where Thula had just ambled out of sight behind a hedge of wild strelitzia. She turned, her stomach rumbling. Nandi and Frankie joined her, scenting the air, analysing floating molecules Thula had left behind. They were like detectives at a crime scene and eased forward just inches from the electric wire.\n\nI went to Thula's room, made sure she was closed in with Johnny and called a ranger to double-check the fence's current. I then waited, guiltily hoping they would leave. I was copping out, pretending nothing was happening.\n\nTwenty minutes later they were still there and I felt I could no longer ignore them. They were entitled to know what we had done.\n\nBut how? If I let them see Thula it might prompt something so primordial we could not handle it; if elephants believe their babies are in danger they're uncontrollable. Their maternal instinct is ironclad. So what could I do to pacify them but still keep Thula with me until she was ready to be returned to her family fit and strong?\n\nI didn't know. But I felt that at least I should let them know their baby was alive.\n\nI went to Thula's room, took my shirt off and swabbed it over her body, put it back on and wiped my hands and arms all along her. I then walked back down to the fence and called them.\n\nNana came over first and as her trunk swept just above the single electric wire in greeting I stretched my hand out as I usually do. The response was remarkable. The tip of her trunk paused at my hand and for an instant she went rigid. Then her trunk twitched as she sucked in every particle of scent. I offered both hands and she snuffled up my shirt and vacuumed every inch. Nandi the mother and Frankie the aunt stood on either side, trunks snaking as they too got the olfactory messages that Thula was alive and close by.\n\nAll the while I talked to them, telling them how we helped Thula cheat death, what was wrong with her feet and why she had to stay with me for a little longer. I told them we all loved her because she was so brave and happy. I told them that they could be proud of their newest little member, who was fighting so gamely for her life. I then told them, for some completely random reason, that even Max \u2013 the ultimate canine curmudgeon \u2013 had befriended her.\n\nI have long since lost my self-consciousness at chatting away to elephants like some eccentric. As I spoke I looked for signs that something of what I meant was getting across. I needn't have worried. We had come a long hard road together, this herd and I, and talking to them had been a crucial part of that process. And why not? Who am I to judge what elephants understand or otherwise? Besides I personally find the communication most satisfying. They evidently liked it too, responding with their deep stomach rumblings.\n\nEventually they read whatever they could from my shirt and these three magnificent elephants stood there before me like a judicial panel assessing the evidence.\n\nAfter much deliberation they moved off and I could tell that they were relaxed and unconcerned. I'm not saying this lightly as I have seen unhappy elephants. I am familiar with many of their emotions. When they left, I know that they were happy. I know that they could have stormed the fence, electric or not, if they had been otherwise. I felt a glow ignite inside me. They trusted me, and I knew I could not let them down.\n\nThe weeks passed by and Thula was doing well, revelling in the affection and care ladled on her by Fran\u00e7oise and Johnny. So much so that Bijou became insanely jealous, constantly barking at the hulk towering up above like the original mouse that roared. Thula ignored the yapping poodle with impressive regal disdain.\n\nInside the house she was Fran\u00e7oise's shadow, particularly in the kitchen where she would dip her trunk in anything Fran\u00e7oise was cooking. I remarked that this would be the first elephant who would want her marula berries marinated in garlic.\n\nStill she broke everything. The rangers' weekly shopping trip to town now included lugging mountains of crockery to replace Thula's damage. But what could you do? How could you get angry with a gallant creature that never gave up? That never complained? That refused to lie down and succumb?\n\nOutside, Biyela was her hero. With his multi-coloured golf umbrella constantly covering her, the two became inseparable. In fact Biyela started sulking if she remained in the house for too long.\n\nIndeed, for all of us, Thula was our talisman. She exuded an energy and vitality that tapped into the ethos of the reserve: that life was for living.\n\nThen one morning Johnny called from her room and I went through to find her struggling to get up.\n\n'She can't stand,' he said, pushing and pulling to try and get her on her feet. I climbed in and helped. Eventually after much squealing and protesting we had her up and she tottered briefly then limped outside.\n\nBiyela and his umbrella appeared as if by magic and as we followed I saw that it took far longer for her to loosen up. So did Biyela, and I watched as he spoke softly into her weakly flapping ears. I then realized she wasn't just stiff in her feet; she was in acute pain \u2013 not just the pain she had bravely fought before. Her right hip also seemed to be troubling her. This was serious and I called the vet.\n\n'Short of doing X-rays, which is impossible, I can't tell you what's wrong,' he said. 'Nothing is broken but she has badly inflamed joints in her front feet and hip, probably caused by the way she walks.'\n\nHe then prescribed some anti-inflammatories and instructed us to ease off on long walks.\n\nThe next morning it was the same. She couldn't stand up. The same happened the following. My concern rocketed.\n\nA week later she wouldn't drink. Johnny, unshaven, wildhaired, despondent and soaked in the milk he was trying to coax her to take, summed it up. 'She's just not interested any more.'\n\nI looked at Thula who was in the corner facing the wall, apathetically swinging her little trunk back and forth. She was also suffering from thrush, which as any mother knows is an extremely uncomfortable yeast infection in a baby's mouth, and she hated the pungent ointment we spread over her tongue and gums each day.\n\nJohnny was exhausted so I took the bottle from him and tried to ease it into her mouth, with no success. Then Fran\u00e7oise, whom Thula truly loved, tried. She was gentle with her, but Thula still wouldn't take the bottle.\n\nAs Johnny said, she wasn't interested. From a feisty little fighter, she suddenly seemed to have given up. I had no idea why, except that perhaps the pain she had endured in her courageous quest to live was now simply unbearable.\n\nThe next day she took a quarter of a bottle \u2013 a fraction of what she needed \u2013 but the fact she had even taken that gave me heart. I prayed that her indomitable spirit would resurface triumphant.\n\nThat evening she was on a drip. The vet had come out of her own volition. Thula had also captivated her.\n\nTwo days later, despite drips and encouragement from the entire staff which would rival cheering at an international rugby match, she sunk into bottomless apathy.\n\nEarly the next morning a disconsolate Johnny told us she slipped away during the night while he was with her.\n\nThula's death affected everybody, particularly Fran\u00e7oise. I have never seen her sob so bitterly. We've had lots of animals living with us over the years and we were close to them all but with Thula it was different. Her cheerful disposition, her refusal to surrender until the last few days inspired everyone. She had shown us how life could be joyous despite pain; meaningful despite brevity. How life should be lived for the moment. The pall of sorrow she left behind was for many days impenetrable.\n\nHer body was taken out into the veldt by Johnny to allow nature to take its course.\n\nI later went out alone, found the herd and led them to the carcass. They gathered around. This time I didn't speak; I didn't have to tell them what had happened. For a moment I held my head in my hands; I had let them down. When I looked up, Nana was outside the vehicle's window, her trunk raised in her familiar greeting pose. Next to her was Nandi. They then moved off.\n\nThe remnants of Thula's skeleton are still there and every now and again Nana leads her family past and they stop, sniffing and pushing the bones around with their trunks, toying with them in an elephant remembrance ritual.\nchapter thirty-seven\n\nCape buffalo are the quintessential African animal. The quandary for the uninitiated tourist is that a buffalo looks like and seems like a cow, an African cow perhaps, but a cow nevertheless, and why would anyone want to spend valuable safari time staring at bovines?\n\nBut for the aficionado of African bush there is nothing that quite compares, nothing that better symbolizes Africa, and there is no animal more regal, more unpredictable, or more dangerous. I had always wanted to introduce these magnificent beasts to Thula Thula and today was the day.\n\nIt was 4.30 a.m. Dawn was streaking with the first shards of light as we were taking delivery of a prime breeding herd of Cape buffalo. We had been up since 2 a.m. preparing the ramp, positioning vehicles and drinking coffee with excited rangers and a few lucky guests from the reserve. The state vet was there and the seals on the truck door had long since been broken for the animals to be freed but for some reason they were refusing to come out.\n\nThen everything went wrong. Firstly, the state vet announced with all the officiousness he could muster in the very unofficial bush that two of the cows were dead and a formal investigation may be required. That stunned us. Apart from our concern for the welfare of the buffalo, they were very expensive and to lose two was a big blow. Secondly he complained that the truck was late; the herd did not want to come out; and that ours was not the only game delivery that he had to attend that morning. In short, he was a busy man and the lack of enthusiasm of the buffalo to leave the trailer was impinging on his valuable time. And it was obviously our fault.\n\nBy now Hennie had had enough. In between trying to persuade the buffalo to disembark and convincing the unhappy inspector that their reluctance was nothing personal, he climbed down off the trailer roof with deliberately audible curses and walked back to his vehicle dialling his wife to say he would be late. That was when the bull finally left the truck...\n\nWithout warning a huge bull came thundering out of the back of the trailer and instead of disappearing into the bush, inexplicably made a U-turn that would give a Spanish matador the heebie-jeebies. But this was no mere toro; this was a one-and-a-half-ton Cape buffalo in its prime. And it was spitting mad. For the briefest moment he took in his surroundings and then focused on the ample figure of Hennie ambling off.\n\n'Dear God no!' I thought and watched awestruck as the bull charged at Hennie in revenge for his uncomfortable journey.\n\n'Oom! Oom!' screamed a young Afrikaner ranger, calling Hennie by the reverential 'Uncle' title Afrikaners give their elders. 'Die bull kom!' The bull is coming!\n\nIt sure was. Hennie glanced over his shoulder, dropped his cellphone and ran for his life.\n\nI knew he wouldn't make it. Hennie was a large man, the distance too far and there was no time for us to get a gun out, nevermind load and fire an accurate shot. An eerie stillness blanketed the scene unfolding in front of us \u2013 a real-life horror movie in surreal slow motion.\n\nWisely abandoning any hope of opening the vehicle's door in time, Hennie angled for the bonnet to try to duck out of the way of the horned juggernaut. Despite his lack of fitness and ungainly step he had built up a head of steam and was pounding along a lot faster than I thought possible. But that's adrenalin for you. With the bull inches behind he somehow reached the vehicle's bumper and they both sprinted around the front left corner as one, the beast's wicked horn-tips hooking viciously at his back.\n\nIt was so close I was certain Hennie had been pierced. But he somehow emerged with the buffalo less than a snort behind him, then ran the width of the pickup and managed to twist again around the bumper and dash for the tailgate.\n\n'Go, Oom!' the ranger again cried at the top of his voice, shattering the silence. And with that we all came out of our collective trance and started shouting: 'Go, Hennie, go!' trying to distract the beast.\n\nIt must have worked as the buffalo overshot a fraction on the next turn and suddenly there was a glimmer of light between the two.\n\n'Go! Hennie' we screamed louder.\n\nSomehow Hennie managed to gain another precious half a yard as they sprinted like Olympians around the vehicle again.\n\nBulky as Hennie is, he was still nimbler on the corners and on their third lap he was able to yank the driver's door open and dive in. He slammed it shut and scrambled to the passenger side as the buffalo could skewer a vehicle door like a can opener, but it wasn't necessary. As far as the beast was concerned, Hennie had vaporized into thin air. He gave up the chase.\n\nWell, not quite. Hearing our cheering, he turned to face us all standing on the back of the Land Rover, as if we were watching gladiators at the Coliseum. That certainly put a damper on things. This angry beast could easily flip the Landy.\n\nBreaking into a trot he hurtled forward, head down and I braced for the impact. Thankfully it never came as the snorting ton of horn and sinew missed by inches and continued straight off into the bush. With that a cheer went up... even louder than the one we roared for Hennie.\n\nHennie then climbed out and crouched with his hands on his knees catching his breath in rasping gasps. As he did so, the rest of the buffalo herd scrambled out of the back of the trailer into the bush.\n\nGame rangers are a tough bunch and the gallows humour started immediately.\n\n'Hey, Hennie, I missed that. Do it again, will you?' shouted one.\n\n'Why are you breathing so hard?' called another. 'Oxygen is free.'\n\nA third walked over to him and shoved a cold beer into his hand. 'Well done, ou maat. God was with you today.'\n\nThat was true. Hennie gulped the brew down without checking what time of day it was. As he did so I noticed the rip in his trousers. The bull's horn had actually pierced his clothing on the first turn. It was that close.\n\nBheki, Ngwenya and Vusi, who was now a section ranger, came with us as we went to inspect the two dead females. The state vet had to give his report, but to us the tragedy was right there in a mound of unmoving flesh. We weren't sure how they'd died. But one thing we did know was that we had some angry muscle out there charging through the bush.\n\n'Ayish, Mkhulu, that bull is something,' said Vusi, echoing my thoughts. 'Hennie was lucky. We must be very careful as these cows will be the same, maybe worse.'\n\n'I agree. Let's cancel all walking safaris for a while. And, Bheki, warn all your guards and the labourers to stay well away from them. Tell them all what happened here today.'\n\nI knew that the story would be embellished upon \u2013 exactly what I wanted. We had to let this herd settle down, which I knew they would.\n\nBut Hennie's close encounter with permanency got me thinking about something else I had been trying to avoid.\n\nLife and death go hand in glove. Death is cyclical, witnessed more in the natural order of the wild than anywhere else. And my thoughts turned back to Max who was now fourteen years old and too old to accompany me into the bush he loved so much. The old warrior, who had survived poachers, snakes and feral pigs double his size, had succumbed to chronic arthritis in his hind legs. As I left him in his basket early that morning, he tottered about in a vain attempt to come with me. A year back he would have been in the front seat of the Land Rover. Now he could barely walk. And the sight of Hennie running for his life brought this home with unimaginable sorrow.\n\nIt's funny how these things happen so quickly. It seemed just yesterday that we were out and about on our adventures. I had been told by Fran\u00e7oise and a few close friends that I had to face up to the fact Max was no longer bulletproof. He was very old and in pain and not going to last much longer, but it was just too dire for me to consider. I countered that with the best veterinary help I could get but recently he had all but stopped taking food and sadly I knew his time was coming.\n\nEven so, I was surprised to see Leotti the vet's car parked in the driveway so early in the morning as I got back. She was sitting next to Max's basket in the lounge. With her was Fran\u00e7oise. She seemed on the verge of tears.\n\nMax tried to get up to greet me and fell over. He tried again... he wouldn't give up.\n\nLeotti, who had treated Max throughout his numerous escapades, including regular mfezi fights, looked at me and shook her head.\n\n'Fran\u00e7oise phoned me about this. Lawrence... I know you love him but' \u2013 she gestured at my loyal friend \u2013 'it would be cruelty for this to carry on.'\n\nShe stood up. 'I will be waiting outside.'\n\nAs she closed the door Fran\u00e7oise put her arms around me and squeezed for a moment. Then she too left.\n\nI sat down next to my beautiful boy, lifted his rugged spade-shaped head onto my knee and he looked up, licking my hand as he always did. Even in his dotage he was still a superb creature.\n\nHe and I sat for about ten minutes, just us together. I told him how much I loved him, how much I had learned from his courage and loyalty and that the life in him was eternal. He knew exactly what was happening, we were too close for him not to, and I braced myself and called out to Leotti.\n\nShe came in. The syringe was ready and she administered that loneliest of all injections as I held him.\n\nI was inconsolable.\nchapter thirty-eight\n\nAbout a month later I woke at 6 a.m. with something shaking my shoulder. It was Fran\u00e7oise.\n\n'So,' she said in that delightful way the French have of being as direct as an arrow, 'exactly when are we are going to get married... mon ch\u00e9rie?'\n\nI rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. This was serious talk at this time of the morning and I had to engage my brain quickly.\n\n'Married? We are married. We're married under common law. In fact we've been married longer and happier than most people I know. Almost two decades \u2013 a lifetime,' I added with a yawning grin to rob any unintended offence.\n\n'Well, I don't understand this common-law business you always talk about. You just say that to do me out of a real wedding,' she replied, throwing a cushion at me with a laugh that didn't fully disguise her intent.\n\n'I know. That's because you turned me down.'\n\n'Turned you down? When, exactly?'\n\n'So you don't remember? That shows just how important it was to you.'\n\nShe looked baffled. I moved in for the kill.\n\n'It was years ago when I first asked you to marry me. You didn't even reply.'\n\n'Rubbish! I must have been asleep and you've made up all this incredible nonsense.'\n\nDespite the easy banter we both knew that the eternal battle of the sexes was in full cry and I was thankful when the two-way radio blared at that moment, giving me a pretext to rush off into the reserve. We'd been together for eighteen years and all of a sudden the marriage 'thing' was rearing its head. It wasn't that we weren't happy. Fran\u00e7oise was absolutely fantastic, and we had been crazily in love since the moment we met, but my theory in life is that if things ain't broke, why fix them?\n\nI kissed her as I left. She responded cheerfully... and I breathed a sigh of relief. Once again, all was quiet on the Western front.\n\nA month later I had to go to England and while away my mother called, asking when I would be returning as she wanted me to meet some government officials that would be visiting Zululand. I gave her the date and she phoned back to say the meeting was confirmed. I let Fran\u00e7oise know and a few days later caught the flight home.\n\nI arrived on a Saturday morning and after greeting the herd, who came as always to meet me at the fence, walked up to the house.\n\nFran\u00e7oise went off to prepare the lodge for the VIPs and I dressed in my best khakis... well, OK the ones with the least holes in them, a little disgruntled that I had to put on a smiling face for some officials barely hours after returning from an exhausting trip.\n\nI walked to the front entrance of lodge, battered bush cap in hand, and peeked inside. It was packed to the rafters. There was a wedding going on. This was nothing unusual as we often do functions for overseas couples wanting a romantic Zulu wedding in the bush. I turned and walked out, bumping into my mum. I kissed her hello.\n\n'Where are your VIPs? We can't meet them here. There's a wedding going on.'\n\nShe nodded, with a strange smile on her face. Something was up.\n\n'Hang on... who is getting married? Anyone we know?'\n\n'You are.'\n\nThere must be some innate male defence mechanism that kicks in at moments like this. I heard the two words she said, but neither registered.\n\n'OK, well let's take the government people to the conference centre, out of the way of all this stuff.'\n\nShe shook her head, still with that strange smile. There were no government officials. My mum linked her arm through mine and we walked into the thatched lounge. Everyone stood and started clapping.\n\nI had plenty of time to register what was happening because it unfolded before me as abstractly as an elephant charge, taking place in surreal slow motion despite its thundering reality. This was an ambush, a joint operation planned by both Fran\u00e7oise's family and my own. I recognized her best friend from Paris sitting with the Anthonys in pride of place. They must have been in on this for some time; you don't fly out from Europe just like that.\n\nMy staff were also dressed in their Sunday best standing in rows facing the minister at the podium, smiling and clapping. They too had been co-conspirators. The only person surprised was me \u2013 although stunned would be a more apt description.\n\nNow my mother is the dearest person in the world to me. If it was anyone else I would have at least put up an argument. But she had me firmly by the arm, only surrendering her grip when I was at the podium and shaking hands with the minister.\n\nThere I stood, smiling and nodding at guests, feeling like an absolute idiot, knowing that they knew I had been utterly outmanoeuvred. I looked down at my shoes which gleamed back at me. Even they had been shined in a way I had never seen before. I then looked up to see Ngwenya and Bheki in their finery nudging each other and grinning hugely.\n\nFor the polygamous Zulus, what was taking place was contrary to their way of life and they were never going to let me live this down. Indeed, my Zulu friends are genuinely mystified why I don't have multiple wives. You white men are so stupid, they would say. Everybody knows one woman is too strong for one man. Two are even worse as they will gang up against you. You must have three, as one will always be fighting with the other two to take the pressure off you.\n\nChauvinism? Sure, but then every woman I've told this story to has battled to hide a knowing smile. Well, at least for the first proviso.\n\nMy train of thought was broken by appreciative murmurs from the crowd as Fran\u00e7oise walked in. I turned as she came up the aisle looking absolutely gorgeous and as her beautiful eyes fixed on me everything came together and made perfect sense. I was willingly caught up in her magic and totally agreed to the surprise proceedings. It was all just so right.\n\n'Look,' she said as she arrived at the podium and pointed across the river. Mnumzane was there browsing quietly.\n\n'He loves weddings,' she said, smiling. 'He seems to arrive for so many of them. Now he's at ours.'\n\nA ring magically appeared and when asked if I took this woman to be my wife, a chorus rang to the rafters: 'He does!'\n\nAnd I did.\n\nWe never have loud music at the lodge, but that night the bold rhythms of Africa throbbed across the reserve in celebrations that went on until the early morning.\nchapter thirty-nine\n\nSomething strange was going on with Mnumzane. It happened out of the blue. A young ranger was on a game drive with two guests, a married couple, when they rounded a sharp corner and unexpectedly ran into him coming in the opposite direction.\n\nHe started ambling over. The ranger panicked and reversed too fast, smashing into a tree. They were stuck with Mnumzane coming straight for them. To the frightened ranger's credit he didn't reach for the rifle. Instead he told his passengers to sit tight and make no sound as Mnumzane strode up to the vehicle. I know first-hand that this is one of the most frightening sights imaginable. A six-ton bull literally breathing down your spine is something else all right. Then he lightly bumped the Land Rover and his tusk actually grazed one of the guest's arms. Somehow the man didn't scream.\n\nShowing great presence of mind, the Zulu tracker jumped off his seat on the front of the vehicle and sneaked around to the other side, surreptitiously helping the guests off the vehicle. They all fled into the bush. Mnumzane fiddled around the Land Rover for a bit without causing any damage, and then moved off. Once they were sure he was gone, they crept out of their hiding places and drove at speed back to the lodge.\n\nFrom initial accounts, Mnumzane was just being inquisitive rather than aggressive. The ranger also played the incident down, so I didn't take it too seriously. I only got the full story months later when I was phoned by the couple.\n\nAfter that encounter, Mnumzane started on occasion approaching our open guest game-drive vehicles. But again, the reports I got was that he was never angry, just curious. It was not dangerous as the rangers would merely drive away as soon as he approached. The bigger problem was that this was totally out of character; he simply was not behaving as an elephant should. Elephants automatically ignore us humans as long as we don't move into their space.\n\nThen I discovered the reason for his sudden interest in game-drive vehicles. Prompted by a few pointed questions, a staff member told me that two of our young rangers had been teasing the bull, driving up and playing 'chicken' with him, daring each other to see who could get nearest then speeding away when he approached. They had seen me with Mnumzane before \u2013 totally without my knowledge as my interactions with him were deliberately kept private \u2013 and thought that they would also try to get up close. It never occurred to these two idiots that taunting the ultimate alpha male from a game-drive vehicle that normally carried guests on viewing safaris was teaching him a terribly bad habit. Both rangers had resigned before I found this out and hopefully they have since embarked on careers far removed from wildlife.\n\nThe most non-negotiable rule on the reserve was that no one was allowed to have any self-initiated contact with the elephants. Anyone who disobeyed that law would be instantly dismissed. Perhaps my biggest failure was to trust that all my carefully chosen staff had the same ingrained ethics and common sense that David and Brendan had shown. Sadly, that does not always hold true.\n\nA little later a trainee lodge manager left without notice. The dust had barely settled as he sped from the reserve when I heard that he too had been using a game-drive Land Rover to approach Mnumzane, trying to imitate my call. These were the worst possible scenarios. Mnumzane had always been a very special case and the continuous teasing by strangers was dangerously altering his attitude to humans. He considered the shouting and revving of engines as a direct challenge and as a result game drives were forced to move off whenever they saw him. My concern was mounting.\n\nI had also just bought a brand-new white Land Rover station wagon. The faithful old battered bush-green Landy had now gone around the clock a good few times and had to be retired, her innards due to be cannibalized for other vehicles. It was a sad day for me. The well-weathered seat, the simplistic dashboard, the worn-smooth gear stick, the bush-smell of the cabin... I loved her.\n\nTaking delivery of this spanking new vehicle, I decided to do a test drive in really rough terrain to see if she was as rugged as my old Landy. She performed beautifully off-road, but eventually a tight copse of trees forced me to make an extremely tight 360-degree turn. I had just about completed this when suddenly I felt unaccountably apprehensive.\n\nAn instant later Mnumzane towered next to me. He had appeared silently from the shadows as only an elephant can and was just standing there. I looked up into his eyes and my heart skipped a beat. His pupils were cold as stones and I quickly called out his name, repeatedly greeting him. It took ten chilling seconds before he started relaxing. I completed the turn, talking continuously to him as he gradually settled down and let me go.\n\nI drove off with a heavy heart. Things were not the same any more. Perhaps his aggression had been because he had not recognized the new vehicle. I fervently hoped so. But he shouldn't be approaching any of our vehicles, let alone acting aggressively towards them. My entire interaction with Mnumzane was based on an intensely private, personal interplay between us, whereas now for the first time since arriving at Thula Thula he was being teased by rogue rangers.\n\nThen in another incident our lodge manager Mabona was driving up to the house when Mnumzane appeared from nowhere and blocked her path. Doing exactly as she had been trained, she cut the engine and sat motionless. Mnumzane moved to the back and leaned on the car, shattering the rear window. The crackling glass surprised him and he backed off, giving Mabona enough time to turn the key and accelerate away.\n\nAfter this we hacked out a dozen or so outlets on the road to the lodge where vehicles could rapidly reverse and turn if necessary. I also had all encroaching bush on the track cleared so we could see Mnumzane before he got too close.\n\nThis worked. The game drivers were avoiding him and the road to the lodge \u2013 the reserve's most travelled route \u2013 had easy escape routes. Mnumzane now had no contact whatsoever with any human except me. Best of all, any idiotic ranger activity had now been completely rooted out.\n\nIn short, everything started returning to normal.\n\nBut I was still worried. I began spending more time with him again, trying to reassure him and get him to settle down. With me he was always the same friendly accommodating giant that I loved. He seemed OK.\n\nHowever, my senior rangers remained unhappy and shook their heads when I told them this. 'That's only with you,' they would say. 'He trusts you, but it's very different for the rest of us.' They wouldn't go near him and all walking safaris were stopped if he was anywhere in the area.\n\nA few weeks later a journalist and good friend asked to film me interacting with Mnumzane. I very rarely do this and eventually agreed only on condition that the camera crew's vehicle was out of Mnumzane's sight and no one spoke during the entire episode.\n\nWe found him and I drove forward and got out of my new Land Rover leaving a young ranger in the back of the vehicle. I called out and Mnumzane started ambling over. I had some slices of bread in my pocket to throw to the side when I wanted to leave. I had recently taken to doing this with Mnumzane... much as I dearly love him, when on foot I would only turn my back on him if he's distracted.\n\nAs he approached I studied his demeanour and decided he was fine. We had a wonderful ten minutes or so interacting, chatting about life \u2013 well, me doing that while Mnumzane contentedly browsed \u2013 and as I decided to leave I put my hand in my pocket for the bread. However, it had hooked in the material of my trousers and I looked down trying to yank the slices out.\n\nAt that moment it was me, not Mnumzane, who was distracted. He suddenly moved right up against me and I got the fright of my life. For not only was he almost on top of me, his entire mood had changed. Something behind me had disturbed him, possibly the young ranger in the Landy and he wanted to get at him. There was malevolence in the air.\n\nI hastily threw the bread on the ground and thankfully he moved over to snuffle it up as I retreated.\n\nBy the time I got back to the film crew my heart was pounding like a bongo drum. I knew his temper was on a knife edge; something had changed with him.\n\nI would soon realize by how much.\n\nA few weeks later I was taking some VIP visitors on a game drive in my Landy as the sun was setting and we spotted Heidi, the rhino orphaned as a calf by Mnumzane years ago, slinking into the bush. We were crawling along at five miles per hour when out of the twilight the herd appeared, crossing the road fifty yards ahead.\n\n'Elephant,' I said, switching on the spotlights.\n\nIt was the first time my two passengers had seen an elephant, let alone a herd, and their excitement attested, as always, to the ancient bewitchment of Africa. I switched off the engine to let them savour the moment, perhaps one they would not experience again.\n\nThen I saw Mnumzane bringing up the rear. I knew he was now in musth, a sexual condition where a bull elephant's testosterone levels shoot up by an incredible fifty times and this is when bulls can become dangerously unpredictable, especially when following females as he was doing now. I never dared interact with any bull in musth. It was just too volatile. Anyway I was with guests, so it was out of the question.\n\nNana was leading her family towards Croc Pools and I waited for about five minutes to make sure they were well off the road before I started the Land Rover and again moved forwards.\n\nSuddenly the man in the passenger seat started shouting: 'Elephant! Elephant!'\n\nThe yell shook me rigid. What was he on about? The elephants were gone. I strained my eyes searching the headlight-illuminated track in front, unable to see anything.\n\n'Elephant!' he shouted again, pointing to his side window.\n\nIt was Mnumzane, barely three yards away in the dark. Prompted by the loud noise he stepped forward and lowered his massive head right onto the window as if to see what all the shouting was about and with instant dread I saw his eyes. They were stone cold and there was malevolence in the air.\n\nMnumzane then prodded the window with his trunk, testing its resilience. Realizing that at any second he was going to shatter through and in the process crush my passenger, I slammed the vehicle into reverse while desperately pleading with the two men to calm down. All I managed to do by reversing was to skid Mnumzane's tusk across the glass, snagging it at the edge of the door with a jarring bang. He lifted his head and trumpeted in rage. With that I knew we were now in grave danger. As far as Mnumzane was concerned, the car had 'attacked' him. In retaliation, he swung in front of us and hammered the bull bar so hard my head smacked the windscreen as we shot forward like crash-test dummies. Then he put his huge head on the bull bar and violently bulldozed us back twenty yards into the bush only stopping when the rear wheels jammed against a fallen tree.\n\nI opened my window and screamed at him, but it was tantamount to yelling at a tornado in the dark. I watched in horror as he backed off sideways to give himself space to build up speed then lost sight of him as he moved out of the headlights. At least the guests had stopped yelling. All three of us were now deathly silent.\n\nThere was only one way out. As he set himself up for the charge I revved until the engine was screaming and dropped the clutch, trying to wrench the Landy out of his way. Too late. He came at us out of nowhere in an enraged charge. The shock of the colossal impact jarred my teeth as he smashed his tusks into the side of the Landy just behind the back door and then heaved us up and over.\n\nKa-bang! The Landy smashed down, landed on its side, then flipped over onto its roof and into a thicket as he drove on with his relentless attack. Another almighty charge flipped us back onto our side.\n\nMy shoulder was lying on the grass through the broken side window and the guest in the passenger seat was practically on top of me. My head hurt terribly from the strike on the windscreen as I tried to gather my senses. I wasn't injured but my biggest concern was that this wasn't over. In fact, our ordeal was in its infancy. Bull elephants have a terrifying reputation of finishing off what they start. To confirm this, just inches away Mnumzane stomped around the upturned vehicle in a rage.\n\nI had to snap him out of his red mist and amid all the confusion I somehow remembered that elephants that have been exposed to gunfire sometimes freeze when they hear shots. I also knew that it could go the other way, that the gunfire could prompt a final lethal attack, but I had no choice.\n\nTwisting around, I drew Fran\u00e7oise's tiny .635 pistol from my pocket just as the Landy shuddered with another titanic blow. I pointed at the sky through the broken windscreen and fired... again and again and again. I fought the compulsion to fire all eight shots in the magazine. My last-ditch plan was that if he got to us I would shoot the final four slugs into his foot and hope like hell it hurt enough to divert his attention and we could somehow get out and run for our lives.\n\nTo my eternal relief he froze. It had worked. As he hesitated I called out to him but I was trembling so much my voice was way off-key. I gulped lungful after lungful of oxygen until everything steadied and tried speaking again. As my voice calmed, he recognized me and his ears dropped; the anger visibly melting from his body.\n\nI then told him it was OK, that it was me, and he had frightened the hell out of me \u2013 that he didn't need to be angry any more. Thankfully he recognized my voice and slowly came right up to where I lay on my side in the cab. His feet, practically the size of dustbin lids, were literally inches from my head. All he had to do was lift his foot onto the flimsy cab and that would be it. I aimed my puny gun at his foot and then watched entranced as he pulled out shards of the shattered windscreen, then gently reached in and put his trunk onto my shoulder and head, touching me, smelling me all over. All the while I talked to him, telling him we were in terrible danger and that he must be careful.\n\nHe could not have been more gentle. Eventually he walked off and started browsing on a nearby tree as if nothing had happened.\n\n'The radio, the radio!' whispered one of the guests. 'Call for help!'\n\nI reached for the mouthpiece only to find that the radio had been smashed off its hinges. In the darkness I found it and fumblingly reconnected the wires and got it going, whispering a Code Red, describing where we were and what had happened, and then turned the volume right down. I didn't want any loud responses to unsettle our precarious situation with Mnumzane.\n\nFran\u00e7oise took the call and relayed the bush version of a Mayday to get to us fast. Luckily there were rangers on a night-time-viewing safari close by who had heard the shots and they were with us in minutes. But whenever they approached, Mnumzane started challenging their vehicle, keeping them away.\n\nI knew they carried a rifle and whispered strict instructions into the radio that despite how bad everything looked, under absolutely no circumstances was Mnumzane to be shot. They must just wait until he left.\n\nBut he wouldn't leave. Each time he came to the vehicle, one of the guests would panic and frantically climb over chairs to the opposite side of the Landy station wagon. This was prompting his interest and he would walk round and bump the vehicle making the poor man scramble back again. It was horrifying lying there absolutely helpless in the dark with this giant stomping around outside hitting the vehicle. Every now and then I would call out to him and he would come around to my side and stand quietly for a while, and then go back and continue worrying the guest. On top of that he kept circling our upturned vehicle, chasing off the rangers coming to our aid.\n\nThen as I started to despair, I heard the ranger anxiously calling out on the radio, 'The herd is here, the whole herd is here... They're coming straight towards you. Oh my God, they're going to your Landy, what must we do? Over.'\n\n'Nothing,' I replied, relieved. 'Just wait.'\n\nThis was good news, not bad as the ranger thought. Leaning forward out of the vehicle I could just see Nana and Frankie followed by the herd and I called out to them repeatedly.\n\nBut unusually they ignored me completely. Without breaking stride, they walked right past us and then, to my astonishment, surrounded Mnumzane, jostling him away from us. He could easily have butted them off \u2013 he certainly had the strength \u2013 but amazingly he didn't. From my cramped horizontal position on the ground I could hear their stomachs rumbling. I have no idea what the communications were, but moments later Mnumzane stopped his aggressive vigil over the wrecked Land Rover and left with them.\n\nWhen they were about fifty yards away the rangers sped up, climbed on top of the Land Rover and pulled us out via the smashed side windows, one by one. Thankfully, incredibly, no one was hurt.\n\nAs we drove off I watched the elephants walking with Mnumzane, the undisputed dominant bull, submissively in tow. Given that adult bulls are loners, it was most unusual to see him herding with them. I had no doubt Nana understood what was going on and that she and Frankie had intervened to get him away. Not only for our good but for his. She had probably saved our lives.\n\nBut as we passed by some forty yards off, Mnumzane lifted his head sharply and took some angry steps towards us. That he again showed aggression towards the safari Land Rover concerned me infinitely more than my wrecked vehicle. I had a big problem on my hands.\n\nBack at the lodge Fran\u00e7oise gave me a fierce hug and ushered the guests to the bar. One, a lifelong teetotaller, gulped down three double whiskies before uttering a word.\n\nDespite the drama, no one had a scratch.\n\nMy brand-new Land Rover was not so fortunate. The bemused insurance company took one look at the wreck and assigned it to the scrapheap. They had never before paid out a claim for an 'elephant incident'.\nchapter forty\n\nOur traumatic escape had me going in a dozen different directions trying to figure out what to do. Predictably the 'I told you so' brigade kicked off with a vengeance with some wildlife experts saying that Mnumzane should be put down immediately; that he was an accident waiting to happen; and that if I didn't do it now, someone was going to get killed.\n\nOnce again I rose to his defence and justified the series of events, saying that all he had done was come to my vehicle as he had done hundreds of times before. He had then become confused by strange voices shouting and being in musth he had lost it when the Landy suddenly reversed and hit his tusk. The proof was as soon as he heard my voice he stopped his craziness and actually came to me, pulling out the windscreen fragments and snuffling his trunk over me to check if I was OK.\n\nI refused to shoot him and instead started to put into place other measures to ensure his and everyone else's safety. The rangers were experienced enough to take care of themselves. It was the lodge staff driving back and forth that concerned me, so we cleared out every inch of bush and shrubbery for thirty yards on each side of all roads between the house and the lodge. Now if he was anywhere near the track he could be seen from a long way off. At night I had a ranger drive well ahead of any staff vehicle with a spotlight to check if he was around.\n\nBut there was no need as he had gone deep into the bush alone and stayed there, almost as if atoning for his outburst.\n\nThe herd, on the other hand, were just being wild elephants, doing things that contented elephants do such as pulling down whole trees for grazing, wallowing in mudbaths and providing great game viewing. Even ET had settled down and I took solace from this success. After a few weeks of no trouble I dared to start thinking that Mnumzane had learned something from the incident and could be saved.\n\nThen early one morning I was radioed by a safari drive ranger to say that he had a breakdown and had left the Land Rover in the bush to go and get parts. When he returned, the vehicle had been smashed off the road and overturned.\n\n'Stay right there,' I radioed back with a deep sense of foreboding. 'I'm on my way.'\n\nBut even before I got there, I knew what had happened. Mnumzane's spoor was all over the place. He had found the stationary vehicle and destroyed it, flipping it upside down and smashing it off the road. Despondently I surveyed the damage.\n\nA safari Land Rover is an open vehicle to facilitate game viewing. It has no roof, and if turned over like this one had been, people could get killed. Mnumzane had attacked an empty Landy for no reason and therefore would surely attack one with passengers in it as well.\n\nI fruitlessly tried to find justifications; anything to put off the inevitable but there was no way out. It was over and I knew it. He was completely out of control. In fact, in virtually any other reserve, he would have been put down immediately after killing the rhino never mind also flipping the Land Rover, and now it was a guest game-drive vehicle as well.\n\nI took a slow lonely drive home and called a friend.\n\n'I need to borrow your .375,' I asked, numbed by the words coming out of my mouth.\n\n'Sure, why?' came the reply.\n\n'Nothing major, thanks. I'll have it back by tomorrow.'\n\n'No problem.' Then he paused, 'Are you OK?'\n\n'I'm fine, I'll see you later.'\n\nI put the phone down, appalled at my decision but I knew in my heart we had reached the end of the road. If I left it any longer someone was going to die.\n\nMy .303 would probably suffice but the task was difficult enough as it was and I didn't want to make any mistakes. I wanted maximum firepower so I drove into town, collected the rifle and eight rounds of 286 grain monolithic solid ammunition. Without telling anyone, I went out onto an adjacent property, marked a tree and fired three shots, sighting the rifle to make sure it was perfectly on target. An hour later I found my big boy grazing peacefully near the river.\n\nAt the sound of my car he looked up and came ambling over, pleased to see me as always. Feeling absolutely treacherous, I got out, readied the rifle on the open door and took aim, his familiar features looking completely out of place in the telescopic sight. As he arrived I was still standing there, wracked by emotion, unable to pull the trigger... tears flowing freely.\n\nI couldn't do it. I stuffed the rifle in the car as he stood by, warmly radiating greetings in that special way he had. I gathered myself and said goodbye to him for the last time, telling him we would see each other again one day. A few moments later I drove off leaving him standing there, palpably bewildered by my hasty departure.\n\nThe next morning two sharpshooters I had earlier phoned arrived. I watched as they sighted their rifles on a target in a riverbed. This is absolutely essential when hunting dangerous game \u2013 you have to ensure your rifle is absolutely on target. These were retired professional hunters, now conservationists who knew exactly what they were doing.\n\n'So you're not coming with us?' asked one of them, an old friend of mine. 'You sure you don't want to do this yourself?'\n\n'I tried. I know him too well.' My voice was dead.\n\n'Yeah, I heard about that. It's amazing, what happened.'\n\n'He's now completely lost the plot,' I said, not wanting to go into the details.\n\n'I understand,' he said, giving me a brief pat on the shoulder.\n\nAn hour later I was standing outside on the lawn looking over the reserve that I loved so much when I heard two distant shots. As the finality of it came crashing home I was seized by a terrible loneliness, both for my beautiful boy and for myself. After nine years of friendship I had failed. He had gone to join his mother whose violent death just before he came to Thula Thula he never really recovered from.\n\nI forced myself to go to where Mnumzane's immense body was lying, the hunters nearby. I was pleased he hadn't fallen badly, lying on his side as if asleep.\n\n'It was painless. He was dead before he hit the ground,' said Peter. 'But we had a bit of a fright at the last moment as he suddenly came at us and it was touch and go. There's something wrong with that elephant. You made the right decision.'\n\nI looked at the magnificent body, the ground and sky still pulsing with his presence.\n\n'Goodbye, great one,' I said and got back into the Landy and went to call the herd, to bring them, to let them see what I had done.\n\nWhat I had had to do.\nchapter forty-one\n\n'These things always seem to happen in threes,' I thought mournfully a couple of days later, pondering over the deaths of baby Thula, Max and now Mnumzane in the space of little over a year. The bush, though, is a great place to regain perspective and I was comforted by the belief that although they were gone physically, they would always be part of this eternal piece of Africa. Their bones would always be in this soil.\n\nWith the exception of elephants and crocodiles which can live a man's three score years and ten, animals generally do not live long. In the wild, everything is continuously regenerated. Lions only live about fifteen years, as do impala, nyala and kudu. Zebra and wildebeest can reach twenty and giraffe a little more. Many smaller animals and birds live very short lives indeed; insects sometimes only weeks.\n\nEach spring the bush comes alive with pulsating new life as Thula Thula morphs into a giant nursery, tended by thousands of caring mothers of all shapes and sizes, all bringing a new generation into the world. And they need to, for regardless of its vitality, wildlife succumbs rapidly. Despite its infinite beauty, the wilderness is a hostile environment and only the fittest, wisest and luckiest reach old age. Death is an integral part of life. This is the dominant bush reality and I like it that way. It's natural, uncluttered by materialism or artificial ethics and it helps me to maintain a wholesome perspective of my own existence and that of my friends and family.\n\nI was sitting on a termite mound near a grove of acacias, still deep in thought when a Land Rover approached and Vusi, who had been my 'guinea-pig' ranger in initiating walking safaris with elephants \u2013 or running safaris, as was sometimes the case in those experimental days \u2013 got out. A powerfully built man with steely self-assurance whom I had just promoted to senior ranger, he told me he had just driven past Mnumzane's body.\n\nHe paused for a moment, looking at me directly. 'There was only one tusk.'\n\nI instantly snapped out of my reverie. 'What do you mean only one! Where's the other?'\n\n'It's gone. Stolen.'\n\n'How did that happen?' I was shocked to the core.\n\n'It was there yesterday evening. I saw it myself, and today it's gone.' He continued staring at me, a rare gesture for rural Zulus whose culture demands that eyes be averted. I think he was as shocked as I was.\n\n'We searched for hundreds of yards around the body. Then I had every inch of the fence checked and there are no holes cut by poachers. Nobody broke in last night.'\n\nI stared back, astounded.\n\n'Also I advised security and every car today has been searched. I didn't want to tell you until I was sure.'\n\n'That's unbelievable,' I said, thinking back to our early poaching days, 'I mean... who the hell took it then?'\n\n'It's still on the reserve,' replied Vusi confidently. 'It's one of the staff and it has been hidden somewhere here. Someone with a vehicle. I saw the lights near the body last night, but it was gone before I got halfway.'\n\nJust then Ngwenya walked up carrying the second tusk over his shoulder and lowered it heavily onto the ground.\n\n'There is something that will interest you,' said Vusi, abandoning the topic of the theft. 'Feel here,' he knelt down next to the magnificent piece of ivory, his fingers running lightly over its length. 'There is a bad crack.'\n\nI crouched next to him. I had always known that the tip of Mnumzane's tusk had a slight crack, but as this is fairly common among elephants, I didn't worry much about it.\n\nBut then I followed the path of Vusi's fingers with my own and whistled. On closer inspection the crack was much bigger and deeper than I had realized; in fact the tusk was splayed right open at the end and the blackened interior was visible. A tusk is just an extended tooth. And just as with a human, a break like that in a living tooth is a magnet for infection and absolute torture, as anyone who has ever had an abscess will attest.\n\n'Yebo, Mkhulu,' said Vusi. 'There was a big swelling right at the top of the tusk, deep inside. I cut it open. It was rotten.'\n\nI whistled again, for now everything made perfect sense. Poor Mnumzane had been in so much pain for so long that he just couldn't stand it any more. That's why he became so evil-tempered. And, I suddenly realized, that's exactly why he went berserk and flipped the Land Rover over. When I reversed I jarred his excruciatingly sensitive tusk on the edge of the Landy's window. He must have seen blinding stars in his agony. It took the gunshots from my pistol just to yank him out of it.\n\nI sat down on the lawn and put my head in my hands. Although unusual to do with a wild elephant, all it would have taken was a dart of sedative, a good vet and some antibiotics and we could probably have taken his pain away. And he would have still been with us. A picture of him contentedly browsing before me during our 'chats' flashed through my mind. He basically had been a happy creature \u2013 despite the tragedies he had witnessed in his short life.\n\nI shook myself out of it, forced myself to focus and then stood up. There was nothing I could do about it now.\n\n'Let's get the tusk cleaned and then store it in a safe place,' I said to Vusi. 'Now at last we know what happened to him and why he went crazy.'\n\n'Yebo, Mkhulu.'\n\n'And let's find that other tusk!'\n\nI walked away astonished that one of my own staff could even think of stealing Mnumzane's tusk at a time like this. I had wanted them mounted as a pair in the lodge as a commemoration of his life.\n\nWe never found the tusk. But that doesn't mean I'm not still looking.\n\nThat afternoon I received a surprise phone call from Nkosi Biyela. We had been in regular contact, but more often than not through his izindunas, headmen, as intermediaries.\n\n'I would like to meet with you,' he said cheerfully. 'I will come to Thula Thula tomorrow afternoon late.'\n\n'I look forward to it,' I replied heartened by the call, 'and may I make a suggestion? Please bring your wife and stay the night with us at the lodge as our guests.'\n\n'Yes, good idea, thank you. It will give us time to talk about our game-reserve project. I will see you tomorrow then.'\n\nThe game reserve, the Royal Zulu, was the main reason I had come to Thula Thula all those years ago. My heart jumped \u2013 especially as he had referred to it as 'our project', which was a first since the project had first been presented to his father Nkanyiso Biyela twelve years ago. I had pursued the vision relentlessly but as so often happens in Africa, the delays and complications at times seemed insurmountable. Nkosi Biyela was the key to its success as he was by far the most powerful chief in the area and controlled the biggest chunk of the land. And he wanted to talk!\n\nThat afternoon he arrived and we drove through the reserve on a late Zululand afternoon, observing the lush wilderness and robust wildlife and talking about the future.\n\n'Whose land is that?' asked the Nkosi pointing to a stretch of heavy bush just outside our boundary.\n\n'It is yours.'\n\n'Good! Then I would like to join it with you,' he said. Simple as that.\n\nI realized he wanted to continue and held off a reply. He then got out of the Landy and looked around, pointing to the KZN Wildlife reserve that adjoined Thula Thula to the north.\n\n'That I know is Fundimvelo. It was my grandfather's land. They have offered it to me. I will take it back and join with you. We will then do the joint project you have spoken of for the benefit of my people.' Again, simple as that.\n\n'Thank you, Nkosi.'\n\n'Now the Ntambanana land, why are they taking so long in releasing it to us?' he asked, referring to the tract of bush and thorn on my western boundary. Ntambanana was originally land excised by the apartheid government from various tribes some decades ago and was now being returned. The Biyelas had the biggest claim over it, and so for Nkosi Biyela to query why this process was taking so long meant that the project was now going to get massive impetus from him.\n\n'I do not know, Nkosi. It worries me as well.'\n\n'We must start pushing them now,' he said, referring to the local government. And when Nkosi Biyela talks about 'pushing', it certainly gets people's attention.\n\nIn those few minutes \u2013 completely out of the blue \u2013 he had described most of the land that made up my dream African game reserve, but not all of it. There was one last piece of the jigsaw, the most important piece: Mlosheni, an 8,000-acre section which ran north from Ntambanana right up to the White Umfolozi River, the gateway to the worldfamous Umfolozi game reserve. Once we had that, we could lower fences with the Umfolozi reserve and have a massive tract of pristine Africa.\n\n'Mlosheni,' I said, then hesitated.\n\n'What of Mlosheni?'\n\n'Mlosheni will join us to the Umfolozi reserve. It is important.'\n\n'Of course! I have spoken with my izinduna, it is already agreed,' he said matter-of-factly. 'The animals will migrate as they used to before the apartheid government put up the fences.'\n\nI reached out and we shook hands. I was elated, scarcely able to believe what I was hearing. This project would do more for his people than anything that had ever happened before and my mind raced, assessing the benefits to wildlife as well. Nkosi Biyela would lead a coalition of traditional communities into a brave new world.\n\nI knew too that while this agreement represented a fundamental breakthrough that had been twelve years in the making, there was still a lot of work to be done and many lengthy tribal meetings lay ahead. But at long last he was fully committed \u2013 now we would win. His word was absolutely crucial; it was without question what we needed most. Everything now could start happening.\n\nThat evening in the lodge we continued discussing the Royal Zulu project and what it could do to regenerate our area. I felt the gloom of Mnumzane's death lift; his soaring spirit would be part of a magnificent new reserve that would be Africa as it should be: wild, beautiful, with people and animals living in harmony. Indeed, to me the new reserve would be a monument not only to Mnumzane but to Max and baby Thula as well, who had also shown in spades the qualities most needed in the fight for our last remaining wild lands \u2013 courage, loyalty, and above all, perseverance.\n\nIt was an evening I will remember for the rest of my days \u2013 a vision of what Africa can be. And not least thanks to the cooperation of a remarkable leader, Nkosi Biyela. This new reserve, imbued with Zulu history dating from their first king, Shaka Zulu, will kickstart the area both physically with job creation and investment, and spiritually with a true wilderness ethos. One only has to look at the comments in the guestbook at Thula Thula to see how often tourists remark on the spiritual effect the wild has had on them during their stay. Now with Nkosi Biyela onside, the final major barrier had been removed. Royal Zulu would at last become a reality and, I hope, a cornerstone of conservation in Africa.\n\nThe next morning, after a hefty breakfast with the Nkosi during which his enthusiasm for the new project seemed, if anything, even more animated, I switched on the TV news. The looming war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq was being ratcheted up by the hour. It seemed now that an invasion was inevitable. But that morning the news also featured a clip on the Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan and filling the entire screen was a lion, blind in one eye with a tormented face full of shrapnel. A Taliban soldier had thrown a grenade at him. Somehow he'd survived. His name was Marjan. His pock-scabbed face, his baleful, accusing stare seared into my soul. This truly was the reality of animals caught up helplessly \u2013 faultlessly \u2013 in the vicious vortex of man's folly. More graphic than any words, that awful image was an indictment of our species. Something snapped in my mind. My anger gnawed corrosively at my innards. I knew I had to get to Iraq and make sure the same thing didn't happen to the creatures at the Baghdad Zoo, the biggest menagerie in the Middle East.\n\nTen days later, during the coalition invasion, I was in the bomb-blasted Iraqi capital. It didn't long take to grasp the enormity of the task before me and I needed a good man at my side. It took one phone call, and a few weeks later Brendan arrived.\n\nBrendan was with me in those crucial first few months when we saved the last remaining animals in the zoo and elsewhere in Baghdad. He then stayed in the Iraqi capital for more than a year after I left doing absolutely critical work in making sure the animals were well cared for.\n\nAfter that he went to Kabul where he also did sterling stuff in advising the Afghans on how to improve their zoo. Sadly, Marjan had died long before he arrived. In the process, he left Thula Thula. But I take immense pride in the fact that he had been part of the journey with us, both at Thula Thula and internationally.\n\nLike David, he was integral to what we achieved.\n\nHe still comes 'home' to us for regular visits.\nchapter forty-two\n\nI returned home nearly six months later. It had been the most intense period of my life \u2013 the heat, dust and chaos of Baghdad's war zone matched only by surreal moments of tragedy, exhilaration, hilarity and despair.\n\nThe experience taught me one thing for sure, and that is that the innocent, hope-filled days of Born Free are long gone. At one stage in Baghdad the zoo staff had kept a pride of desiccated lions and two Bengal tigers alive by manually hauling fetid water from a stinking lake. Hour by torturous hour, we drip-fed the dehydrated cats \u2013 a bucket at a time, and that single bucket was all that kept the animals alive \u2013 until it was stolen by looters. We in turn brazenly raided kitchens in Saddam's bombed palaces and the city's abandoned hotels for the lion's next meal while fighting raged on around us.\n\nI have never witnessed such selflessness by such a small diverse group of people. From individual American soldiers who, sickened by bureaucracy, sacrificed their rations to feed starving animals, to tough South African 'mercenaries' who acted as self-appointed zoo security guards, and courageous Iraqi zoo workers and civilians who literally put their lives on the line working with Westerners. Baghdad in 2003 was a starkly incongruous snapshot of global good and bad.\n\nThe experience fizzed so vividly in my system that I wrote a book about it afterwards called Babylon's Ark. The catharsis of putting this adventure down on paper was immense, the lessons learned priceless. I also used this amazing experience to create The Earth Organization, which has grown rapidly. Earth Org is not a typical 'greenie' lobby, we are an organization of common people that targets practical projects to reverse the downward spiral of the dwindling plant and animal kingdoms.\n\nMy elephants faced adversity and misfortune in their efforts to survive, and they did so resolutely, always looking after their own, always keeping perspective, never forgetting to squeeze in fun and play when they could. I found the same qualities in the abandoned animals of the Baghdad Zoo. Despite danger and privation in a world turned upside down, I never once saw them give up. These lessons are central to our philosophy.\n\nWhen I returned from Iraq, the herd was waiting for me at the gate of the reserve itself. This was unusual as I was told they had been in deep bush for most of the time I was away, so much so that the rangers had difficulty finding them for guests. In fact it was so unusual that the gate guard was caught completely unprepared and had to shut himself in the hut near the fence. When I hooted he reluctantly emerged, saw the elephants were still there and hurriedly threw the keys at me and bolted back inside again. I let myself in.\n\nNana and her family followed me to the main house and milled around outside the fence. I got out of the car and spoke to them, my voice croaking with emotion. There were now fourteen of them, with all the new additions. The original herd of seven had doubled. The four very latest ones were Mnumzane's progeny \u2013 his spirit would live on both spiritually and physically.\n\nAs they stood there, sniffing the air, something soared in my heart and I knew then just how much this herd meant to me. And even more importantly, the lessons they had individually taught me.\n\nThey say you get out of life what you put in, but that is only true if you can understand what it is that you are getting. As Nana's and Frankie's trunks snaked out to me over the fence, it dawned that they had given me so much more than I had given them. In saving their lives, the repayment I have received from them was immeasurable.\n\nFrom Nana, the glorious matriarch, I learned how much family means. I learned just how much wise leadership, selfless discipline and tough unconditional love is the core of the family unit. I learned how important one's own flesh and blood actually is when the dice are loaded against you.\n\nFrom Frankie, the feisty aunt, I learned that loyalty to one's group is paramount. Frankie would have laid down her life in a blink for her herd. To her, nothing was more important \u2013 there was no question about this being a 'greater love'. And the love and respect she received in return for her courage was absolute.\n\nFrom Nandi, I learned about dignity and how much a real mother cares; how she was prepared to stand over her deformed baby for days without food or water, trying right until the end, refusing to surrender until the last breath had been gasped.\n\nFrom Mandla, I saw how tough it can be for a baby to grow up on the run in a hostile world and how his devoted mother and aunts ensured he made it as best he could. Since Mnumzane's death, he had reached puberty and was about to be kicked out of the herd, as nature decreed, and would have new challenges to face.\n\nFrom Marula and Mabula, Frankie's children, I saw first-hand what good parenting can achieve despite adverse circumstances. These beautiful, well-behaved children would be what we in human terms would call 'good citizens' \u2013 something often in short supply in our world. They saw how their mother and aunt treated me, and in return, they accorded me the respect one would give to a distinguished relative. I loved them for that.\n\nFrom ET I learned forgiveness. I had managed to reach out to her through her heartbreak and distrust, but only because she had let me. Somewhere along the way she had recovered her life and in the process taught me how to forgive, as she had forgiven humans for the horrors they had visited on her own family before she came to us. She had given birth while I was away and was standing close by looking at me, proudly showing off her baby. I made a special fuss of her.\n\nAnd, of course, there had been Mnumzane, my big boy who had become one of my dearest friends. Like anyone, there are things I regret in life \u2013 and to me the biggest one is that I did not somehow guess that an excruciating tooth infection had been the cause of him going 'rogue'. I console myself knowing that no other game ranger would likely have worked that one out either. Indeed, he would have been shot out of hand a lot earlier on most other reserves.\n\nBut perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.\n\nI looked at them through the fence, feeling not only the warm peace of being home after six months of mayhem in a war zone, but revelling in the fact that my greater family was now also with me. The rumbling of their stomachs as they gathered at the fence was the most soothing sound I have ever heard. Just as Nana had done to me in the boma eight years ago, I felt surrounded by a sense of extraordinary well-being.\n\nMandla and Mabula were off on the side now. I knew they would go through the same heartache of ostracism as Mnumzane had and I wished there was something I could do about it. In larger reserves, they would team up with other adolescents forming a loose bachelor association with an adult bull. They're called askaris and do what most young groups of men do: hang out, chase girls and test their strength and wits against each other and the world.\n\nThe older male becomes the father figure they never had in the matriarchal herd, teaching them masculine etiquette as well as more practical matters of survival in the wild, such as where the best watering holes and the most succulent branches and berries are. These geography lessons they never forget \u2013 hence the clich\u00e9 about elephants' long memories.\n\nIn return, the askaris treat their father figure with utmost respect and affection. When he is too old to strip the bark off branches, they escort him to marshes or swamps where the leaves are softer. For elephants do not die gracefully of old age, they starve to death after they lose their sixth set of teeth. And when their leader is too weak to stand and dementia sets in, the askaris sometimes even guard him as he sags, preventing hyenas or lions from attacking him. Even when he dies, the askaris have been known to chase scavengers off the carcass. After he has gone they will visit his bones for as long as they are there, paying respects to a fallen leader. The fact that almost all elephants which perish naturally do so in the soft-food wetlands has led to the myth of secret graveyards and ivory troves where elephants instinctively migrate to die. The truth is they all usually die in the last areas where food is soft enough to ingest.\n\nThis is also why those who hunt old bulls don't \u2013 or refuse \u2013 to understand the harm they are doing. An ageing elephant male is not something surplus to be dispatched by some meagre trophy-gatherer. He is a breathing reference library; he's there for the health and well-being of future elephants. He teaches the youngsters who they really are and imparts priceless bush skills to succeeding generations.\n\nIt was now clear that a wise masculine role model is needed in our ever-growing family. With Thula Thula being expanded dramatically into adjoining tribal trust lands as part of the Royal Zulu project, we would be able to import a mature bull to teach the growing number of young males on the reserve the facts of life.\n\nI have subsequently put the word out, and judging by the enthusiastic response, I know that soon we will get a sage patriarch to teach my askaris good manners. And I know that Mandla and Mabula will grow up to be fine young males. As soon as the Royal Zulu is established, we will have a piece of Africa as the mother continent was always meant to be, protected and enhanced by the people rooted in the region, people with a stake in the future of their land.\n\nI was mulling over all of this later after spending time in the bush with Bheki and Ngwenya when I noticed the entire herd grazing about half a mile away. The sun glowed on the hills that guard Thula Thula, back-lighting them like golden sentinels, the elephants before them silhouetted on the savannah. It was a vision of this timeless Africa at its most inspiring and I understood once more why elephants are so iconic of this continent.\n\nNana and Frankie stood together, the matriarch and her deputy. Next to them were their older daughters, Nandi and Marula, both in the prime of womanhood, and with them the first elephants born in the area for more than a century, Mvula and Ilanga. On the periphery, perhaps 400 yards away, I saw the bachelors, Mandla and Mabula. Scattered throughout were the babies.\n\nI will have no interaction with the new generations. The whole idea when I initially adopted the herd was to release them directly into the bush. I never planned to have any connection with them, as to me all wild animals should be just that \u2013 wild. Circumstances, such as their escape and their anguish at being relocated and witnessing siblings being shot, made my intervention a reluctant necessity. As I said previously, I only wanted to get Nana the matriarch to trust one human to ease her bitterness over our species as a whole. Once that was achieved, and she knew her family would no longer be molested, my mission was accomplished. I was keenly aware that too much interaction with humans dilutes the feral qualities demanded in the wilderness.\n\nIt's working beautifully. Today, when I drive past the herd, Nana and Frankie may still approach me. I will always have that special relationship with them. Nandi, Mabula, Marula and Mandla and of course ET also still know me; although they acknowledge my presence and still may come forward behind Nana they do so with greater reservation.\n\nBut the youngsters ignore me as I do them. Totally. I am an outsider. The relationships I had with their grandmothers will never be repeated. They will have no direct contact with humans whatsoever \u2013 not with me, nor my rangers. And that's the way it should be.\n\nThey are going to grow up just as I wanted my original group to. Wild. If there is one thing I disapprove of it's the unnatural capture and taming of wild animals, whether an elephant or a bird.\n\nTo me, the only good cage is an empty cage.\nacknowledgements\n\nTo Mom for a lifetime of encouragement, Jason, Dylan and Tanny for their care, and for my wonderful grandsons Ethan and Brogan, Gavin, Mandy, 'The Chosen One', Jackie, and Laurie and Wilkie from Cambodia. Terrie, Paul, Cameron, and Graham for his insight and skill. The Malby family. Hilary and Grant. Jonno and Stan for fun friendships, and refusing to agree on anything, ever. Nkosi Nkanyiso Biyela for his wisdom, Ben and the Ngubane family for their wonderful friendship, Nkosi Phiwayinkosi Chakide Biyela for his foresight and leadership. Barbara, Yvette and all the Earth Org staff for taking up the challenge. Ian Raper for his leadership. Mehdy and the Zarrabeni family, Dave Cooper the game rangers' game ranger. Bella. Elmien. Marion Garai. The Bruwer boys. Mabona, Vusi, Ngwenya, Bheki, Bonisiwe, Biyela, Zelda, Brigitte and all the incredible Thula Thula staff. David and Brendan for being there and doing it, and to Peter Joseph, Ingrid Connell, and Lisa Hagan for their confidence and support.\n\nALSO BY LAWRENCE ANTHONY WITH GRAHAM SPENCE\n\nBabylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime \nRescue of the Baghdad Zoo\nTHE ELEPHANT WHISPERER. Copyright \u00a9 2009 by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth\n\nAvenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.\n\nTHOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.\n\nAn imprint of St. Martin's Press.\n\nwww.thomasdunnebooks.com\n\nwww.stmartins.com\n\nFirst published in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd\n\neISBN 9781429986458\n\nFirst eBook Edition : April 2011\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nAnthony, Lawrence.\n\nThe elephant whisperer : my life with the herd in the\n\nAfrican wild \/ Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence.\u2014\n\n1st U.S. ed.\n\np. cm.\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN 978-0-312-56578-7\n\n1. African elephant\u2014Conservation\u2014South Africa\u2014Zululand. 2. Wildlife refuges\u2014South Africa\u2014Zululand. 3. Anthony, Lawrence\u2014Homes and haunts. 4. Wildlife conservationists\u2014South Africa\u2014Zululand. I. Spence, Graham. II. Title.\n\nQL737.P98A58 2009\n\n599.67'409684\u2014dc22\n\n2009023815\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}