Predictive History

The Consultancy

6 min read

The Consultancy

Core idea: “The Consultancy” was the informal name for the secret inner circle of roughly eleven men who met at the Red House in Tel-Aviv under david-ben-gurion’s leadership — a shadow government that planned, directed, and monitored the ethnic cleansing of Palestine outside any democratic or institutional accountability, functioning as the operational command center for the Nakba.

The Red House

The Red House was a typical early Tel-Avivian building on Yarkon Street, near the sea. Originally the head office of a local workers’ council, it became the headquarters of the Hagana toward the end of 1947. Its simple rectangular features, frontal arches, and balconies blended into Tel-Aviv’s “White City.” Today the building is gone — razed for a car park next to a Sheraton Hotel.

On the top floor, beneath Marxist-style posters showing “new Jews” aiming rifles from behind barriers in the “brave fight” against “hostile Arab invaders,” the Consultancy met regularly — sometimes weekly on Wednesdays, sometimes more frequently during critical periods. The meetings were not formally documented. Ben-Gurion recorded summaries in his diary, and the private archive of Israel Galili preserves additional correspondence.

The Members

The Consultancy was a combination of security figures and specialists on “Arab affairs” — a formula that would serve as the core for most future Israeli bodies advising on state security and policy toward Palestinians. Key members included:

  • David Ben-Gurion — who presided over all meetings and made final decisions
  • Yigael Yadin — Acting Chief of Staff, who pushed for aggressive operations
  • Yigal Allon — Commander of the Palmach, who demanded “strong and brutal reaction” without distinguishing guilty from innocent
  • Ezra Danin — Head of the Arab section of Hagana intelligence, who supervised the village-files and post-occupation procedures
  • Yehoshua (Josh) Palmon — Danin’s second-in-command, who took personal interest in the policy of selection, interrogation, and execution
  • Eliyahu Sasson — The one member who occasionally argued for selective rather than comprehensive expulsion (he was consistently overruled). His intelligence reports confirmed that only 3,000 poorly trained ALA volunteers had entered Palestine, compared to tens of thousands of well-armed Zionist fighters — demolishing the myth of existential threat.
  • Moshe Sharett — Foreign policy head of the Jewish Agency, later the second Prime Minister of Israel
  • Yitzhak Rabin — An important officer who became future Commander-in-Chief of the IDF and fifth Prime Minister of Israel
  • Isser Harel — Head of intelligence, running what Pappe describes as the most vicious department making ethnic cleansing decisions. Later became the director of both the Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel’s secret services).
  • Moshe Dayan — The “fighting symbol of the new state,” future Defense Minister
  • Yitzhak Sadeh, Israel Galili — military leaders who shaped operational doctrine

From Retaliation to Initiative

The Consultancy’s most consequential decision was the shift from reactive “retaliation” to proactive “initiative.” In the weeks after the un-resolution-181 partition vote, intelligence reports showed that Palestinian villagers overwhelmingly desired to continue normal life. This passivity was a problem — the Consultancy needed the population to flee, but had no pretext.

On December 10, 1947, Danin and Palmon argued for a systematic campaign of violent intimidation: destroying Palestinian transportation, sinking fishing boats, closing shops, preventing raw materials from reaching factories. Ben-Gurion approved, writing to Sharett that the Palestinian community would be “at our mercy” and anything could be done to them, “including starving them to death.”

On December 31, 1947, Yossef Weitz complained to the Consultancy that the current pace “wasn’t enough” and argued for abandoning retaliation in favor of implementing his transfer idea: “Is it not now the time to get rid of them?” He declared: “The only solution is land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. Not one village can remain.” Allon pushed for collective punishment: “Even if there are children living in the attacked houses.” He argued: “If we destroy whole neighborhoods or many houses in the village, as we did in Sasa, we make an impression.” Ben-Gurion gave the green light: every attack was to end with occupation, destruction, and expulsion.

Early Operations

Even before Plan Dalet was finalized, the Consultancy directed early operations that established the pattern. On December 31, 1947, forces attacked the village of Balad ash-Sheikh — where Izz al-Din al-Qassam’s grave was located — with orders to “encircle the village, kill the largest possible number of men, damage property, but refrain from attacking women and children.” The attack lasted three hours and killed over 60 Palestinians, not just men. The Consultancy decided afterward that the distinction between men and women “wasn’t necessary anyway.”

In Haifa, the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Rushmia — a community with a rich history — was destroyed: the Haganah blew up houses and expelled its community in full view of the British who were still officially responsible for security. In February 1948, the village of Sa’sa was attacked and all houses destroyed; the Kibbutz Sasa was later built on its rubble. Yosef Weitz ordered the depopulation of the village of Qira: “Get rid of them now.”

The Hebrew word tihur (cleansing, purifying) appeared on all orders from the Consultancy to the high command. The word yozma (initiative) replaced “retaliation” — meaning taking action against the Palestinian population without waiting for any pretext.

The March 10 Meeting

On March 10, 1948, the Consultancy finalized plan-dalet — the master blueprint for ethnic cleansing. Military orders were dispatched the same evening to units on the ground. Each brigade commander received a list of villages and neighborhoods to be occupied, destroyed, and their inhabitants expelled, with exact dates. The Consultancy then monitored implementation, adjusting targets and timetables as operations progressed.

After the State of Israel was declared on May 15, 1948, the Consultancy moved to a new building on a hilltop overlooking the evicted village of Shaykh Muwannis — this became the Matkal, the headquarters of the Israeli army. From there, they could literally observe the ongoing destruction of nearby Palestinian villages. The Consultancy was eventually replaced by the formal institutions of the Israeli state: the military command and the Shabak (internal security service). But its work was done — the machinery of ethnic cleansing was operating on its own momentum.

Key Insight

The Consultancy reveals that the ethnic cleansing was not carried out by rogue militias or battlefield chaos — it was directed from a centralized command by the same men who became Israel’s founding government, making the state itself inseparable from the crime of its creation.

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