Plan Dalet

Plan Dalet (Hebrew: תוכנית ד', Tokhnit dalet "Plan D") was a Zionist military plan executed in the civil war phase of the 1948 Palestine war for the conquest of territory in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state. The plan was requested by the Jewish Agency leader and later first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion, and developed by the Haganah and finalized on March 10, 1948.

The plan was a set of guidelines to take control of Mandatory Palestine, declare a Jewish state, and defend its borders and people, including the Jewish population outside of the borders, "before, and in anticipation of" the invasion by regular Arab armies. According to the Israeli Yehoshafat Harkabi, Plan Dalet called for the conquest of Arab towns and villages inside and along the borders of the area allocated to the proposed Jewish State in the UN Partition Plan. In case of resistance, the population of conquered villages was to be expelled outside the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was met, the residents could stay put, under military rule.

Plan Dalet specifically spoke of gaining control of areas outside the borders of the Jewish state wherever Yishuv populations existed. The issue is subject to much controversy, with some historians asserting that it was defensive, while other historians assert that the plan aimed at the expulsion, sometimes called an ethnic cleansing, on the grounds that this was an integral part of a planned strategy.