The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

This book is an honest and detailed account of how the Zionist movement planned and carried out the heinous crime of systematically forcing the Palestinian people out of Palestine and establishing Israel as a state for Zionist settlers coming from foreign lands. This was committed under a huge campaign of misinformation and coverup utilising the vast resources of the western governments who conspired to victimize the Palestinians. Humanity owes Ilan Pappe, the author of this book, a big favor for his efforts for finally setting the record straight, and documenting the facts of Palestinian 'Nakba' or catastrophe. This book unveils the true and ugly face of Zionism as a racist movement. It is quite clear now after over a hundred years since the first Zionist conference in Basel, Switzerland, that Zionism was a bad idea turned into a nightmare when implemented. So far, Israel is embattled and living in a state of continuous war with all its surroundings. Keeping Israel alive proved to be very costly undertaking both in terms of lives wasted everyday in fighting and in terms of financial cost to sustain the economy and military machine of Israel. The hefty financial cost is mostly carried by the USA but for how long? How can the wise people in Israel fail to see this failure of the Zionist idea? How can they not see that there are alternatives that will ensure peaceful coexistence with Palestinians in a democratic Palestine? The author represents the voice of conscience and fairness as well as academic honesty and professionalism. The atrocities committed by Zionists against the Palestinian people will never be forgotten and will come back to haunt the Israelis for generations to come. Nothing short of the full recognition of the Palestinian people's right to their homeland of Palestine, as well as full reparation for the enormous suffering and damages inflicted on them by the creation of the State of Israel, would bring closure to this problem. The area will not see peace before the Palestinians restore their full rights. The unconditional return of any and all Palestinians to Palestine is an unalienable right that may not be compromised. It is ironic to note that the Palestinians (generally Muslims and Christians) have never had any issues with jews as followers of another religion. Jews have never been mistreated or persecuted by the Palestinians. Jews, on the other hand, were persecuted in Europe. Why should the Palestinians pay the price? The advent of the Zionist movement appeared to have poisoned relations in the region as a whole. The wretched camps of Palestinian refugees scattered in various Middle Eastern countries and inside Palestine still stand for almost 60 years as a harsh reminder of the problems created by the creation of Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people. Inspite of all what happened, just and equitable peace is still possible. This is not to say that the Israelis should necessarily be forced out of the land they unlawfully usurped from the Palestinians. It only means that Israel as a Zionist i.e. racist state should be peacefully dismantled, and in its place a democratic state is established where all citizens are equal regardless of their religion or race. Any Israeli who accepts to live in a democratic Palestine as an equal citizen shall be welcome to stay. Those who do not accept equality with other citizens should find another place to live (perhaps return to the countries where they originally came to Palestine from). In its long history, Palestine has seen many invaders come and go. But the Palestinian people always emerged back and maintained its identity. The Israeli barbaric atrocities to obliterate, vilify, and eradicate the Palestinian people and its culture will not succeed despite the unprecedented savagery the Israelis used gainst the Palestinians. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine did not stop after achieving the massive depopulation of Palestine in the years 1948 and 1949. In fact, ethnic cleansing continued to the present time and is still ongoing. It takes various forms such as deportation of Palestinians, demolition of Palestinian houses, and denying the Palestinians permits to build houses or rebuild old ones. Israel also resorts to the strangulation of Palestinian economy forcing people to finally leave the country to seek jobs and settle abroad. If all that does not work, outright assassination is used to get rid of Palestinians. This is taking place under the watch of the whole world who gives lip service to human rights and Palestinian right to self-determination. History will not forgive the world which stood by totally oblivious to the Israeli crimes, and ignoring the suffering of the Palestinians. This book is must reading for anyone interested in peace and justice on Earth.

I picked up this book after Reading "Palestine Revealed" because I wanted a deeper understanding of the history behind a conflict that is often reduced to headlines. This book is also well worth your time. Ilan Pappé presents a detailed historical account supported by extensive research and archival material that encourages readers to think critically about events surrounding 1948 and Israel's creation at the high cost of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. It's a challenging read because of the subject matter, but also a rewarding one. I appreciated that it pushed me to continue researching and reading from multiple sources rather than accepting simplified explanations. Books like this remind us that understanding history requires curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to confront difficult truths. Whether you're just beginning to learn about the region or expanding your knowledge, I highly recommend adding this book to your collection.

Jewish author Illan Pappe did a great job of visualizing the historical accuracy of what happened in Palestine starting before 1948. A story contrary to the narrative we have been taught. It is an atrocity. In light of what has been happening since October 7, I believe the accuracy of Illan Pappe's story even more. It's like visually seeing what happened back then. Israel is literally repeating what they did and have been doing over the past 80 years. It's horrific. One has to imagine, what if that happened here? Comments are being made about what is happening in Palestine right now without knowing the full story or hearing any of the history from the other side. Like a court case, we need to hear the full story. The story that is being shut down. Illan's sources are very reliable and also noted in his book for any to research. David Ben Gurion's personal diary, recordings of the meetings with important Zionists military leaders, the IDF archives, Israeli archives, witnesses from both sides and more. I couldn't put the book down. Now I see the events happening before my eyes with a different lens. Many comments being made on social media covering these events are about events that took place back then and so are mentioned in this book. I know what they are talking about. All I can say is, "Be Informed."

This is a stunning and relentless collection of evidence. Pappe uses things such as military archives (opened in the 1990s), diary entries from Ben-Gurion, and oral histories from Hagana soldiers and Palestinians. He gives lengthy, village-by-village accounts of the destruction of homes and expulsion of residents. The expulsions were guided by files of the Jewish National Fund, which had been gathering intelligence data on the demographics of the villages for decades. It is hard to think of a book that is more opposite of a commonly accepted history than this one. According to Pappe, 1948 was not a desperate fight for survival by a surrounded Jewish enclave, it was a Zionist attack on the countryside. Most of the fighting stemmed from the Hagana's systematic destruction of 400 Palestinian villages. Most refugees were driven out BEFORE the main war started on May 15, 1948. Arab armies did intervene in a haphazard attempt to defend Palestinian sections (as set by the UN partition plan), but they were always out gunned, out numbered and out coordinated by the Hagana. Jordan, in particular, had a secret agreement with the Zionists to annex the West Bank in return for not joining an invasion of Israel. So the most effective Arab army, (and a Jordanian also commanded the pan-Arab "Arab Liberation Army") was not trying to destroy Israel, only protect its own designs on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Among many pieces of evidence, Pappe argues that the Arab attack on Israel was so weak (despite public pronouncements of impending doom from Ben-Gurion) that the Hagana never had to be diverted from its main task of ethnic cleansing. It was able to hold off the sporadic pan-Arab attacks, and depopulate the countryside at the same time. It was assisted in this by large shipments of arms from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, while Britain and France embargoed arms to the Arabs. The private conversations of Ben-Gurion and his associates show great confidence they could defeat the Arab attacks, which amounted to little more than face-saving gestures by Arab governments who were only recently independent themselves. There is also a very interesting chapter on the literal erasure of the existence of Palestine. Parks and newly planted forests in Israel now cover the foundations of numerous Palestinian villages. An Israeli "Naming Committee" was formed to give Hebrew names to the features of the countryside that were once Arab, with special attention to creating links to the Israel of 2,000 years ago, while ignoring last week's residents. The Byra forest tourist destination, for example, contains no reference to the six villages that were wiped from the map there. For decades, kids in Hebrew schools in the US collected coins to plant trees in Israel. Those same trees now hide stone foundations of nameless villages. Trees in Israeli forests are only 11% indigenous, the rest were planted in recent decades. So not just the people were cleansed, the memory too. This book deserves to be the center of an international discussion about Palestine, but a crushing silence is the more likely result.

What really happened during Israel's War of Independence? Ilan Pappé attempts to answer this question in "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," which is, without a doubt, the most controversial book I have read in my life. In it, Pappé presents the controversial thesis that Palestine has been subject to a systematic ethnic cleansing policy pre-dating Israel's Independence Day on May 14, 1948. This policy, Pappé argues, continues up to the present day. For this review, it is important to note, and Pappé clarifies right off the bat, that he is not using the phrase ethnic cleansing in the colloquial sense in which it is a synonym for genocide. Instead, Pappé refers to formal definitions in which ethnic cleansing's goal is to rid a geographical area of people of a specific, often ethnic, group. This contrasts with genocide, in which the goal is to wipe them out of existence. Pappé notes that although the goal of ethnic cleansing is different, it is also generally accompanied by massacres to scare the population into fleeing. Pappé argues this is precisely what happened in Israel/Palestine during the 1947-8 War. Indeed, in the epigraphs preceding most chapters, there is a running comparison to Serbian ethnic cleansing in the 1990s. A Cleansing Plan Pre-Dating the 1947 UN Partition Resolution? Before the late 1980s, there was a notion in much of the West that the answer to the question of where all the Palestinian refugees came from was that they were told to flee their homes around the time Israel's Arab neighbors invaded on the very day of Israel's independence. Pappé is one of Israel's "new historians" who was granted some access to the IDF's archives from the 1947-8 War and began to challenge the notion that those fleeing generally did so voluntarily at the request of Arab leaders. Some more moderate historians, like Benny Morris, found evidence of massacres of Palestinians by Jewish force but did not feel there was a systematic plan behind them and the forced expulsions. Pappé, by contrast, disagrees. Pappé concluded that there was a systematic plan centering around Plan Dalet by considering other sources such as the diaries of key Israeli leaders, interviews, and other oral history. According to Pappé's research, Zionist leaders, especially Ben-Gurion, had decided well before 1947 that they should try to capture much more of Mandatory Palestine than was likely to be offered. Pappé describes how the planning included detailed Jewish intelligence on every village following the 1936 uprising in preparation for this effort. The Zionists' main fear, Pappé writes, was having too small a majority in Israel to protect Jewish interests. This was because, at the time of the 1947 resolution, the Jewish state had about 60% Jews, while nearly all the rest were Arabs. Pappé quotes Ben-Gurion saying that 80% Jews was needed for stability. Pappé further argues that while Ben-Gurion publically accepted the UN partition plan, he only did so knowing Arabs would reject it. This, he realized, would allow Israeli leaders to not recognize Palestinian land as other than "disputed." Pappé further recounts how Ben-Gurion felt it was a problem that Arabs did not react violently enough to the 1947 partition plan. Indeed, they just resigned themselves to living under another "foreign" ruler as they had adapted to others for centuries before. According to Pappé, Ben-Gurion and a cabal called "The Consultancy" worked to increase provocations against Arabs, hoping for reactions that could be used as pretexts for attacks, expulsions, and inevitable massacres. Pappé portrays this as not having the success hoped for initially, thus leading Israeli forces to become increasingly aggressive in their strategies and tactics, often deliberately crossing the line into war crimes. My Evaluation Evaluating this book is, unfortunately, rather difficult. The two main reasons are: 1. There is disagreement between Pappé and fellow new historian Benny Morris as to the proper historical methodology. Pappé criticizes Morris for confining his conclusions to IDF archives and treating them as gospel (or, perhaps, rather, Tanakh?) Morris, in turn, criticizes Pappé for over-reliance on oral history. Since Pappé, unfortunately, does not dive deeply into the methodological questions, it is hard for a non-professional to weigh the merits and detriments of the different approaches. 2. Much of Pappé's source material is not readily available, at least to non-professionals. This is either because it is IDF archival material, books that no longer appear to be in print or interviews. Fortunately, there is much that Pappé and Morris, who draws more conservative conclusions, agree on. The main points are: 1. Many Palestinians only left their homes involuntarily in 1947-8; Israeli forces were definitely pushing many of them out 2. Jewish forces did commit war crimes One thing Pappé and Morris disagree on significantly is the number of Palestinians massacred. Morris puts the figure around 800, whereas Pappé has it around a few thousand. Even more significant, however, is whether it was all part of a systematic plan or not. Pappé's quotes, especially from Ben-Gurion's diary, do seem compelling, however. With regard to the massacres, Pappé admits there is no smoking gun in official documents regarding a central directive. Instead, he argues that it was implicitly understood that they would be tolerated and necessary in the case of stubborn resistance. Pappé points out how those involved were generally careful not to leave a paper trail behind. Is a Systematic Plan Believable? I do believe that Pappé makes a compelling case that there was a systematic plan. Pappé's discussion of how Palestinians were treated after the war adds to the believability of his argument. Much of this post-war treatment is more open to verification. Remaining Palestinians were moved from their homes; the property of those who had fled was confiscated through some extraordinary legal machinations; those of Arab descent did not receive equal treatment under Israeli law; Palestinian history was systematically erased. However, even if things were not part of a Zionist grand strategy to permanently claim 80% of Mandatory Palestine, it is remarkable that they worked out, in practice, as if that were the plan all along. Sympathizers of Israel will argue that Israel simply wanted to live in peace, but their Arab neighbors kept attacking them unprovoked for no good reason. After reading this book, however, especially the parts most open to verification, and considering Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and denial of their right to return (or, if no longer practical, monetary compensation in lieu of it), the credibility of Israeli claims regarding history fell into even greater doubt for me. The Book's Style and Weaknesses A little over two-thirds of the book is highly engaging reading. Nevertheless, the book took me about twice as long to read as expected. Part of the reason this is a difficult book to read is that it is a very somber subject. Nor is it so far removed from the present as to provide the usual degree of detachment that studying more distant history allows. That contribution to making the book difficult is inevitable, given the subject. However, some of Pappé's choices made the book difficult and were not inevitable. For instance: - The Jews seemed very concerned about Arab aggression, given what happened in 1936. Pappé does not detail 1936 enough to understand why they were worried. - Too many massacres are detailed even once one gets the gist of what happened overall. Likely, Pappé is trying to ensure that the victims are not forgotten. Still, unfortunately, it leads to an emotional numbing and time spent here that could have been better spent on issues such as what happened in 1936 and discussing the debate over methodology. Finally, Pappé is clearly biased. For instance, he correctly states that Palestinians objected to Israel being given the majority of the land in the 1947 resolution, even though they were only one-third of the population. What Pappé omits is the Jewish position that they needed more land because of the large number of immigrants into Israel expected. Pappé also, although he does not omit it altogether, spends scant time discussing massacres by Arabs, for example, as retaliation for Deir Yassin. Conclusion Given the current war in Gaza, this book is vital reading to understand how we got to this point and what may lie ahead. Readers will be better able to evaluate whether the accusations of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and apartheid leveled against Israel are fair. At the same time, however, it is essential to check what sources Pappé uses, compare with others, and look up contrary interpretations of history, such as Benny Morris's.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a meticulously documented account of the campaign of the Jewish colonists in Palestine to forcibly expel the Arab population from the land now known as Israel. This conflict is obviously a hugely controversial subject, with a great deal of misinformation, ideology, and vicious ad hominem rhetoric poisoning most online review forums or discussions I've come across. I approach whatever I read with skepticism, and what I most enjoyed about this book was how its exhaustive referencing. I've read many smears against Pappe - ideologue, communist (as if that in and of itself invalidates his opinion?), 'revisionist' (a meaningless sloganeering term, really), and all manner of other horrible things. However, I've yet to read a single detractor who actually refuted (or even addressed, for that matter) the evidence compiled in his work. Ethnic Cleansing is full of references to Ben Gurion's own diary, declassified documents from Haganah/the IDF, accounts from British diplomats before they departed the region, reports from UN observers and the international red cross, testimony in Israeli courts, oral accounts from Israeli soldiers who participated in the cleansing, and oral testimonies from victims of the conflict. It's a mountain of evidence I've yet to see effectively refuted. Pappe uses these diverse sources to illuminate with heart wrenching clarity the crimes that the nascent state of Israel committed in 1948, continuing to the present day. He documents the development of a plan by senior Zionist/Israeli leaders to sieze, by force, as much of the territory of Mandatory Palestine as possible, while ethnically cleansing as many of the resident Arabs as possible to ensure an ethnically Jewish state. This violent, organized campaign, which began in earnest in March of (1948), used military night raids, massacres of women, children, and military age males, concentration camps to detain military age males, demolition of Arab houses/villages, shelling of Arab neighborhoods, and other methods to quickly and efficiently depopulate hundreds of Arab villages. It was only after hundreds of thousands of Arabs had been forcibily evicted in this way that the neighboring Arab countries decided to intervene to prevent these atrocities. Following their military victory, the Israelis continued the campaign until about 800,000 people had been cleansed, clearing the land for Jewish settlement. Pappe documents the subsequent attempts to Judaize the land, erasing all traces of its prior residents. He also discusses the fact that this initial crime is excluded from the so called "peace process" by the Israelis and their US benefactors, and contends the issue can never be solved until this is addressed. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to truly understand the roots of the conflict in this region and what must be addressed in order to solve it.

Stunning evidence and convincing argument supporting the Palestinian narrative of oppression and dispossession at the hands of Israel. it makes today's landscape comprehensible, including catastrophic contemporary 2024 events. Today's 'war' (not very 2 sided) only exacerbates the fundamental injustice of the Israel/Palestinan divide. This book illuminates in revelatory granular detail, sourced from blue chip documents. The author is a Jewish scholar who cites declassified personal diaries of Israel's founders (all such personal matter is declassified after 50 years in Israel). The evidence of intentional ethnic cleansing by ruthlessly violent means leading up to Israel's creation is stunning and damning to Zionists who staked out desired territory for the imminent creation of the State of Israel. The violence employed succeeded in its aim, displacing Palestinian village after village after village, ultimately displacing 700,000 Arabs from the territory of the soon to be announced State of Israel. Those Arabs who fled the violence (the purpose of the violence in the first place was to get them to flee, after all) were never allowed to return. They were called the Palestinian Refugees. The PLO was their "Liberation" focused political governing body. Their descendants now number over 5 million. Israel never can accept the "right of return" to displaced Palestinians to their native villages within Israel because allowing them to become citizens would instantly tip the balance of Israel to minority Jewish. It was the case back in '48. And it's the case still.

Finally, someone who is making the right analyses regarding what happened in 1947 and 1948. The historian Benny Morris takes IDF archives as solid truths, and only relies on their reports in his analyses. Although Benny Morris' books are more accurate than older "history" books regarding Palestine written by non-Arabs, they still lack proper analyses regarding the intention of Zionism and its ideology. Moreover, it is clear that most people now understand that IDF reports should always be taken with a grain of salt (for example I wouldn't take any IDF report in the West Bank or Gaza seriously). I am a Christian Palestinian. Our grandparents are still alive and tell us the stories of what really happened, and Ilan Pappe's book paints a similar picture. I have family members who were murdered for no reason (they were not fighters), ethnically cleansed, injured, and their properties were stolen. Even before the attacks, the Zionists were harassing Palestinians and threatening them if they do not leave (this happened with my family, and my grandfather's elder brother was kidnapped and killed). According to my grandparents the British were instilling fear in the Palestinians urging them to leave so they won't get massacred by the Zionists, and this was supported by the Zionists because they wanted to cleanse the land from Arabs. Before the Zionist movement became clear about their intentions there was coexistence between Arabs and Jews. My grandparents had Jewish neighbors and they had very good relationships, they worked together and so on. People tend to forgot that Europe had a Jewish problem and not the East. I highly recommend this book by Ilan Pappe.

Ilan Pappé escreve em muitos detalhes os eventos antes, durante, e após a execução do plano de Ben Gurion para limpeza étnica da Palestina. É descrito não apenas a expulsão do povo palestino de suas terras, mas também o minucioso planejamento que antecedeu o evento e os grandes esforços para tentar esconder os crimes cometidos e apagar a memória dos palestinos.

Excellent book

In “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” lo storico israeliano Ilan Pappé offre una ricostruzione profonda e documentata degli eventi del 1948 che portarono alla nascita dello Stato d’Israele e all’esodo forzato di centinaia di migliaia di palestinesi. Basandosi su fonti d’archivio storiche e testimonianze verificate, Pappé sfida le versioni “ufficiali” dimostrando come la “Nakba” non fu una semplice conseguenza del conflitto, ma il risultato di un piano sistematico volto all’espulsione della popolazione araba dalla propria terra. Il libro è uno sguardo coraggioso e provocatorio sulla storia del conflitto israelo-palestinese, che spinge il lettore a mettere in discussione ciò che crede di sapere e ad approfondire le complesse radici di una delle crisi geopolitiche più durature del nostro tempo.

Essential reading for any one interested in the history of the region

An amazing hard hitting book, about the true history that Palestine and it's people the Palestinians had to face by the Zionist Terrorist gangs, written by former Zionists who have now broken free of the lies and propaganda. Highly recommended book for anyone who wants to understand the occupation of Palestine.