2023-10-27

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine eBook : Pappe, Ilan Book Reviews

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The book that is providing a storm of controversy, from ‘Israel’s bravest historian’ (John Pilger)

Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.

Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.
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Contents 
 
List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables 
Acknowledgements 
Preface 
 
1.  An ‘Alleged’ Ethnic Cleansing? 
Definitions of Ethnic Cleansing 
Ethnic Cleansing as a Crime 
Reconstructing an Ethnic Cleansing 
 
2.  The Drive for an Exclusively Jewish State 
Zionism’s Ideological Motivation 
Military Preparations 
The Village Files 
Facing the British: 1945–1947 
David Ben-Gurion: The Architect 
 
3.  Partition and Destruction: UN Resolution 181 and its Impact 
Palestine’s Population 
The UN’s Partition Plan 
The Arab and Palestinian Positions 
The Jewish Reaction 
The Consultancy Begins its Work 
 
4.  Finalising A Master Plan 
The Methodology of Cleansing 
The Changing Mood in the Consultancy: From Retaliation to Intimidation 
December 1947: Early Actions 
January 1948: Farewell to Retaliation 
The Long Seminar: 31 December–2 January 
February 1948: Shock and Awe 
March: Putting the Finishing Touches to the Blueprint 
 
5.  The Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing: Plan Dalet 
Operation Nachshon: The First Plan Dalet Operation 
The Urbicide of Palestine 
The Cleansing Continues 
Succumbing to a Superior Power 
Arab Reactions 
Towards the ‘Real War’ 
 
6.  The Phony War and the Real War over Palestine: May 1948 
Days of Tihur 
The Massacre at Tantura 
The Brigades’ Trail of Blood 
Campaigns of Revenge 
 
7.  The Escalation of the Cleansing Operations: June–September 1948 
The First Truce 
Operation Palm Tree 
In Between Truces 
The Truce that Wasn’t 
 
8.  Completing the Job: October 1948–January 1949 
Operation Hiram 
Israel’s Anti-Repatriation Policy 
A Mini Empire in the Making 
Final Cleansing of the South and the East 
The Massacre in Dawaymeh 
 
9.  Occupation and its Ugly Faces 
Inhuman Imprisonment 
Abuses Under Occupation 
Dividing the Spoils 
Desecration of Holy Sites 
Entrenching the Occupation 
 
10.  The Memoricide of the Nakba 
The Reinvention of Palestine 
Virtual Colonialism and the JNF 
The JNF Resort Parks in Israel 
 
11.  Nakba Denial and the ‘Peace Process’ 
First Attempts at Peace 
The Exclusion of 1948 from the Peace Process 
The Right of Return 
 
12.  Fortress Israel 
The ‘Demographic Problem’ 
 
Epilogue 
Endnotes 
Chronology 
Maps and Tables 
Bibliography 
Index 

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473 pages
1 September 2007
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Extended-protected article
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
AuthorIlan Pappé
CountryIsrael
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory
Published2006 (Oneworld Publications)
Media typePrint
Pages313 pp
ISBN978-1-85168-555-4

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a book authored by New Historian Ilan Pappé and published in 2006 by Oneworld Publications. The book is about the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, which Pappe argues was the result of ethnic cleansing.

The thesis of the book is that the displacement of the Palestinians during the 1948 Palestine war was an objective of the Zionist movement and a must for the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state.[1] According to Pappé, the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight resulted from a planned ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was implemented by David Ben-Gurion and a group of advisors referred to by Pappé as "the Consultancy".[2][3] The book argues that the ethnic cleansing was put into effect through systematic expulsions of about 500 Arab villages, as well as terrorist attacks executed mainly by members of the Irgun and Haganah troops against the civilian population. Ilan Pappé also refers to Plan Dalet and to the village files as a proof of the planned expulsions.[4]

Background

The idea that the 1948 events were the results of a planned expulsion had already been suggested by historians Walid Khalidi in Plan Dalet: The Zionist Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine (1961) and Nur Masalha in Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought (1991). Yoav Gelber published an answer criticizing the interpretation of Plan D made by Walid Khalidi and Ilan Pappé: History and Invention. Was Plan D a Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing? (2006).[5]

Benny Morris proposed several interpretations. The conclusion of his main work on the topic The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (1989) is that the exodus was the "result of war, not intent". Nevertheless, he stated later that "[i]n retrospect, it is clear that what occurred in 1948 in Palestine was a variety of ethnic cleansing of Arab areas by Jews. It is impossible to say how many of the 700,000 or so Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were physically expelled, as distinct from simply fleeing a combat zone."[6] In an interview with Ha'aretz in 2004, he also defended the idea that having performed an ethnic cleansing in 1948 had been a better choice for the Jews than living a genocide.[7] In his last book about the 1948 War: 1948: A History the First Arab-Israeli War (2006), he nuanced all this and stated that:[8]

[d]uring the 1948 War, (...) although there were expulsions and although an atmosphere of what would later be called ethnic cleansing prevailed during critical months, transfer never became a general or declared Zionist policy. Thus, by war's end, even though much of the country had been "cleansed" of Arabs, other parts of the country—notably central Galilee—were left with substantial Muslim Arab populations (...).

Critical reception

Analysis in peer-reviewed journals

Ben Gurion University professor Uri Ram's review in the Middle East Journal concluded that "Pappe provides here a most important and daring book that challenges head-on Israeli historiography" as well as "collective memory and even more importantly Israeli conscience".[9]

Jørgen Jensehaugen, in the Journal of Peace Research, while calling the book "a good read", faults Pappé for claiming that the preplanned expulsion of Palestinians was "the reason for the war", rather than merely "one aspect of the various war plans".[10]

Ephraim Nimni, in the Journal of Palestine Studies, commends Pappé on the book's "polemical character", but claims that the Zionist leaders were not solely responsible for the ethnic cleansing:

Consequently, even if Pappé’s chronology is correct, and there is no reason to doubt this, the book does not provide a sufficient explanation for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. No matter how meticulous the planning by the leaders of the Yishuv (settlers) was, it would have been to no avail without an unusual concatenation of international events (the genocide of European Jewry, the onset of the cold war, the closing of liberal democratic gates to Jewish refugees, the emancipation of colonies in North Africa, and last but not least the hegemony of the model of the ethnic nation-state as the only available avenue for national emancipation).[11]

Laila Parsons of McGill University wrote of the book that "Ilan Pappe has added another work to the many that have already been written in English on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. These include works by Walid Khalidi, Simha Flapan, Nafez Nazzal, Benny Morris, Nur Masalha, and Norman Finkelstein, among others. All but one of these authors (Morris) would probably agree with Pappe’s position that what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 fits the definition of ethnic cleansing, and it certainly is not news to Palestinians themselves, who have always known what happened to them."[12]

Ahmad H. Sa'di, in International Affairs, "highly recommended" the book.[13]

Mainstream media responses

Critical analysis appeared in The New Republic. In his review of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, fellow new historian Benny Morris wrote, "At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world's sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two." Morris argued, "Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."[14]

Ian Black, The Guardian's Middle East editor, reviewed it, calling it a "catalogue of intimidation, expulsion and atrocity".[15] He also pointed out that Pappé "does historical understanding a disservice by all but ignoring the mood and motives of the Jews, so soon after the end of a war in which six million had been exterminated by the Nazis." Summarising:

Emphasis apart, it is hard to say what is new in his account. The scheme discussed at the Tel Aviv meeting, Plan Dalet, has been known about for years. It has long been clear that the Palestinians were not, as used to be claimed, encouraged to leave their homes "temporarily" by Arab leaders. The fledgling Israeli state was not invaded, as the old David and Goliath narrative goes, by five Arab armies. Egypt attacked in the south and Jordanian and Iraqi troops entered the territory allotted to the Palestinians by the UN. Ethnic cleansing in Palestine is Israel's "original sin" laid bare—but without any mitigating circumstances.

David Pryce-Jones, writing in the Literary Review, calls Pappé "an Israeli academic who has made his name by hating Israel and everything it stands for".[16]

To him, Israeli politicians and soldiers, one and all, are so many murderers. Forests have been planted only to cover up the past. Houses are "monstrous villas and palaces for rich American Jews". Everything Israeli is ugly, everything Palestinian is beautiful. For evidence of Israeli monstrosity, he relies on quotations from his own previous works or from Palestinian polemicists, and above all on the oral testimonies of Palestinian refugees. Over half a century of military and ideological conflict has passed since their exodus, but Pappe declares his faith that whatever they now say is true.

Stephen Howe, professor of the history of colonialism at Bristol University, said that Pappé's book was an often compelling mixture of historical argument and politico-moral tract. According to Howe, while the book will not be the final word on the events of 1948, it is "a major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue".[17]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Pappé (2006), Preface xvii "I want to make the case for the paradigm of ethnic cleansing and use it to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and the public debate about, 1948."
  2. ^ Laila Parsons, McGill University "One of the new elements in Pappe’s narrative is his use of the label “The Consultancy” to name the group of men (Ezra Danin, Yehoshua Palmon, and Eliahu Sasson, among others) who regularly consulted with David Ben-Gurion before and throughout the war." [1]
  3. ^ Pappé 2006 "The list begins with the indisputable leader of the Zionist movement, David Ben-Gurion, in whose private home all early and later chapters in the ethnic cleansing story were discussed and finalised. He was aided by a small group of people I refer to in this book as the ‘Consultancy’, an ad-hoc cabal assembled solely for the purpose of plotting and designing the dispossession of the Palestinians."
  4. ^ Ilan Pappé (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Oxford. ISBN 978-1-85168-555-4
  5. ^ Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948, Appendix I, Sussex Academic Press, 2006
  6. ^ Benny Morris, 1948 Arab-Israeli War Archived 2014-01-29 at the Wayback Machine, Crimes of War.
  7. ^ "Survival of the fittest", Ha'aretz, 2004.
  8. ^ Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab=Israeli War (2008), pp.407-408.
  9. ^ Ram, Uri (2008). "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine". Middle East Journal. 62 (1): 150–2.
  10. ^ Jensehaugen, Jørgen (January 2008). " The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine". Journal of Peace Research. 45 (1): 124. doi:10.1177/00223433080450010810. S2CID 110710787.
  11. ^ Nimni, Ephraim (2010). "Point of Departure". Journal of Palestine Studies. 39 (3): 83–4. doi:10.1525/jps.2010.xxxix.3.83.
  12. ^ Laila Parsons, McGill University https://www.mcgill.ca/islamicstudies/files/islamicstudies/parsons.pappe_.review.pdf
  13. ^ Sa'di, Ahmad H. (November 2007). "The ethnic cleansing of Palestine". International Affairs. 86 (6): 1219–20.
  14. ^ Benny Morris. The Liar as Hero, MARCH 17, 2011
  15. ^ "Review: Palestine | The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine | The Iron Cage". the Guardian. February 17, 2007.
  16. ^ Raus Mit Uns Archived 2006-11-01 at the Wayback Machine David Pryce-Jones Literary Review
  17. ^ "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe (The Independent, November 24, 2006)". Independent.co.uk.

References

External links

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Product description

Review

'Superb account of how, and why, Palestinians were driven out of their homes. Pappe explains why there can be no peace until this crime has been acknowledged and redressed.'--Scottish Review

'A bold expose of Israel's purge of its Arab population in the early years of its existence. It should be read by anyone wanting to grasp the seemingly unfathomable background to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Pappe himself should be supported and applauded.'--Morning Star

'A major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk.'--Independent

'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.'--New Statesman

'Groundbreaking research into a well-kept Israeli secret. A classic of historical scholarship on a taboo subject by one of Israel's foremost New Historians.'--Ghada Karmi - Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, England, UK

'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.'--John Pilger - director of The War on Democracy and author of Freedom Next Time

'Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a vital contribution to the scholarship from these new historians... Pappe forever puts to rest any doubt that Palestinians were systematically and brutally expelled from their homeland.'--Against the Current (An independent socialist organisation)

'Leading Israeli historian Ilan Pappe delves into his country's bloodied past in search of answers in the present.'--Morning Star

'Pappe has opened up an important new line of inquiry into the vast and fateful subject of the Palestinian refugees. His book is rewarding in other ways. It has at times an elegiac, even sentimental, character, recalling the lost, obliterated life of the Palestinian Arabs and imagining or regretting what Pappe believes could have been a better land of Palestine.'--Times Literary Supplement

'Pappe is one of the brave few voices to stand up and be counted in the oppressive atmosphere of Israeli society. Pappe's book is a searing account of the horrific brutality perpetrated during the birth of the state of Israel.'--Morning Star --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.


About the Author
Ilan Pappe holds the Chair in Hisotry at the University of Exeter and is Academic Director of the Research Insitute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies, Haifa. He is also author of the bestselling A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge), The Modern Middle East (Routledge), and The Israel/Palestine Question (Routledge). --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
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Product details
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KT5W342
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oneworld Publications; Second edition (1 September 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 935 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 473 pagesBest Sellers Rank: 932 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)1 in Archaeology (Kindle Store)
1 in Emigration & Immigration
1 in 20th Century World HistoryCustomer Reviews:
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 840 ratings


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Roger G. Billings
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening and importantReviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2023
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Always knew about the basics of the situation but clearly didn't know half enough. Everyone should read this book!
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Mounir Farsoun
5.0 out of 5 stars TruthReviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 October 2023
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Very informative and well documented good book..

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Gogol
4.0 out of 5 stars A real eye openerReviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2008
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A real eye opener.

This book may be a little difficult for some to come to terms with and for others even more difficult to accept. It is something that has been placed in the psyche of us in Europe after the horrors of the holocaust that any criticism of the state of Israel or Zionism is equal to anti semitism. That the state of Israel was created out of the ashes of the second world war in order to provide a safe and free land for Jews the world over and a place of return for the Jews to their historical homeland.

This book dispels the myth. Pappe rather presents the establishment of the state of Israel as being not only created by men whose ideology was every equal of the extreme nationalism that European Jews had suffered under but also created out of the ethnic cleansing of the native population of that land, the Palestinians.

Pappe begins his book by providing us with with definitions of ethnic cleansing quoting from the United Nations amongst others. unfortunately his use of wikipedia, an 'encyclopedia' by his own admissions is edited by anyone in order to further his argument greatly diminishes his own introduction. While he may choose to use this in his own words to gauge public opinion on how genocide and ethnic cleansing is defined the fact that wikipedia is more of a soap box for anyone with a grudge makes the website frankly worthless.

According to Pappe, ethnic cleansing is something that requires planning and pre-thought before execution and in the first few chapters Pappe documents how Zionist leaders wrote up maps of Palestinian areas, their populations and numbers. Pappe is also quick to point out however, how some Palestinian leaders were only too happy to sell off land to Zionist settlers believing that the greater threat to their land was the colonialism of the British. For some, the Zionists were the poor of Europe and offered little threat, little were they to know that these people would be one and the same who orchestrated their own extinction from their own lands.

Pappe goes on to examine the execution of the Zionist plans of forced expulsion of Palestinians under threats of murder, how the response of Arab militias resulted in further excuses for Zionist outrages on civilian populations. Pappe gives examples of Palestinian villages of both Christian and Muslim who were wiped from the map. Further examples of man (Defined as aged between 10 and 50) being separated from their women folk and executed. Examples of mass rape, destruction of Churches, Mosques, orchards are also given.

Another interesting point is the Arab-Israeli war which Pappe defines as a 'phony war' Pointing out that Jordan had no intention of defending Palestinians rather in protecting its agreed annexation of the West Bank. How the poorly armed and trained Arab armies were no match for the Zionist forces due to the Egyptians while large in numbers (Swelled by the Muslim brotherhood whose lack of any military training made them more a liability than help) The Syrians lack of modern arms, the Lebanese whose numbers were so small they were more concerned with holding onto their own land and Iraqis. Most of these forces were tied down by their own political leaders who had no intentions of seeing them defend the Palestinian people.

I believe it was Robert Fisk in his book 'Pity the nation' who once pointed out the irony of the victims of genocide often being the most enthusiastic perpetrators of it. It is interesting that most of the criticism of this book is that it is 'anti semitic' (Strange considering the author is Jewish!) and reminds me of how Serbs would point out the massacres that were committed against their people in World War 2 by Croatian militias as though that somehow justifies the slaughter of thousands in Bosnia and Kosovo. Similarly Zionists use the holocaust to deflect war crimes in Lebanon and the ethnic cleansing of an entire people in Palestine.

Thankfully Pappe has brought this to the worlds attention in a book that while filled with information that will be shocking and disturbing is also clear and easy to read.
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cooperkat10
5.0 out of 5 stars BiasedReviewed in the United States on 11 June 2023
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The facts of the situation in Palestine are written from a biased perspective. Yes, Palestinians were displaced by the newly formed Jewish government but the reality of the situation is twofold. The division of Israel gave the Palestinians a large section of land. I understand the reluctance to move but a Jewish homeland was necessary after the Holocaust. Jews needed and still need a place to live in safety. They continue to provide food, health care to the Palestinians whose government continues to put them in danger.
Mistakes were made on both sides but it is time for the Palestinians to be responsible for themselves and stop allowing Hamas to manipulate them by using resources for war instead of building homes.

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Mr. D. T. Marchesi
5.0 out of 5 stars UnmentionablesReviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2011
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Professor Pappe refers to Israel in this book as "our beloved country". He is, indeed, a true patriot, since he wants the best for his home country, a country which, sadly, has adopted am ostrich-like stance in regard to its past, and is actively encouraging its young to despise and/or hate its Arab people and its Arab neighbours.It would seem that the "eternal" war on "terror" suits the Israeli ruling classes down to the ground, providing as it does wonderful cover for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which goes on, relentlessly, day by day as I write (good source for this is the OCHAoPT website/ bulletin). It was once more or less acceptable for educated Israelis to agree that their country's foundation was the result of a brutal invasion by largely European Jews (one can easily check the origins of Ben Gurion and practically all of the leading soldiers and politicians for the first 30-40 years of Israel) 

For an example of the finer type of Israeli who admitted the "original sin" of the Jewish state, one can read S Yitzhar's story of one Hagana unit's activities in the 1948 invasion of Arab lands.  Pappe establishes his account around much archive material and the memoirs of participants in the "mainstream" army and in the terrorist groups such as Irgun and the Stern gang. His account is chilling, and ,perhaps even more so , is our realisation that the current Netanyahus and Liebermans exploit the "wish to deny" that is the overwhelming response of Israelis today in regard to their ancestors' remorseless expulsion of Arabs , from something like 500 villages and from parts of the larger towns.With the odd massacre along the way.
We know that Benny Morris, one of the original researchers of this episode, does not deny the thrust of Pappe's argument viz. that the incoming Jews forced Arabs from their homes and massacred quite a few but regrets Ben Gurion's failure to complete the job, so that Israel still includes Palestinians as c. 16% of its population.

In short, the Anglo-Israeli Morris feels that Israel would be better of as a 100% Jewish state , and could never contemplate the return of Arab refugees and their descendants to the lands and properties which were stolen from them in 1947-8. Given the general will to deny the "original sin", it is not surprising that Zionists vilify Pappe, and are less inclined to trumpet Morris's attitude, which would end in more open ethnic cleansing than is permissible in today's world (I think)
We in this country are, of course, loth to admit the crimes of our past and present , and our US friends actually revel in their aggressive brutalities which they also dress up as "humanitarian interventions" . 

One element which Pappe could explore and expose more is, I think, the (pseudo-?) religious overlay on the project. Zionism is a sort of hybrid, of the "religious" (Israel is eternally Jewish , the Promised Land of the Bible) and of the "conquistador" mentality, of, for example, a man such as Moshe Dayan and of the pure (!!)fanaticism of the Sternists etc.

However, the book is far more a factual account than a theoretical discourse, and rightly so, since, as European Jews must have known better than most at the time, forced expulsions are everyday cruelties - they do not actually need an ideological driving force, although at the extreme, such would help. In particular, it is essential not to allow individual soldiers doing the dirty work to think too much about their vicious treatment of , in this case, Palestinians. I refer again to S Yitzhar's poignant story, in the forlorn hope that any Zionist reading this review may ponder it, and repent.

To sum up: the book is a brave and convincing attempt to confront Israelis with the reality of their history in the hope that one day they will eschew hatred and aggression (the settlements) and embrace decent standards of behaviour towards the people they have wronged for so long. Any visitor to the Holy Land can easily observe that the occupying forces treat the Palestinians like dirt, and this "status quo suits the Israeli Right mightily . It would seem superfluous to mention Gaza 2009 and other recent murderous attacks by the hugely superior-armed Israeli forces. The surreptitious taking over and carving up of Palestine which goes on , I repeat, daily,is scarcely reported , and one suspects that most Israelis never give the matter mature and humane thought.In 1947-8, there was, as Pappe notes, some international concern over key incidents such as the Deir Yassin massacre, but the world was probably too war-weary to be over-alarmed.

Of course,UN resolution 194 stated the right of return for the displaced Palestinians , which Count Bernadotte had already stressed. For his courage, he was murdered by terrorist Jews from a group which the Israeli PM Shamir belonged to (similar background to Begin's )
We now have the Israelis confident that their "Defence Forces" are the most moral in the world.
A good dose of Pappe could suggest to the brainwashed conscripts of the IDF that their tradition is questionable.

Here's hoping !!!
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Buthaina Al-Issa
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November 24, 2011
They say the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. Actually it is more than that! Reading this book as an extremely painful journey, in a way that exceeds your worst nightmares.

I wasn't able to read more than 20 pages per day, not because of its richness with information but because my brain needed time to absorb all the atrocities. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! I think it's one of our responsibilities as humans to educate ourselves about the injustice in the world so we can be part of the change in the futur. again; PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! you'll do us a favor.





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Thomas
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May 26, 2021
What a courageous book to write and a difficult yet important book to read. Ilan Pappe details in excruciating detail the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people enacted by the settler state of Israel. The amount of displacement, murder, rape, and other forms of violence inflicted upon the Palestinian people by Zionists makes for an unpleasant read, yet a necessary one to understand the historical context of the present-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Big kudos to Ilan Pappe for writing this book which directly challenges colonialism and racism using in-depth research with a critical lens. I hope that this book helps folks dive deeper into understanding contentious elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the ability for a group of individuals to both be oppressed and to oppress others, and the disturbing silencing of pro-Palestine views from right-wing conservatives who persist in their bigotry and complicity in ethnic cleansing. Pappe’s writing can veer a bit into the dense academic side but honestly who cares given the urgency of the material.
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May 16, 2021
AT THE NAKBA



When is a nation strong and mature enough to confront its past?

I can think of several, even not far away, who still cannot come to terms with a part of their past.
Starting with Israel, which cannot reconcile itself with its own genesis.

description
Palestinian refugees during the 1948 exodus. At least 700,000 people were forcibly removed, forced to leave without ever having the chance to return.

1948 is the year of original sin, of the birth of guilt.

But Pappe demonstrates that it is the year in which the guilt is consumed (or rather, began to be consumed, given that it is an operation that continues to this day), but the symptoms and the first moments of life of what would have happened that year, when the English left Palestine, and what happened in the 65 years that followed, up to the present day, comes from a little further away, from when the Zionists decided that Palestine was their land Promise, their land assigned.

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian who belongs to what can be defined as the New Israeli Historiography, he lives and works in England, he is not much loved in his homeland, where (but not only there) he arouses the usual outbursts of denialism.
This 2006 book is based on the study of documents only recently made available to historians, such as Ben Gurion's diary, and the minutes of the meetings of the Consultative Committee, the decision-making body of the militia party of the Zionist movement, the Hagana .

description
On the night of 31 October 1946, three young militants of the Irgun, a Zionist militant group, set off some explosive charges placed in Villa Bracciano, next to Porta Pia, home of the British embassy in Rome. The building, deserted at the time of the explosion, was razed to the ground and then rebuilt in 1971 as it is seen today. The Zionists wanted to convince the English to abandon Palestine in order to have free rein in their plan of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians, on the other hand, would have gladly held back the British.

The Israelis argued that coexistence with the Arabs had always been impossible due to the constant aggression they had to suffer, and that the Arabs left Palestine spontaneously, abandoning their homes, property and villages.

Ilan Pappe overturns this thesis, denies it completely, and demonstrates that there was abandonment, but imposed with the use of force and violence by the Israelis, who had already been planning a real program of ethnic cleansing since the 1930s, scientifically implemented by the authorities, first Zionist and then Israeli, with the aim of expanding the space of the nascent Israel well beyond the borders set by international conventions and ensuring that within these new borders there were no longer Arabs.
The plan was successful and was favored by the indolence of the international community which, still guilt-ridden for its inactivity against the extermination of the Jewish people in Europe during the Second World War, abstained from any interference .

description
Ruins of the Palestinian village of Suba, near Jerusalem, seen from Kibbutz Zova.

Israel's attitude in Naples would be summed up with a magnificent illuminating expression: “fucks and fucks”.
That is, while Israel publicly complained about the (alleged) aggressions of the Arab population, it systematically organized, prepared, initiated and carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
The myth of Israel's founding, according to which as soon as the war began there was a voluntary exodus of Palestinians, is flawed on all sides. It is pure invention that the Jews tried to persuade the Palestinians to stay, which is still insisted upon in Israeli schoolbooks today.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already been forcibly expelled even before the conflict and tens of thousands more would be expelled during the first weeks of the war. For most of them, the date May 15, 1948 had no particular meaning then: it was simply another day in the terrible calendar of ethnic cleansing that had begun more than five months earlier. The horrific accounts of ethnic cleansing never tarnished the official and popular Israeli narrative, as they were completely erased .

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Jaramana refugee camp in Syria.

Pappe, in the epigraph to each chapter, suggests a comparison with the case of recent ethnic cleansing closest to us, that in the Balkans: only that here, the same crimes did not deprive the victims, if nothing else, of their right to be able to return to their home or be compensated.

A right that, however, beyond the Mediterranean, Israel has never wanted to recognize, despite the UN resolution.
Pappe's thesis is that as long as Israel does not recognize the ethnic cleansing carried out starting from 1948, and which found its greatest strength in that year, as long as the forests that were planted on the rubble of the robbed and destroyed Arab villages will not at least report the original name of the places, the peace talks will never achieve their intended goal.



In Ben Gurion's diary there is the beginning and the explanation of everything:
We will found a Christian state in Lebanon...We will fold Transjordan, we will bomb Amman and destroy its army, and then Syria will fall, and if, nevertheless, the Egypt will continue to fight, we will bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. This will be our revenge for what they (the Egyptians, Arameans and Assyrians) did to our ancestors in Bible times .
Nice premises...
Ben Gurion, even Yitzhak Rabin, are founding fathers of Israel, legendary characters, in reality they were "willing executioners" of Iehova.

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Although the editorial care of the publisher Fazi leaves something to be desired (but how can you place all the notes at the back of the volume, which in a history research are necessarily very numerous?!), this is an important book, not to be LOSE.

Al Nakba is what the Palestinian exodus is called in Arabic.

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Palestine's weight-loss diet since 1948.
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Mohammed Morsi
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July 3, 2018
This book doesn't need a review. It's a piece of living history, it should be school material instead of the lies and rubbish TV churns out on a daily basis. So well documented, so much empathy. So much respect for this man having the courage to write the truth.

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Fahd Al Fahd
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February 10, 2017

Ethnic cleansing in Palestine

At a time when the heroes of Al-Qassam are fighting a new battle with the Zionist enemy, I decided to read this very important book by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. The importance of the book comes from several factors, the first of which is undoubtedly that its author is Israeli, and this removes any suspicion from the book. He sympathizes with the Palestinians, and makes us assume that the book will be at best neutral. The other matter is its reliance on Israeli documents dating back to before the establishment of the Zionist state, including the correspondence of the Zionist army, as well as Ben Gurion’s diaries, and some other documents.

Through all of this, Ilan Pappe demolishes all the myths of the emergence of the State of Israel, and reveals that the establishment of that state was nothing but terrifying arrogance and ethnic cleansing practiced by the Jews against the Arabs. Pappe reveals in every detail what happened before the end of the Mandate during the year 1947 AD, from cleansing campaigns for villages and cities. Arabism includes the killing, expulsion, and demolition of Palestinian homes, and unfortunately reveals the Arab betrayals and confusion that brought the Arabs and the Palestinian cause to what it is now.

A very important and courageous book.
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Hossam Adel
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November 5, 2023
Bombing, bullets, blood, displacement, and complete genocide for decades.
Even if the book has a second part, you don’t need to read it
! You are watching it “Live” these days on Al Jazeera.
How long will we be able to bear to see the remains of our sisters and their blood drowning in the ground before our eyes while we watch?
Until when will we continue to be humiliated by some impurity and remain silent?
Until when will we bear this oppression, O Lord?

If you expect a rational review of the book from me, I'm sorry if I disappoint you, but all I can say is: This book is a must-read, and today is the day before tomorrow.

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Dan Lutts
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July 3, 2020
What's "ethnic cleansing"?

According to the final report of a United Nations Commission of Experts who investigated Yugoslavia's violation of humanitarian laws in 1994, ethnic cleansing is: ". . . a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas . . ."


The report goes on to state that ways to forcibly expel unwanted civilian populations by ethnic cleansing can include "murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, severe physical injury to civilians, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, use of civilians as human shields, destruction of property, robbery of personal property, attacks on hospitals, medical personnel, and locations with the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblem, among others."


The UN Commission of Experts states that the above practices ". . . constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.” (UN Commission of Experts)

Using numerous documents from Israeli government archives, entries from David Ben-Gurion's personal diary, and eyewitness accounts from Palestinian victims, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe makes a strong case that the Zionists, using most of the methods mentioned in the report, ethnically cleansed Palestine of most of its native Palestinian population in the 1948 war. Zionist soldiers and members of former terrorist groups during Mandate times used violence and terror against Palestinians civilians. They also murdered, raped, and imprisoned Palestinians and forced the survivors to walk countless miles to refugee camps in other countries. Looters stole the contents of many Palestinian homes, which the owners were forced to abandon. Afterwards, the Zionists obliterated almost all evidence that Palestinians had ever lived in Palestine for centuries.

Pappe maintains that the Zionists had another reason for obliterating most traces of Palestinian villages and towns: to prevent their occupants and descendants from ever returning to their homes and native homeland again.

Pappe also exploded key myths in the Zionists' narrative of Israel's creation. Here are just a few:

The Zionists were the victims of Palestinian and Arab aggression. Actually, the Zionists were the victimizers. One thing that really frustrated David Ben-Gurion and others Zionists was the Palestinians' passiveness. They didn't respond to the Zionists' repeated provocations that would justify attacking and expelling them. The Palestinians just wanted to live in their country in peace. In the end, the Zionists initiated the violence.


The Zionists were fighting a desperate war of survival. Actually, Israel was never in danger of being defeated by the Palestinians or by the Arab armies. The Zionists had two narratives. The public one was that they were fighting for survival. The secret-but-true narrative was that there was no chance of their losing. In fact, while they were fighting their so-called war of survival, Israeli soldiers and former terrorists were also shelling Palestinian villages and towns, indiscriminately killing, massacring -- and even raping -- the inhabitants, and forcing them out of their homes and into refugee camps in other countries. Many of the villages and towns had existed for centuries. Some contained both Palestinians and Jews who had been living together peacefully for centuries as friends and neighbors.


Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Actually, Israel is an apartheid state because of its treatment of the Palestinians who remain in Israel. Israel also treats certain groups of Jews as second-class citizens.


The Camp David negotiations in 2000 failed because Yassir Arafat refused to negotiate. Actually, Arafat wasn't allowed to negotiate because the U.S. allowed Israel to set the terms for peace. No right of return. No Jerusalem as the Palestinians' capital. Arafat refused to sign the document because it violated UN Resolution 194, which recognized the Palestinians' right to return to their homes. By signing the document, Arafat would have betrayed his people.

Peppe advocates a one-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem. Israel should become a civic, democratic state in which Jews and Palestinians can live peacefully together, like they used to do before the Zionists destroyed everything.

Pappe makes a strong case in defense of the Palestinians and his book includes copious end notes. Anyone who is interested in why there seems to be no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem should read this book because it gives a different point of view from the prevailing one.
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Clif
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February 15, 2022
Zionist views have been overwhelmingly influential in the United States. "The Story of Israel" that I place in quotation marks to indicate its mythological nature, has been presented repeatedly, but most famously in the novel and movie, "Exodus". It is the story of victims struggling to an empty land where they make the desert bloom and stand proudly with weapons in hand shouting "never again".

This appealing, heroic, justice-loving scenario is a fabrication. Ilan Pappé, an Israeli Jew, has, in this book, presented the facts upon which true justice must be based.

From its inception late in the 19th century, mainstream Zionism, considered early on as a kind of lunatic-fringe within Judaism, put forth the clearing of the indigenous people, the Arabs living in Palestine, as a necessity for the creation of a Jewish majority there. So it has happened.

Zionism struggled before WW2 because not enough Jews were interested in going to Palestine, but the holocaust put the movement over the top, not only providing the necessary influx but also creating a feeling of guilt among the nations of the world (not least Germany) that was leveraged into the creation of the State of Israel and its financing and militarization since (read The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finkelstein). It should be noted that most of the survivors of the holocaust wanted to go to the United States, not Palestine, but the US did not open its doors to them, a shameful thing.

This book is a detailed accounting of the horrors that occurred - the forced evacuation of hundreds of villages, executions of villagers (over 31 events are considered massacres), blowing up houses or setting fire to them with the residents inside, military attacks on unarmed civilians - pure terror by the folks who loudly denounce terror.

The contrast to what happened in the 1990's in Kosovo is startling, particularly in view of the NATO bombing that took place to stop the ethnic slaughter compared to the lack of any effort to stop the cleansing of Palestine. In fact, the United States cannot do enough to help the process as it continues to this day.

Israel, like the United States, is a country founded on injustice. The process could take place hidden away in the vastness of the American west in the 19th century, but with Israel it has been quite obvious all along. Shockingly, the world has stood by, impotent in the face of the "special relationship" between the US and Israel fostered by the political power of Zionists in the United States. This history is a blot on both countries. The ethic-cleansing has proceeded only because of US protection and not a few American Jews hold dual citizenship, having taken up residence in the Israeli settlements specifically to take the land from the natives.

As the Senate confirmation hearing on Chuck Hagel demonstrated conclusively, Congress is the puppet of Zionism. Senators fell all over themselves questioning Hagel about his views on Israel while all other matters were secondary.

Americans should wake up to the reality of Israel, a county that is injustice institutionalized, a living example of everything the American civil rights movement was out to end. The founders of the state of Israel were full, eager participants in the eviction of the Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and villages and the deliberate erasure of the evidence continued to this day by the planting of "forests" by the Jewish National Fund. All the facts are evident in the archives and in particular the diary of David Ben-Gurion, who happily viewed empty villages flushed of the Arab residents. This history is an outrage that any person, Jewish or not, should find revolting.

There is only one future for Israel - as a democracy for all people, not a place for one group. Jewish Israelis to ride herd on others. This will come as surely as it did in South Africa. The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement is a great way to make progress in this.

When one's nation does wrong, only a small minority of citizens will have the courage to point it out. My deepest respect to Professor Pappé, who was hounded out of Israel and now teaches in Great Britain, for this outstanding documentary work. My deepest apologies to the Palestinian people who have endured decades of injustice and are readily labeled terrorists by those ignorant of the past and the people.
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Richard
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September 28, 2011
I thought I knew the history of Israel's annexation of Palestine but this was a totally shocking account! I can't believe Britain reneged so emphatically on its promise to allow the Palestinians independence. The UN also must be ashamed of its duplicitous role.
Ilan Pappe is a Jewish academic who cannot be accused of anti-semitism. He just wants people to know what really happened. Israel is guilty of war crimes aided and abetted by Britain and the UN.
It is particularly important to read this now that Palestine has applied for recgnition as a state at the UN. How can this be denied when the UN allowed Israel without any impediment?
I was absorbed by this book and recommend it to all.

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Sean Glover
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August 3, 2012
The author's thourough and honest discourse is both immaculate and sobering. Pappe proves authoritatively that the actions by a group of supposed Zionists in Israel beginning in 1947 constitute ethnic cleansing. This perpetrated atrocity serves as a prototype for ethnic cleansing similar to that by the Nazis in Germany. According to Pappe, “(M)ore than half of Palestine’s native population, close to 800,000, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants” (p. xiii). The cabal: the Hagana. The plot: plan Dalet, the organized and enforced removal of Palestinians from their homelands. What remained enveloped in misinformation: the Palestinians’ story, which is quite excellently illuminated by Pappe.
Pappe described the reality of the war, which unfortunately consisted of large massacres via machine gun and rapes after the habitations of the Palestinians were forcefully taken and generally looted, burned and otherwise destroyed, buried and hidden by new developments. The residents of these villages were barred illegally from return to their homelands. In fact, according to Pappe, U.N. mediator Count Bernadotte was murdered after he proposed “the unconditional return of all the refugees” (p. 156). The ‘right to return’ was granted in a UN decision that has been ignored. Justice?
Why did I read this book? I like books about controversial moral issues that raise awareness about injustice. That is, books like this are really milestones of conscious work because they shed light on information that is suppressed in order to oppress a people. One might argue, ‘no, the reason for suppression is fear and the pursuit of self-interests such as safety and security.’ And, to that I say that it is important to recognize multiple perspectives. A possible consideration put forth by Pappe: a pluralistic “civic and democratic state” (p. 256). In sum, Pappe has created veracious source for future rhetorical discussions on the issue of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
Also, this book is excellent for the discovery of methods of writing about history.

P.S. The latter discourse is in no way intended to convey bias or prejudice to or towards anyone.
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